Val d’Isère – a renewed acquaintance
A ‘corner of a foreign field that is forever England’. Or so it seems. Where would Val d ‘Isère be without the
English? In general we ski in a resort
where never an English voice is heard, a little resort in Graubünden,
Switzerland. It has a certain Alpine
charm, a gemütlichkeit of its own, and even the Swiss have had to at least try
to become friendly. The forbidding wood
leading to the See from the village is now entitled ‘Wilkommen in Zauberwald’,
and smiles sometimes even replace grunts as one gets on a skilift. But the Espace Killy, as the vast area around
Val and Tignes styles itself is certainly in a different league, more
cosmopolitan, and even the French sometimes seem to be outnumbered by the
English. Boris Johnson, our Mayor of
London, has recently added to the debate on ski instructors in France. I quote:
I’ve just got back from the French Alps and
the place is just as beautiful as it was when I first went there 30 years ago:
the air like champagne, the sky blue, the snow like gulfs of icing sugar
wafting over your skis – and the mind-numbing beauty of those high white
landscapes, silent except for the soft clank of the lift. Yes, it’s still the
same, the French skiing experience – and so is the great ski-school scandal: a
complete, naked, shameless and unrepentant breach – by the French – of the principles of the European Single
Market.
It is still the case that if you want to
find someone to teach your kids to ski, that teacher will have most or all of
the following characteristics. His face will be deeply tanned and handsomely
creased; his eyes will twinkle roguishly at his female charges; he will say
“HOP!” as he plants his pole to turn; he may or may not have a paunch, a
hip-flask of cognac and a smell of cheroot.
But one thing is for sure: he will be
dressed in an all-in-one red ski uniform emblazoned with the logo of the École
du Ski Français – and he will be French, mes amis. And only French.
In defiance of every basic principle of the
Common Market – free establishment, free movement of services, you name it –
the French continue to make it virtually impossible for a UK national to set up
a ski school, in the French alps, to cater for the vast numbers of English
speakers who flock there every winter – and who think dérapage is something to
do with a woman’s cleavage.
There are certainly a number of deeply tanned instructors
with the ESF uniform, just as Boris says.
But on the slopes, the Sophies,
the Piers’s, the Charlottes and the Sebastians all vie with the French for
piste-room.
So after an absence of nearly 30 years, what do I make of
the French experience? First, I would
urge you to be very very cautious about walking. I am reliably informed that the Mayor of Val
d’Isère prefers that in the winter it remains a ‘white town’. This means that the sidewalks are uniformly covered
in ice, and extremely dangerous. The
rond-point des pistes in particular is very hazardous. The Swiss, for whom the village where we ski
is still a Swiss inhabitants’ village, would never tolerate the risk to their
residents’ health in this way. Second,
in the cleanliness stakes, there is little to touch the Swiss. Toilets remain an afterthought in France, and
though there are more in Val than there used to be, they lag behind other
nations in convenience and maintenance.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that the residents don’t have a bigger say
in the town – in the winter there are approximately 2000 permanent residents
and approximately 3000 ‘Seasonnaires’, many of whom will be British.
But it is the skiing that is the big draw. Located in what must be one of the most
remote, hardest to access valleys in the Haute Tarentaise, Val d’Isère is a Mecca
for skiers of all abilities. The resort
is served by a good bus service from Geneva airport – but it does take forever
to get there. Returning on a Sunday
evening it was four and a half hours, compared with less than two from Zurich
to our own little resort. This does mean
that it suffers less from weekenders that many, indeed, Saturday which is the
main changeover day is a pleasure to ski on unlike more accessible resorts.
I spent so much time skiing in a long weekend, that
opportunity for photography was limited, but here are some views, and
delightful pictures of a chalet girl (who happens to be my daughter), and I
hope that you too will have the opportunity to ski there...
 |
| Restaurant Les Clochetons |
 |
| Above Le Fornet |
 |
| Above Le Fornet |
 |
| Above Tignes |
 |
| Les Clochetons |
Katie on La Grande Motte
Above Le Fornet
