Ask most skiers to name the great winter sports resorts and more than likely they will wax lyrical about Val D'Isere, Zermatt, Courchevel and Verbier. Ask them about Champery and nine times out of ten you'll get a blank stare. Yet this tiny mountain village is the kind of place skiers dream about going to when they die.

Part of the Portes du Soleil ski area, Champery offers access to some of the finest skiing on the planet. Somehow, though, the village has managed to avoid the tourist invasion that has marred many of it's popular neighbours. In fact locally the town's main claim to fame is it's second division ice hockey team - or its summer role as host to sections of the Swiss tennis championships.

The village is picture postcard Switzerland. Reached by a winding and sometimes treacherous road or on the mountain cog railway, the chalets and hotels nestle under the jagged peaks of the Dents du Midi - the Teeth of Midday and so called because for most of the winter the sun won't hit the village until late morning.

The Portes du Soleil area, of which Champery is a part, is engaged in a war of words with the 3 Valleys of France for the title of largest ski area in the world. The statistics are impressive. Hundreds of square miles of terrain and over 200 lifts. You decide which you prefer..we have!