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Tignes: a very French alternative to Val d'IsèreIt's not as glamorous or as high profile as neighbouring, Anglo-friendly Val d'Isère, yet the resort of Tignes lures Tim Woodward back, year after year. He explains why.By Tim Woodward |
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Photo: GETTY |
Inside, the espresso machine is coughing into action, and a steady trickle of lift attendants and ski-school instructors drifts in. They lean on the bar, down a quick coffee, and scan the pages of L'Equipe, before exchanging a few words with the owner and trudging off to work in the shadow of the mighty Grande Motte glacier. I have witnessed this very French vignette every morning for at least a week a year for the last decade. It's a workaday scene yet, for that very reason, it is one that has helped secure a special place in my Alpine affections, not only for the cosy brasserie and the co-owned Hôtel L'Arbina, but also the genuine, though sometimes criticised, resort in which they are to be found, the French "station de haute montagne" of Tignes. For too long, "soulless" Tignes has suffered at the expense of its more high-profile, Anglo-friendly neighbour. For if there is one place to which British skiers gravitate, it is the neighbouring Haute Tarentaise resort of Val d'Isère: more than a third of its visitors are British. Val d'Isère seems to have it all: the artfully designed "village" centre, the bars and nightclubs, the high-end catered chalets, the trendy off-piste skiing – never mind the prestige of a one-time Olympic Games host town and one of the most famous World Cup downhill racecourses. Such a glamorous profile will only be heightened when the pros arrive for the World Championships in February. And yet, and yet… it is Tignes, and not Val d'Isère, that lures me back as a skiing base year after year, its very lack of guile and glamour its attractions. For Tignes, straightforward and practical, wears its attributes on its sleeve. It knows, with frank simplicity, what it is good at and what it is there for: what were, before the Fifties, high-altitude pastures for local shepherds are now among the most snow-sure slopes in Europe. Much has been done to revamp the largely treeless resort's image: more wooden buildings; a road tunnelled under the central village of Le Lac; a selection of fine restaurants across the mountains, including the excellent Lo Soli; and the revitalising of the old ESF ski school in Le Lac under youthful director Francois Gauche. Some long-standing Sixties concrete buildings still leave a little to be desired. But the grand scale of the scenery easily makes up for any minor architectural lapses. And step just a few yards from almost any of the generally good-value lodgings and you hit the lifts and the pistes, the real reason for the journey. Tignes, set at 2,100m, is all about the white stuff, meaning that skiing right back to the door is the norm, rarely something you can achieve in Val d'Isère. You do not go to Tignes, however, if you are a non-skier or boarder. But, if you want to spend plenty of time on the slopes with guaranteed snow, no matter what your ability, there are few more reliable and varied destinations (90 lifts, more than 180 miles of piste, and the Espace Killy's stunning 2,000m "vertical drop"). Groups of friends return year after year, all with different ambitions: a family of five, staying in a budget apartment, during the busy half-term holidays; lawyers perfecting their carving turns on intermediate slopes under blue, late-season skies; and would-be mountaineers fixated with Tignes' lift-served powder fields and lofty, rocky couloirs in January. However, there is one final, crucial element that continues to draw me back – the clinics of British ski teacher Ali Ross, an instructor for more than 40 years, first in his native Scotland, then in Wengen, where he coached ski racers before opting for the snow-sure heights of Tignes. It is here that he has helped propel hundreds of previously bad habit-ridden skiers, marooned on the infamous intermediate plateau, towards skiing techniques and terrain they never thought they would attain. Years before anyone else ever mentioned carving skis and technique, Ross worked out that any amateur could adopt simple, professional race techniques to make massive leaps in their skiing. Put basically, he knew that if you learned how to "angulate" and get a ski over onto its sharp metal edge, hold your nerve and let the shape of the ski turn you, everything would become an awful lot easier and more controlled; or, in his own words, give you the ability to "go just about anywhere" on the mountain of your choice. Combine such thinking with the deep, cold snows of Tignes, and Ross – and so many of his clients – were onto a winner. And, even if you never manage to link up with the Scot, you should still find Tignes has the qualities to be able to hold its head high alongside Val d'Isère. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/4014760/Tignes-ski-resort.html
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