Baqueira, left, has just about everything you could want from a ski resort. Above is a skier in the Val d’Aran, northern Spain
e it opened in 1964 — now has everything any of us could ever a ski resort. The Spanish hat prices in their answer to the sorts of Megève in France and Switzerland are far higher than er of their resorts, such as La Molina or Sierra Nevada. But ll less than half what you will e of France’s top destinations al d’Isère, or its Swiss , Verbier. How about a main a smart tablecloth restaurant for ottle of delicious local red wine an a fiver? ort is in the Pyrenees, but make rison with kiss-me-quick Sophisticated Baqueira lies on onaigua Pass in the Val d’Aran, cleft in the north of the range. It acts as a mountainous into Spain from France — the rport, two hours away, is In World War 2, the French e smuggled 20 000 Jews along s goat tracks to safety here. It’s mponent of would-beus Catalonia. Here in this Eldorado they firstly speak ollowed by Catalan, Spanish, and of French, if you insist. t requirement of the perfect ski of course, the snow and the ng. In recent winters, Baqueira has enjoyed some of the best cover in Europe. In 2012-13 it recorded a mighty base of 400cm when the lifts closed at the end of the season. Last season was almost as fabulous.
The original resort is at 1 500m, with lower and higher satellites, and the top lift rises to a respectable 2 516m. The piste map records a modest but respectable 146km of groomed runs, 26km of them new last winter and served by an extra chairlift.
The beauty of the terrain here lies not only in the long runs of all standards, but in the mainly simple, but nevertheless exciting, off-piste variations from almost every marked run. True, most of the skiing is intermediate, but some steep couloirs such as Escornacrabes (Where Goats Tumble) provide plenty of challenges for experts. From the top, Goats induces a frisson of pure fear. However, when you pluck up the courage to point your skis over the lip, the experience is pleasantly more benign.
A huge plus point here is the relatively low-cost heli-skiing with Pyrenees Heliski ( based 12km away in the valley town of Vielha. A day with five drops costs but prices start at
for two drops when booked through the local British BB ski school ( Incidentally, having a first-class British ski school in my perfect resort is an important extra bonus.
The terrain is in three areas linked across six main peaks, with main access from Baqueira itself by a gondola from the village centre. The hamlet of Beret is little more than a lift station and a terrain park at 1 800m that can be reached on skis or by car from Baqueira. It’s the starting point for some easy blue runs as well as a few much more demanding ones on the Tuc deth Dossau, the highest point of the ski area.
Now, the resort itself. No, it’s not the prettiest. Like Tignes, the main base at 1 500m dates from the ’60s ski boom when architectural beauty played second fiddle to bed numbers. The latest development of four- and five-star hotels is housed in a mall at the bottom of the lift system in Val de Ruda. Purpose-built, these owe more to North American notions of convenience than to the European ideal. But Tanau at 1 700m, where the Spanish royal family resides, is unquestionably cool. This collection of traditional mountain homes, including the five-star Hotel Pleta, blends with the beauty of its surroundings.
What attracts me to Baqueira is the location in more general terms. You don’t have to base yourself in the resort, but alternatively in Vielha 12km away, or in one of the half-dozen medieval hillside villages such as Arties below Baqueira. My favourites are Arties, Salardu and Tredòs. All offer various accommodation and fine restaurants tucked away down cobbled alleyways. A governmentsubsidised bus service links the villages between Vielha and Baqueira. But unless you’re staying in the resort itself, a car is essential. Parking is not a problem.
For anyone used to skiing in the Alps, a visit here requires considerable mental and temporal adjustment to the daily routine. On my first visit, after a delayed flight to Toulouse, I arrived in the main street at 2am to find it crowded with night owls whom I assumed were leaving Tiffany’s, the main nightclub, at closing time. Wrong. They were leaving restaurants after dinner and going to the club.
At 9am, when the snow in Val d’Isère is awash with ski classes, the gondola base in Baqueira is all but deserted. No respectable Spaniard clicks into his bindings before 10 or 11am. He skis furiously until 3pm, then has a serious lunch. After the final run home it’s time for tapas and tempranillo until 6pm when the bars empty — it’s siesta time.
At 9pm the whole family re-emerges for drinks and tapas before dinner at 10pm. Of course, you don’t have to switch to the exhausting Iberian clock. You can dine in an otherwise empty restaurant at 8pm, but not earlier.
In springtime you need to keep an eye out for brown bears. They’ve been reintroduced to the wild here from a breeding programme based in Arties. Curiously, they tend to head for the French frontier. I can’t imagine why. —© The Sunday Telegraph