Resort information for Verbier

Verbier is an amorphous sprawl of chalet-style buildings in an impressive setting on a wide, sunny balcony facing spectacular peaks. It’s a fashionable, informal, very lively place that teems with cosmopolitan visitors. Most of the shops and hotels are set around the Place Centrale and along the sloping streets stretching both down the hill and up it to the main lift station.

Essentially this is high-mountain terrain. There are wooded slopes directly above the village, but the runs here are basically just a way home at the end of the day. There is more sheltered skiing in other sectors. The slopes are very spread out, Verbier being at one end of a long, strung-out series of interconnected slopes, optimistically branded the 4 Valleys. The slopes of the Mont-Fort glacier always have good snow. The runs to Tortin are normally snow-sure too. But nearly all of this is steep, and much of it is formally off-piste. Most of Verbier’s main local slopes face south or west and are below 2500m/8,200ft – so they can be in poor condition at times. Queue problems have been greatly eased by recent investment in powerful new lifts.

There are not enough mountain restaurants or huts, which means overcrowding in high season and queues unless you book ahead. But the standard of food and service is improving. There is a wide range of restaurants in Verbier itself and the après-ski is throbbing but expensive. Much of the nightlife is around Place Centrale, though bars are rather scattered. If nightlife is not a priority, staying somewhere near the upper (north-east) fringes of the village may mean that you can almost ski to your door – and there is a piste linking the upper nursery slopes to the one in the middle of the village – most people however get used to using the free buses, which run efficiently on several routes until 8pm.