St Anton and Austria’s other Arlberg resorts are in easy reach the scenic glories and

St Anton and Austria’s other Arlberg resorts are in easy reach, the scenic glories and swank of St Moritz more remote (well over an hour’s drive). Pfunds itself is a quiet place in winter, delightful to explore, with the Hotel Post offering solid comfort.
Made to Measure Holidays (01243 533333) can put together tailor-made, inclusive packages for Pfunds. So in a week you can spend a couple of days skiing in each of the three countries. The best return on travelling time invested is in Ischgl, in Austria. But even this excellent high-altitude area is approached through Switzerland: it’s only a 20-minute drive from Pfunds to tiny duty-free Samnaun, which has the world’s biggest cable-car (a double-decker) in the cross-border ski area it shares with Ischgl.Nauders and Serfaus (in Austria) are even closer, Schoneben (Italy) and Bad Scuol (Switzerland) a little further – all of them worth a day’s exploration; Bad Scuol maybe more.

What lends a special spice to this arrangement is that Pfunds is near the point where Austria, Switzerland and Italy meet. The village has a ski school, but its speciality is to ship its clients around the impressive range of resorts nearby. But those are its lesser attributes: the great thing about St Anton is the skiing, especially in late season when the snow sticks around and the sun comes out.
All the major tour operators except Neilson, and more than a dozen independents, offer packages to St Anton.
Stephen Wood
PFUNDS
Where? You’ll never get a flash of recognition when you announce that you’re off to Pfunds, in the Austrian Tirol That’s partly because Pfunds is not a ski resort. For them, the Schindlergrat area borders on the sublime, not only heading downhill – on the runs, pisted and unpisted, that drop off either side of the lift – but also going up: the lift is one of the great skier’s ascents, suddenly flying over a sheer drop as it reaches the top.
St Anton also has a heavy-duty apres-ski scene, and the standard of accommodation is high. Although there are some easy runs into St Christoph, most of the St Anton area is best suited to intermediates and above. The Arlberg ski-pass gives access to St Anton, the resorts of Lech, Zurs and Stuben, and the linked ski- area of St Christoph, covering a total of 82 lifts, 260km of pistes and 180km of off-piste.

But roll your eyes upwards, and you are thankful to be there. The setting is stunning, with mountains climbing to 2,800m and beyond. And to the north west, below the Valluga peak, is some of the best skiing in the Alps. ST ANTON

ST ANTON

This is hardly a prepossessing place. Bisected by the railway line between Zurich and Innsbruck, with its pedestrianised main drag running alongside the tracks (which are to be moved to accommodate the 2001 World Skiing Championships), the town is dominated by the sort of unremarkable architecture that makes lowland Austria so dull. Why have they done so?CHRISTOPHER St ALBANS(The Right Rev Christopher Herbert, Bishop of St Albans)Abbey Gate HouseSt Albans, Hertfordshire.

They are offered limitless entertainment but never a moment when they can join with countless thousands who will be at worship on that day.
The Director General and Board of Governors presumably have a duty to ensure that the foundational truths and beliefs of our country are explored, examined, criticised and celebrated.They have neglected that duty as far as Christmas is concerned. The housebound, the elderly and the hospitalised are thereby profoundly deprived. Sir: I believe the time has come for a serious inquiry into the function and purpose of the BBC It claims to be a public service broadcaster. Nothing could be further from the truth as far as religious broadcasting is concerned. On Christmas Day on BBC television there is not a single act of worship.

It is to be hoped that this week marks a stiffening of Mr Blair’s resolve, a determination not to take fright at every passing newsprint shadow.In Vienna this weekend, we trust he will discuss the issues of EU funding, tax competition and the euro on their merits and give us less of this nonsense about defending cheap cigarettes and alcohol.. The logical alternative to the Prime Minister’s policy of constructive engagement is Britain’s withdrawal from the EU – and, even if we do disagree with some of our partners’ ideas for the future of the union, there is nothing that justifies cutting ourselves off from the whole enterprise. What prevents the simple alignment of contributions with national incomes is the Common Agricultural Policy; until the Cap can be abolished – or at least radically reformed – Margaret Thatcher’s rebate will have to stay.In the end, the argument against the Eurosceptics will be won by the deployment of reason rather than of spin. Mr Blair was accused of contradicting himself by both describing the rebate as “non-negotiable”, and accepting that it would have to be discussed.In fact, the Prime Minister’s position is entirely reasonable: the rebate is justified because Britain would otherwise be a “net contributor above countries with higher incomes than ours”. Meanwhile the “comrades” themselves presented Mr Blair’s stance on Britain’s rebate on EU funding in a way that illustrated Mr Cunningham’s criticism perfectly.