Like Les Gets, but in Austria: the family week, but not the height

Schladming keeps the part of Les Gets that families book it for. It is a friendly valley town with floodlit night skiing, down to earth and friendly by our read, with night skiing, families and value on its list, and we tag it family. The skiing is gentle where it counts: 39 percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, the biggest share of the 13 Austrian resorts we cover, against your 34, and the blues average 13.0 percent, against your 15.0. We measure 134 kilometres of piste around it, with 59 kilometres of blue and easier against your 55 of green and blue.

It has a big linked area of its own, too. Schladming's four mountains are linked end to end with no bus, 123 kilometres in all, a touch more than the 117 kilometre sector Les Gets shares with Morzine. That is a Schladming guest's share of the Ski amadé pass, which covers 760 kilometres across five regions that are not all joined.

The trade is the height and the village. Schladming sits at 745 metres, 427 below yours, and the skiing tops out at 2,001, just 36 above. Seven percent of the piste is at or above 1,800 metres, against your 1, so it is not snow sure on our measure either. It is a town rather than a pretty village, and we tag it family but not traditional. The strongest skier in the family gets less of a test, too: 12.9 kilometres of black, but averaging 25.0 percent, the gentlest blacks of the 13 Austrian resorts we cover, against your 33.2. Salzburg is the airport.

Our matching puts Bad Gastein closer to Les Gets than any other Austrian resort we cover, carrying over the size of the area and the traditional label. It is grand and characterful by our read, all faded belle époque grandeur and thermal spas, with the belle époque, the spa and the scenery on its list.

It is also the only one of the three that adds real height. The village is lower, at 1,000 metres, 172 below yours, but the skiing reaches 2,644 by our measure, 679 higher, and half the piste is at or above 1,800 metres, against your 1 percent. Our snow sure test asks for more than half, so on our measure it narrowly misses.

The trade is the family skiing. We do not tag Bad Gastein family. Thirty-seven percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, the third biggest share of the 13 Austrian resorts we cover, against your 23; only 29 percent is gentler than 15 percent, and 54 percent is red, the reds averaging 25.0 percent. Its own area is 83 kilometres, one of four separate areas down the valley on the Ski amadé pass. We measure 107 kilometres around the village, which takes in some piste beyond its own area. Salzburg is the airport.

If the village is what you love, Kitzbühel is the pick with the most history in it: a medieval town famous for the toughest race in skiing, medieval and lively by our read, with a historic town, nightlife and racing on its list. It is a walled, pastel painted old town with cobbled streets, and we tag it traditional, as we do Les Gets.

The skiing has far more at the hard end. There are 34 kilometres of black, the most of the 55 resorts we cover, against your 9.6, and the longest piste we measure is a black, the Giggling, 4.1 kilometres with 1,068 metres of drop. The rest is kinder than that suggests: 63 kilometres of blue and easier, and reds averaging 20.3 percent, the gentlest of the 13 Austrian resorts we cover. We measure 135 kilometres around the town; the wider area is not classified in our data.

The trade is the family label and the height. We tag Kitzbühel lively, not family, and the nights are part of the point. The town sits at 800 metres, 372 below yours, and the skiing tops out at 1,968 by our measure, 3 metres above yours, with 11 percent of the piste at or above 1,800 metres. It is no higher a week than Les Gets. You fly to Innsbruck or Salzburg.