Used to France? The Swiss ski resorts that keep the altitude

A village at 1,822 metres, between La Plagne and Val d'Isère, and lifts to 3,303, higher than Val Thorens or La Plagne. If altitude is what makes your week, this is the Swiss resort that keeps all of it.

What it adds is the town. Our read of St Moritz is glamorous and sunny, with a lake full of events and plenty to do off the slopes. If Courchevel is your French resort, St Moritz is the only one of its three closest Swiss matches that keeps the upmarket polish.

What it does not have is one linked ski area. The skiing is spread across separate mountains you travel between, and around the town we measure about 106 kilometres, roughly a third of Espace Killy. For a week of altitude and good living, that is plenty. For a week of covering ground, it is not.

The slopes will feel familiar, and a little kinder. Twenty four percent of St Moritz's piste is steeper than one in four, against 25 at Val Thorens and Tignes, and its reds average 21.0 percent against 23 to 24 at the French resorts on the table. Its season, December to April, is a little shorter at both ends than Val Thorens, Tignes and Val d'Isère.

Arosa's village is at 1,800 metres, exactly La Plagne's, and a single cable car joins it to Lenzerheide to make one ski area of 225 kilometres. Three sources agree on that figure to the kilometre, which in Switzerland is rarer than it should be. Of all the Swiss resorts, it is the one our matching puts closest to La Plagne, Courchevel and Val Thorens.

The catch is the top. Arosa's lifts reach 2,653 metres, lower than any of the French resorts on the table, so the high village is doing most of the work for snow security. And our read of it is gentle and sunny, not grand or pretty, with 24 percent of its piste steeper than one in four, close to Val Thorens. Of our four picks, this is the Swiss week that will feel most like your French one, with a different view out of the window.

If what you want from Switzerland is the scenery and the village, and you will give up some village altitude for it, the honest answer is Zermatt. The car free village sits at 1,620 metres, 180 below La Plagne. The lifts climb to almost 3,900 metres, the highest of any resort we cover, and you can ski the glacier all year. Measured with Cervinia over the border, the area is 322 kilometres, about the size of Espace Killy, though the Italian side needs the International pass.

Zermatt has its own crossover piece, on what people love about it and where they go next, and we will not repeat it here. One line from it matters to a France regular: by our measurement, Zermatt's pistes are the least steep of any resort we cover. Its reputation for serious skiing rests on the off piste.

Grindelwald sits beneath the north face of the Eiger, and our read of it is postcard pretty and traditional. From its own lifts you can ski 150 kilometres. The Jungfrau pass says 211, but that includes Mürren, which is not lift linked. The lifts reach 2,970 metres, so the skiing has height.

The village does not. At 1,034 metres it is 766 metres below La Plagne and more than 1,200 below Val Thorens. Our matching puts it closest to Samoëns and Les Gets in France, which tells you the kind of week it is. In a good snow year, for a group that wants the Alps to look like the Alps, that is a fair trade. Late in a thin season, it is the one to worry about.

It is gentle, too. Only 15 percent of Grindelwald's piste is steeper than one in four, and its reds average 18.3 percent, barely steeper than the average Tignes blue at 17.6. Wengen, car free at 1,274 metres, is on the same lift pass: same skiing, different village.