In reply to IainRUK:
Hi Iain,
I'm a bit further south, around Nürnberg, but in similar position to you. I can go from my back door through the woods and forest tracks and valleys round here, but that involves breaking trail myself (unless someone else has been out first, which does happen!), other than that, it involves a half hour drive to somewhere that's groomed.
I suspect you might be surprised at how much you find that is groomed. Certainly, around here, a lot of village football clubs have a snow machine which they use in the winter to make a couple of cross country trails. Certainly, the Frankenjura is not a skiing resort kind of area, but there are plenty of trails to go at, all all available to find (including current condition of the trail) on the internet. Going further to the Fichtelgebirge or somewhere like the Frankenwald, Rhön or Harz would almost certainly have groomed trails (normally for tracked skiing, or tracked and skating).
As for buying, there are plenty of options. If you're happy choosing for yourself, then big supermarkets often have them (Real near us does), but the chances are that these will be track skis with fish scales. It sounds like fish scales are more popular here than in Finland, but that might be because it doesn't get as cold here, or have something to do with different snow conditions. Going down this route, you could probably kit yourself out for €200 for basic gear. I went to a local running shop, that do xc stuff in winter, paid about €250 for my kit, got not totally bottom of the range stuff and decent advice. I think if I'd got for decent track skis - not racing, but I wouldn't go for metal edges wide things either unless you've got a great area on your doorstep where noone else skis (unlikely). I'd wait and see what's around to be skiied before you buy. I would avoid skating skis though, if you want to go of track sometimes. Skating skis will only work really on tracks groomed for skating. It might be something for you (particularly with your running background), and you might have tracks near you, but find out first!
Hope that helps, and if you fancy heading a bit south, we could find some skiing in the middle to do!
Tim