Slope off to the French Alps
La Plagne’s cool for families, says Hannah Stephenson
I’m trying to remember at what age our children started losing interest in holidays with us. Inter-railing or weeks in the sun-soaked clublands of Zante and Ayia Napa seemed much more tempting to my son Will and daughter Grace in their late teens.
We wondered if ski-ing would tempt them back to a holiday with the old fogies. Now France has reopened to British tourists, there’s been an avalanche of bookings – but there are still holidays available. This is how we came to be in Belle Plagne – shortly before the first lockdown in 2020, when no masks or health passes were required unlike today’s restrictions (detailed at en.la-plagne.com/coronavirusinformation).
It’s among 11 self-sufficient base villages which make up La Plagne, in the south-eastern region of Savoie in the western Alps and dominated by Mont Blanc.
Each village is its own ski-in skiout mini-resort. If you don’t want the hassle of carrying skis to buses to get to the lifts, La Plagne is ideal. Its vast terrain and lift network enable you to ski to a variety of villages, while the huge doubledecker Vanoise Express cable car - which can carry more than 200 people at a time - connects to Les Arcs, forming the vast ‘Paradiski’ ski area with La Plagne, incorporating a total of 425km of slopes and 264 pistes.
As an inter-generational group, our holiday expectations were flipped on their head a little. Eleven years ago, there were times when we grown-ups yearned to escape for a bit of serious apres ski to sample the Savoie beers and local wine. Now, we’d rather enjoy a leisurely raclette with a bottle of local red quaffed in front of a fire before bed, turning in just as the kids get ready to go out. On the slopes, I felt we
would be more in sync. We had a family lesson on the first morning to get our ski legs back. But by lunchtime Will and Grace were waiting for us at the foot of each slope we tackled.
That pretty much set the tone for the skiing, except that the kids began to assume a carer-like presence around me, ensuring I negotiated each chair lift successfully. They even started to high-five me at the bottom of each slope I skied without mishaps. Oh, the humiliation. We had one whiteout day when we couldn’t ski. While once we may have nudged ourselves away from a family-orientated spa, fearing that our young children would disrupt the peaceful ambience by practicing their divebombing skills in the pool, now they’re older the four of us were able to venture to the adults-only section of the Deep Nature Bains and Spa La Plagne.
We quietly soothed our aching muscles in an almost deserted outdoor 35-degree heated pool and Jacuzzis, ventured into the sauna, and sampled a cup of herbal tea in a relaxation room overlooking the mountains. It was one of many moments on the trip when none of us was looking at our phones.
How to plan your trip
Crystalski.co.ukoffers a sevennight half-board holiday at the three-star Hotel Belle Plagne
2100, Belle Plagne, from £740pp when booked online (based on two sharing) including flights.