ICE TO SEE YOU
Les Arcs is a multi-village resort that has something for everyone during this year’s much-anticipated ski season
IS THERE a perfect cocktail of elements required to make the ideal snow holiday? With just two months to go until the grand reopening of European ski resorts after two years of Covid shutdowns, that is the question I’ve been asking myself.
And then it hit me — my last ski trip was actually it.
The cocktail? A triple measure of guaranteed crisp snow and endless ski miles; a double whammy of technicolor, tabledancing apres ski; and all topped off with a mixer of fine Alpine dining and accommodation.
The French Alps may offer a multiplicity of potential options to go in search of that perfect concoction, from traditional Alpine villages to modern superresorts, but only one place offers them all in one location — Les Arcs.
For anyone unfamiliar with the name, Les Arcs is a multi-village resort that sits at the centre of the enormous Paradiski area, with more than 650km of pistes, and links to other enormous ski domains like Tignes and La Plagne. Les Arcs consists of four towns named by their altitude in metres: 1600, 1850, 1950 and 2000. Like the resort, the extent of the skiing is vast — from a lowly 810m to a height of 3227m, you are guaranteed, rain, hail or snow, that you will find some pistes open all season long. What interested me most of
all, as a snowboarder, is that Les Arcs is the spiritual home of snowboarding in Europe. Back in 1983, a local ski instructor there named Regis Rolland, interested in what was then a concept sport, was hired for a mad-cap short film called Apocalypse Snow.
In the film he rode a prototype that could best be described as a skinny surfboard, strapped on with nothing but cotton-webbing straps, carving down vast cliffs of powder while being chased by a dozen evil Bond-style bad guys in pink uniforms on skis.
At one insane moment he hangs on to the back of someone on a hang glider — yes, a hang glider — and then releases himself to plummet down to the snow and continue his escape.
It has to be seen to be believed, but at the time it captured the imagination of a generation, and snowboarding was catapulted into the mainstream across the European Alps.
Each Les Arcs village has its own distinct character, from 1600, which was one of France’s first purpose-built ‘designer’ ski resorts built in avant garde architectural style in 1968, to the deliberately-curated traditional French village atmosphere of Arc 1950. So I decided to try two of them during my five-night stay.
For accommodation I discovered that Pierre et Vacances has residences in two of the villages,
and when it came to my ‘cocktail’ and the requirement to have a really comfy place to lay your head at the end of the day, they really fit the bill.
I started out for two nights in Premium Residence Arc 1950 Les Village. The hotel is quite literally ski-in ski-out, right to the door, and sits at the very heart of the prettiest and smallest of all the Les Arcs villages.
The beds were supremely comfortable, but the best bit was the spectacular pool and spa, which is designed to look like it’s been carved from the inside of a glacier. The indoor pool is complemented by a spa area straight from a five-star resort.
For the really hardy, there’s an outdoor pool too.
In terms of apres ski, 1950 may be tiny, but it can get fairly raucous. For the more relaxed vibe there’s an ‘Irish’ pub, Les Belles Pintes, and indeed the pints were beautiful at the end of a long sunny day of skiing.
Later in the evening, if the spa experience hasn’t sent you off to dreamland, the party really gets going next door at O’Chaud.
What looks like a petite Alpine bar turns into a sort of steamedwindows dance carnival, with a singer standing on the bar, and a glamorous violin player who looks like she is dressed for a night at the opera adding fiddle solos to pop dancefloor classics. Buckets of champagne litter the tables and the dancefloor stays packed until 2am.
After two days I moved on to Arc 1800, the biggest of the resort towns, with four ‘villages’ known as Charvet, Villards, Charmettoger and Chantel. There are over 100 shops, a cinema and an ice rink.
Perhaps most importantly, Les Arcs recently became home to the newest of the infamous high-end cabaret party ski restaurant chain, the Folie Douce.
Forget about Alpine cabins... when you arrive at a Folie Douce for lunch, your first thought is that you’re in a glamorous restaurant in Chelsea or Manhattan which just happens to be full of people in ski gear.
But then your gourmet lunch is interrupted by a live performance by DJs, rock bands or, in my case, a pair of identical twin aerialacrobat sisters doing a circusstyle hoop routine suspended 20 feet above the ground.
As the afternoon wears on, the dining is replaced by what could best be described as a small rave — everyone dancing on tables, DJs mounted in a crow’s nest high above a circular bar, and tiers of decking providing an amphitheatre with hundreds of of revellers doing their best to dance in ski and board boots.
Table-top dancing is far from the only fare on offer. After unanimous recommendations from people I met as the best eatery in town I arrived (advance booking absolutely necessary) at Chic Maman.
No French ski holiday is right without a night of proper Savoyarde dining. I had the most delicious tartiflette I can recall, and very reasonably priced by Alpine standards at just €17 for a main that left me stuffed without a starter. (Just watch out for the Green Chartreuse cocktails they offer — they’re formidable.)
For the three nights I spent there I stayed at the Premium residence Les Alpages de Chantel, an apartment hotel with a kitchen that allows for some Alpine cooking of your own. It also has a pool room and a timber-housed pool with views out over the mountains.
And what mountains they are. Les Arcs sits in the protected Vanoise National Park, and contains the spectacular Aiguille Rouge peak, which commands views across the Swiss, Italian and French Alps. There is nothing more breath-taking than the majestic sky-catching vista of the Alps from heights like that.
Of course from there you can take one of the longest continuous on-piste ski runs in the world, much of which consists of blues and reds that most skiers could handle. Or, if you dare, take one of the most challenging off-piste areas in Europe, dropping some 1700m back down to resort areas.
The perfect ski holiday cocktail? This was just the right mix.