Like La Plagne, but in Switzerland: the closest match we measure anywhere

Our matching puts Arosa nearer to La Plagne than any other resort we cover, and for once the reasons are the ones a family would give. Its village stands at 1,800 metres, level with yours. We read it as gentle and sunny, with families first on its list. One cable car joins it to Lenzerheide in a single area of 225 kilometres, a figure three sources agree on. Our measurement around the village comes to 183 kilometres, more than any other Swiss resort we cover and about nine tenths of yours, and 97 kilometres of it is blue and easier, again a Swiss best.

If your children learned on La Plagne's blues, Arosa's will feel familiar. They average 15.4 percent, a tenth of a point off your 15.5. Just under a quarter of the piste is steeper than one in four, 24 percent against your 27, and 35 percent is gentler than 15 percent, against 39. There is also more marked off piste itinerary than at home, 8.5 kilometres against 3.0.

What you give up is scale and black. Paradiski is close to twice the size of Arosa Lenzerheide, and Arosa has about half your black, 14.5 kilometres to 28. What black there is averages 32.4 percent, steeper than at any other Swiss resort we cover and well above your 25.5, so there is less of it and it bites harder. The snow has less in reserve too. It is snow sure on our measure, but 65 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, against your 80, and the skiing tops out at 2,848 metres, 174 below yours. And where La Plagne's high centres are modern and built around the snow, Arosa is a sunny bowl with a village in it.

For the part of your group that heads for La Plagne's blacks, Davos is the Swiss pick. No Swiss resort we cover has more black: 20.7 kilometres, against your 28, plus 13.3 kilometres of marked off piste itinerary where you have 3.0. The blacks are kind, averaging 25.8 percent to your 25.5, and both sit well under the 29.6 percent a French black averages across the resorts we cover. On snow it is all but level with you: 78 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, against your 80, up to 2,808 metres, so it too is snow sure on our measure. Our traits mark it modern and practical, as La Plagne is, but Davos is a working town with trams and trains, not a cluster of ski centres.

The trade is the shape of the skiing and the gentle ground. Davos and Klosters share a pass over several separate mountains, and the two villages genuinely share only one of them, the Parsenn, at 95.5 kilometres. For the others you take a train, a bus or a car, and Schatzalp is privately run and wants its own pass. The official count of 300 kilometres is 34 percent more than the 224 we make it over the same ten lift areas, and around the town itself our figure is 145. Gentle ground is scarcer too: 31 percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, against your 39, and there are 62.5 kilometres of blue and easier to your 128. The town sits at 1,560 metres, 240 below your village. Confident skiers will be happiest here; a family with a beginner will find less easy ground than at home.

On how much of the skiing sits high, Crans-Montana is the nearest of the three: 79 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, against your 80, up to 2,868 metres. It is family friendly by our read, sunny and smart, on a plateau looking out over the Rhône, and its 140 kilometres is one joined up area, one of the two firmest figures we hold for Switzerland. The mix is gentle too: 36 percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, against your 39, and 22 percent is steeper than one in four, against 27. Even the marked off piste is level with yours, 3.2 kilometres against 3.0.

It is much the smallest of the three. Our measurement around the village comes to 85 kilometres, well under half of yours, and only 22 kilometres of it is blue and easier, about a sixth of your 128 of green and blue. Most of the map is red, 59 percent of the piste, though those reds average 19.2 percent, far kinder than your 23.6. The village is at 1,500 metres, 300 below yours. For a confident family on a shorter week it is lovely. A family with a first timer will miss La Plagne's acres of easy blue.