Piste and relaxation

Oct 28 2007 By Lesley Oldfield, Sunday Sun

SKIING is a fabulous and magical winter mix of exhilaration and serenity . . . but crikey Moses, it’s tiring.

Now, I’m not one of the flash ski types, ready to romanticise the perfect unity of man and nature, but I do love skiing.

Lying on a beach for a week bores me to tears, so skiing offers the perfect blend of action and relaxation, challenge and enjoyment, and a genuine change of environment . . . which is what holidays are all about.

And a skiing holiday has a natural balance. It’s such a tiring pastime that it forces you to relax and sleep like Rip Van Winkle on valium.

We skied the mountains of La Plagne hard, seven hours a day, trying to get a pass at every one of the available runs — black ones excepted — and enjoy every inch of the landscape.

With a rickety footballer’s knee and a dodgy goalkeeper’s shoulder, I could plummet downhill for 20-odd minutes at a time before my joints cried for mercy.

But those plentiful breaks gave me the perfect opportunity to take in the magnificent Savoie French Alps.

There is an eerie peace on the mountains — even when there are hundreds of tourists whizzing by — that calms your mind.

The boom in budget ski holidays has led the plank-footed to hit the snow everywhere from Andorra to Iran.

But when you tire of searching for the myth of perfect skiing at a pocket-friendly price, you realise the best efforts of the “Skiistan Tourist Board” can’t compete with a resort purpose built by nature

La Plagne has got it where it counts. It has a spaghetti-like stretch of action-man runs, slaloms, a freestyle park and a half pipe for the piste rats. Sorry, I mean snowboarders.

It even offers Olympic standard downhill as a result of the 1992 Winter Olympics being part-hosted here.

And if you’re a beginner, there’s enough easy-level slopes that run between the pretty town centres of the surrounding villages, such as Plagne Bellecote or La Roche, to keep you moving.

But for intermediate skiing, La Plagne is a dream.

Your basic lift pass offers as much skiing as you could want, but a few euros more gets a day’s access to the neighbouring resort of Les Arcs. The combined resorts are known as Paradiski and offer 425kms of runs.

To get to Les Arcs you have to take the Vanoise Express, a giant cable car running across the stunning valley between the peaks, which is the gateway to yet more incredible forestry skiing.

It’s a great way to break up the week, because one thing that may creep into your holiday is a little flush of boredom.

The days are easy to fill with skiing, shopping, ice skating or even paintball in the snow at nearby Bellecote.

But the evenings are different.

The apres ski is very good and you can enjoy the restaurants, pubs and live bands safe in the knowledge that there’s a free shuttle bus service linking all the little towns until around 4am.

There’s also a nightclub you can stay at until the shuttle service resumes in the morning if that’s what you want . . . and I wanted.

But skiing on a world-class hangover is horrific, and even party animals need the odd quiet night.

There is a cinema but it shows films in French, there used to be a swimming pool but no more, and 10-pin bowling is a village away when your calves are squealing that they want it on the doorstep.

At our warm and well-appointed hotel, Terra Nova, there was karaoke, quiz nights and family games nights to occupy you in the bar, as well as a few arcade machines and a pool table.

But quite a few families simply sat in the lobby playing cards each night, so La Plagne could perhaps offer more affordable family entertainment. But that’s like saying a loofah is useless for sword fencing because what La Plagne offers in abundance is amazing skiing across landscapes that would inspire poets to verse and painters to easel.

And remember . . . once you’re on that plane home, you’ll realise it’s all downhill from there.

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5 things to do

1 - VISIT the ice cave at the summit of Bellcote, some 3417m (11210ft) high.

2 - TAKE on La Plagne . . . the 1992 Winter Olympics bobsleigh run that can break the sound barrier.

3 - ENJOY the local cuisine in the restaurants of the tiny towns in the area.

4 - GET yourself a Discovery Pass for 16 euros, which allows access to Les Arcs.

5 - VISIT Arnie’s Bar. The most rewarding feeling you can get is sitting down to that first beer of the evening knowing you damn well earned it with seven hours on the slopes.

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GAVIN flew to Chambery Airport. Flights from Newcastle with Jet2.com are available in the winter months from £68. There is also a self-drive option offered by Crystal. Visit www.crystalholidays.co.uk for more information.

HE stayed at Terra Nova Hotel, which is perfectly situated on the slopes. With a ski-hire shop in the basement it is massively convenient, and it is advisable to book your ski hire in advance if you aren’t taking your own equipment. A week’s stay, half board, at Terra Nova, starts at £539. There is a wide choice of catered and self-catered chalets situated on the picturesque mountain sides of the various tiered plateau of the resort, and it’s well worth shopping around.