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Skiing French Style Holidaying in les Alpes Françaises means more than perfect powder – allow yourself to be seduced...

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Clockwise from left: aerial view of Val d’Isère; skiing in ; fine food and wine......

The Swiss slopes are immaculate (one would be too much of a cliché for even version of a shandy) or five. I must have would not expect anything less) and me to bear. enjoyed it because I booked him again the Italian slopes guarantee a good Instead, we head for the hills, to for the next day. coffee (if you’re prepared to wait for it). be precise – all 3,500 metres of them – The European Alps are the highest But it’s the French slopes that have my where I quickly learn that the motto of mountain range in Europe, covering vote. The French are crazy and no more your average French ski instructor is more than 200,000 square kilometres so than in the Alpine regions where the “Regardez-moi”. across Germany, Switzerland, Austria, oxygen is thin. I love my food, my wine When skiing in the , and France. In many resorts you and my credit card, and as a single, remember, it’s all about how your can ski from one country to another for 30-something woman craving some instructor looks when he skis down the lunch and back again in time for dinner. attention, the French Alps are a natural slopes. I’m new to all of this – a year The vertical drops, length of runs and choice. Where else can you dine on ago, I thought powder came in Chanel access to off-piste skiing are a big factor Michelin-starred foie gras, sip Sancerre, packaging with a matching applicator. for many skiers but, for moi, it’s all about max out on and flirt like a A recent sojourn in the New Zealand the atmosphere. teenager with suave French men? southern ranges set me straight and The Alpine resorts of and And all of this during your lunch break gave me the taste I’m now cultivating. Val d’Isère sit on either side of Le Grande from the pistes. I try to inform Aldo that I am a mere Motte, a 3,656 metre glacier, providing It’s heaven for my alter ego, Mary southern-hemisphere novice, but I year-round skiing. Combined, the two Millionaire, who usually comes out to suspect he doesn’t speak English, for he resorts provide over 300 kilometres of play after one too many bubbles – though, throws me down a black run first up. runs over 10,000 hectares. This is called in France, she prefers to be called Marie. Where my skiing comes from, green the Espace Killy, named after the French She makes an immediate appearance is the new black, but “je suis novice” Olympic champion and where I do on my first day when I meet Aldo, my sounds mysteriously like “I am nervous”, my first French skiing (not like an French-Italian mountain guide. Aldo has which are one and the same. Olympic champion). an Olivier Martinez smile and “I-know- Like most French ski instructors, A 20 minute drive from Tignes, or a you-want-me” aloofness. Aldo is obsessed with his shadow and schuss over the slopes, sits Val d’Isère. The trouble is, he knows right: I do. how it looks on the slopes in the sun. Home to trustafarians on breaks from I’m hooked and we have yet to leave He neglects to watch me, which is just as finishing school, it’s all wood and stone my hotel in the French Alp resort of well, for I am gagging with fear. Despite and open fires with bowls of steaming Tignes, where he meets me for my first his self-obsession, he knows what he is chocolate come breakfast time. This is a day on the pistes. The altitude has got doing as I make it down without falling pure “adults only” town, with fine dining to me and I consider going back to bed and breaking a leg, and we head to the at Chalet du Cret, schnapps at the

and taking Aldo with me, but that bar for a celebratory panaché (the French Danish Le Petit Danois and dancing at NUTS,AGENCE TOURISME PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE | COURTESY COURCHEVEL OFFICE DU TOURIST D'ISÈRE VAL COURTESY

050 Vive La France SKIING IN FRANCE..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..::..

For decades, the intimate, isolated alpine farming village of Val d’Isère has been home to one of the world’s best-known ski resorts – and offers far more than just exceptional snow...... Dick’s T-bar. The exclusive chalet-style accommodation so favoured by the FACT FILE Where to eat Europeans means most skiers in France Where to ski in France If you only dine in one Michelin dine in for home-style cuisine and Stick to the Alps. The Pyrenees, Central restaurant in the Alps, make it entertainment, provided by chalet girls Mastif and Jura mountain ranges don’t La Ferme de Mon Pere in Megève (you on working holidays. reach the same heady heights. can also stay here). Marc Veyrat is the There is a distinct feel everyone knows Courchevel is for serious shoppers, only man to have won three stars for each other on the French ski fields, an a see-and-be-seen resort for those of his two restaurants. Its rustic inner circle within the inner circle of platinum or black Amex status. environment features a farmyard those who ski. British bankers with Meribel is a picture-perfect ski town beneath the restaurant glass floor. plummy accents slap each other’s backs from days of old. Exquisite. www.marc-veyrat.com in the lift queue, and Swiss matrons air has and the kiss in the cafés. Valley Blanche glacial ski run that Where to stay Marie’s right in her element in France. will test your desire to live. It also has Club Med is perfect whether you The currency looks different so the money Europe’s highest number of double are travelling alone or with a friend. can’t be hers, can it? So she spends it like diamonds, and I’m not talking jewels. This French resort chain has gone it’s someone else’s, purchasing the latest Megève straddles Mont Blanc with upmarket with Jacques Garcia- Christian skiwear in fire-engine red. Chamonix. More intimate in nature, designed chalet-style accommodation. Picture Siberian goose-feather down it’s the choice for quiet money. Their all-inclusive policies will keep jacket lined with fox fur for the downhill, Val d’Isère combines all of you living like a king but spending like and a Christian Dior ski skirt (that would the above. a pauper. We love that. Find them in make even Paris Hilton blush) for the Tignes is for serious skiers who Val d’Isère, Tignes, and Courchevel. après. She thinks nothing of the $3,500 prefer down-to-earth hospitality over For an added treat, book into the price tag. This is France after all and style, and think the piste is something exclusive Cinque Monde spa in one must support the local designers. to get off. Chamonix. www.clubmed.com Any lingering retail guilt is sloughed Toll free 1800 258 263 off at the spa. Hammam steam rooms How to get there Relais Chateaux is a French were made for this climate and the Your first taste of France begins when company featuring a unique group world’s best products come from this you sink into your Air France L’Espace of exclusive and intimate properties region. There’s nothing like a bit of Première seat. In-flight meals have around the world. In France expect Carita, Thalgo and La Mer to soothe been created by celebrated Parisian Michelin-star restaurants, aristocratic away snow burn. Marie heads to chef Guy Martin, you sleep on full- hosts and breathtaking architecture The Beauty Farm at Les Fermes de length (two-metre) beds, and a code steeped in history. They have eight Marie, a spa within a hotel village near share between Air France and Qantas properties across the French Alps, Megève for an exclusive Edelweiss means 34 flights weekly to Australian but it will cost you – big time. treatment only found in the French Alps. destinations, via Singapore. www.relaischateaux.com That’s the beauty of skiing in France, www.airfrance.com Tel (02) 9299 2280 with a flick of the coiffure you can be You can access most French ski Catherine Deneuve in Belle du Jour or resorts by TGV, the high-speed Find your guide Audrey Hepburn in Megève in Charade. train from Paris. Alternatively, live Evolution2 will provide you with your With backdrops to make Peter Jackson like a Rothschild and chopper in very own Aldo by the hour or by the envious, the French Alps are true from Geneva. day. www.evolution2.com cinematic fantasy. Just ask Marie. NUTS,AGENCE PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE TOURIST D'ISÈRE VAL COURTESY

052 Vive La France