Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Ski season is here. And in Europe at least, it’s already looking like a vintage year with vast dumps of November snow blanketing almost all of the Alps’ 750-mile-long crescent of rugged peaks and picture perfect mountain towns. Head this way for ski, après ski and everything in between.
Nowadays, the choice of where to ski in this extraordinary mountain range is mind boggling to say the least. Eight countries, hundreds of resorts, thousands of runs on and off piste. And price points that vary from almost bargain basement to absolutely blow the budget—and then some.
While it’s all well and good to try somewhere new, to push boundaries and run the risk of a successful or failed vacation, when it comes to a big ski trip it’s often wiser to stick with the big established resorts where you know the skiing—and just as importantly the après ski—will be world class. For that, there’s nowhere better than France’s Trois Vallées, the largest linked ski area in the world. And at its heart in the Tarentaise Valley, legendary Courchevel .
The trick here is that Courchevel is not just one village, but four. Dotted at various altitudes, the higher you climb the more exclusive (and expensive) things get, from ‘lowly’ Courchevel 1300 to Courchevel 1550, Courchevel 1650 and sitting pretty at the top, legendary Courchevel 1850. Those numbers refer to their respective altitudes in meters by the way—this is Europe, .