Snow's up

If you take a car to the Alps, and don't mind a drive before skiing each day, there is something to be said for staying in valley villages rather than ski resorts - you'll always get lower prices, you'll often get a wider range of skiing options, and you'll generally escape the take- it-or-leave-it indifference of most ski resort businesses.

The formula doesn't normally work so well without a car, for obvious reasons. But in one corner of the Austrian Tyrol, an enterprising ski instructor has made it work very well indeed, as I discovered last March in a quick visit to Pfunds, a little village in a tightly enclosed valley close to both the Swiss and Italian borders.

Toni Monz has managed to establish a thriving little ski school in Pfunds, despite the complete lack of local skiing, by exploiting the proximity of several worthwhile ski areas within easy driving distance. His Ski- Safari deals offer various packages of three to six days duration, during which he and his instructors take clients to a different ski area each day - Swiss or Italian ski areas as often as Austrian ones.

My small group was ferried around in Toni's four-wheel-drive Espace. On our first day, it took no more than 20 minutes to get up to the cable- car on the outskirts of Samnaun. It goes up into the large ski area that the Swiss resort shares with Austrian Ischgl. Despite some fierce weather, Toni gave us an excellent day exploring both sides of the border, on- and off-piste.

On the second day, we drove an even shorter distance up to Nauders, which had plenty of skiing on- and off-piste to entertain us for the day. But we were in a hurry, and at midday we drove over the Italian border for pasta and Chianti, just beyond the village of Reschen at the little ski area of Schoneben. Little and limited, but probably fine for the technique- polishing sessions that Mr Monz does there early in the Ski-Safari holiday.

At the end of the day, we parted company and I went on my own way to St Moritz. This splendid Swiss resort is just within day-trip range from Pfunds, and forms a highlight of some Ski-Safari programmes. Away to the north of Pfunds, in the opposite direction to St Moritz, similarly alluring but similarly at about the limit of day-trip range, is St Anton. Less well-known resorts that figure in Ski-Safari's portfolio include Bad Scuol, a small but interesting ski area just inside Switzerland, and Serfaus and Fiss, linked Austrian resorts on the way up to Landeck. All are well worth exploring, at least for a day.

Of Pfunds' handful of hotels, Ski-Safari guests are most often put in the four-star Post - a solid old place with some gloriously spacious, though not notably charming, bedrooms in the annexe across the road, right next to the ski school office. Pfunds is a pleasant enough village, with an ancient bridge over the fast-flowing river Inn.

Whether you're contemplating longer holidays in some of the Ski-Safari resorts, or simply like the idea of fresh terrain every day, the Pfunds formula is an attractive one. The holidays can be booked in Britain through Made to Measure (01243 533333): flight, half-board accommodation and five days' safari cost pounds 813 per person mid season. To book direct, call Toni Monz on 00 43 5474 5602, or the Hotel Post on 5711.