Snowboarding Info

France is one of the original snow sliding destinations and has been hosting snowsports since the early days of skiing, when mountaineers decided to start sliding back down on planks (so skiers weren’t always the sickeningly posh, irritable folk getting in the way at the top of the lifts).

The two biggest and best known areas to snowboard in France are the Alps and the Pyrenees, for obvious reasons, but you can also ride in the Massif Central, the Voges, the Jura Mountains (just north of the Alps) and even Corsica.

General Info

Language

Take a guess. Yes, French.

Currency

Like much of Western Europe, France now uses the Euro. In case you’re interested, before the advent of the Euro they used the French Franc.

Getting There

Visa

Europe operates within the new simplified “Schengen” visa, with which you can travel freely throughout the Schengen zone because air, road and train travel are classed as domestic trips.

The Schengen countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Most Schengen Visa holders can stay within the Schengen zone for up to 90 days.

You can find out if you need a Schengen Visa to visit France here.