Champéry
Lodged between the Dents du Midi and the Portes du soleil is the sleepy mountain resort of Champéry. The region offers a wide range of outdoor activities. The Dents du Midi mountain range to the East is a nature reserve and is easily accessible on foot for the hiking enthusiasts. To the West lies the Portes du Soleil ski region. It is the second largest interconnected ski domain in the world with 650 km of marked ski runs and 200 lifts over an area of 1000 square kilometers. With a cable car that takes you 1 km up to 2000 m straight into this ski region, this village is teeming with tourists when the snow arrives. And in summer you can use the same cable car to explore the mountaintops and skip a long climb. A quick rundown of spring/summer activities:
- Hiking
- Climbing (indoor and outdoor)
- Mountain bike
- Tennis
- Swimming (indoor and outdoor)
- Ice skating
- Acro parc (climbing between treetops)
- Via feratta
- Thermal baths (Val d'Illiez)
- Shopping/lake-side strolling (Montreux at about 30 mins by car or take the train)
Champéry itself is a village of some 1300 inhabitants. For our event we'll take over life in the village for a few days. We've managed to secure the entire Hotel Suisse for our event as well as lodging in a couple of other hotels down the road. Although we like to keep everyone under the same roof, we realized that even with our attendees spread out over 3 locations in this village, the distances were still going to be shorter than last time on the campus of Limerick University. Hotel Suisse will be our hub for the event where we'll have the "Bar des Guides" all to ourselves in the evenings.
Access
Champéry is at the end of the road leading into the Val D'Illiez valley. This is at the East side of lake Geneva (Geneva is on the other side) and about 1.5 hours by car from Geneva Airport. It's accessible by train as well with services every hour. With a single change at Aigle the trip takes 2,5 hours from Geneva Airport and costs roughly 50 CHF one way.
Getting there by train from Geneva Airport