Best family ski resorts in Europe

They call it the diamond of the Alps, and the snow record backs it up, with reliable cover from mid-November to May. Obergurgl is the highest parish in Austria, calm where its neighbours are loud, and a paradise for families and confident intermediates.

Ski to your door in any of four altitude villages, from 1600 to 2000 m. Les Arcs wrote the book on ski-in/ski-out, and the Vanoise Express cable car stitches it to La Plagne to form the giant Paradiski domain.

Damuls sits at 1,430 m high in the Bregenzerwald in Vorarlberg, often advertised as the snowiest village in the world with around 9 m of average annual snowfall. Linked with Mellau for 110 km of mostly open, above-the-tree-line piste, it stays family by day and quietly serious for freeride by morning.

More Michelin stars than any ski village on earth, and a western doorway into Les 3 Vallées. Courchevel stacks six villages by altitude, from the palace hotels of 1850 down to the family runs of Le Praz.

The value gateway into Les 3 Vallées, Les Menuires gives you the whole 600 km domain without the Courchevel price tag. Recent makeovers have softened its functional reputation.

Austria's largest glacier ski area, the Stubai climbs to 3210 m a short drive from Innsbruck. Snow-sure from autumn to late spring, with gentle glacier cruising and grand high-alpine views.

Right in the middle of Les 3 Vallées, Méribel is the easiest way into the domain. Wooden chalets, a central lift hub and an unapologetically British après-ski crowd give it a warmth the purpose-built resorts lack.

Ten villages, one Olympic bobsleigh track and a glacier at Bellecôte that holds snow into spring. La Plagne is the other half of Paradiski, and one of the surest family bets in the whole Tarentaise.

A car-free, ski-in/ski-out village of striking timber towers, Avoriaz is the French heart of the cross-border Portes du Soleil. Snow gets around on sledges, not cars.

Love it or hate it, Flaine's listed Bauhaus concrete is the most architecturally serious resort in France. Behind the brutalist Forum sits a high, snow-holding bowl and the gateway to the vast Grand Massif.

Stone barns, a slate-roofed bell tower, and the quiet hum of a village square that happens to sit on the back doorstep of Les 3 Vallées. Saint-Martin-de-Belleville is the Savoyard ringer of the Belleville valley, where you can chase 600 km of pistes by day and walk to a 3-Michelin-starred dining room by night. It is the version of the world's largest linked ski area that still feels like a real place.

Three hundred days of sunshine a year have earned it the nickname of the sun terrace of the Alps. Alpe d'Huez is also home to the Sarenne, the longest black run on the planet at 16 km with a 2,000 m drop.