My partner and I skied at La Plagne for a week in April 1999. After attempting to fly to Lyon we were diverted to Grenoble due to fog so spent several hours sunbathing on the tarmac while we waited for transport to arrive. The transfer should only have been 2 hours but ended up being something like 4 as a result. This nearly did for us as we had massive hangovers due to spending Bank Holiday Friday in various Horley pubs, before departing from Gatwick.
Although we were skiing the La Plagne area we stayed in the satellite village of Les Coches to the west of the ski area at 1400m. Our accommodation was a Crystal catered chalet that had the advantage of being ski to door. It was in most respects excellent, having nice rooms and a couple of shared bathrooms with baths. The staff were very good cooks as well as being lively and interesting, the only bad thing about Crystal was the surly, disinterested rep. This was our first taste of Chalet skiing and having a very friendly mixed bunch of people sharing with us gave us a taste for more.
We only ate out once in the evening here. Local, traditional Savoyard food - I don't really like meat or melted cheese so preferred our Chalet food. I’ve since realised I just don’t care for French food in general though, so take what I say with a pinch of salt if you’re a bit more cosmopolitan. The mountain restaurants were quite unmemorable and fairly expensive. They also tended to deliver lukewarm food so we got packed lunches from our Chalet chefs several times.
The snow cover was very good and we had some fresh falls while we were there. Impressively we were still able to return the Chalet on ski’s but it was warm enough that we were doing apres ski in our shorts (We’re from the far north, so 20c really is summer weather to us). The ski area is huge and varied with very little queuing. A good mix ranging from nasty glacier skiing to icy tree runs with plenty of cruising in between make this a place with something for everyone. There are over 200 km of piste to be explored so it’d be hard to get bored in a week. .
We only had a couple of private lessons here, which were fine. Those in our group that joined the ESF classes for the week were impressed with it. We also had a day skiing in Val d’Isere courtesy of Crystal, which is highly recommended. The motorway skiing there makes a nice change and would, I imagine, be excellent for snowboarders. There are plenty of opportunities for good boarding at La Plagne, with lots of wide runs above the treeline.
Aesthetically, La Plagne itself isn't very visually appealing with a lot of large, purpose built hotels. Les Coches is quite a pretty village though, in spite of being mostly purpose built itself. The bars in Les Coches were mostly dead, so I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone who likes to party, but this was end of the season and it might have been a lot livelier a month earlier. The skiing made this resort well worth visiting, so the lack of eating and drinking opportunities were easy to bear.
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Advantages: beautifully scenic well maintained resort, suitable for all skiing/snowboarding levels of experience Disadvantages: Expensive, Not suitable for those with walking difficulties
TooTrueReview 04.02.2005 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of La Plagne
Advantages: beautifully scenic well maintained resort, suitable for all skiing/snowboarding levels of experience Disadvantages: Expensive, Not suitable for those with walking difficulties
TooTrueReview 04.02.2005 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of La Plagne
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