I can believe the area around Clermont Ferand has skiing. The Massif Central is pretty high, with some quite wild hills and mountains up to about 1800m. It's just about do-able in a day from Calais, although avoiding tolls and autoroutes would be a very long day. A few years ago, we took a similar initial route to get to Provence, down through Orleans (stopping for lunch) and stopping near Clermont Ferand for the night.

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