Skiing in Samoëns: A Skier’s Tour of the French Alps by Mary Novakovich

As a Francophile who only recently returned to skiing after a long hiatus, I was less than enamoured by the idea of the French Alps. Too many English people, I thought, and too many concrete villages. Surely there was an authentic slice of France somewhere among the dozens of resorts that run from the Jura to northern Provence.

I asked a few people from the Rhônes-Alpes region where I could find a resort that could more or less guarantee snow, wasn’t completely anglicised, had more than two restaurants and didn’t resemble a Sixties modernist horror.

“Samoëns,” they all chorused. “Where?” I asked.

I was more familiar with its neighbour, Flaine, which happens to be a concrete monstrosity but shares the 265km of pistes that make up the Grand Massif ski area, one of the largest in France. Samoëns itself, nestling in the Giffre valley in Haute-Savoie, is the only French resort that is classified as a national monument. It has a 16th-century church, a covered outdoor ice-skating rink, a fantastic weekly market, a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere and enough patisseries to have my French friend Myriam sighing with pleasure. It’s also part of the official cheese trail of Savoie, which got both of us salivating at the thought of reblochon, tomme de Savoie and Beaufort.

Charm and Comfort

What it doesn’t have is the sort of nightlife many British skiers are used to. Inside the main square’s Bar le Savoie, the young barmaid was jumping up and down, pining for the excitement that New Year’s Eve had brought the week before. The outdoor bar that usually serves vin chaud was shut. Low season was evidently a different story.

Luckily we hadn’t come to dance on tables and knock back overpriced cocktails. Charm, comfort, natural beauty, great food, excellent and varied skiing – that was more what I had in mind. The charm and comfort were there in abundance at the family-run Hotel Neige et Roc: cosy pine interiors, log fires, friendly and helpful staff.

A session in the Jacuzzi was an appealing substitute for any raucous après-ski that might be going on in the noisier resorts. Myriam chuckled when I mentioned après-ski. She thought I was referring to the soft boots you wear after skiing, not extended drinking. “Using the word après-ski in that context is more English than French,” she explained. Not that Myriam was an expert on French skiing, her only experience on skis having been during a school trip when she was 11.

So while she spent the morning doing serious research into which cafés had the best crêpes and hot chocolate, I took the Grand Massif Express gondola up to the Samoëns ski area at 1600m.

The Savoyard Character

Local schoolchildren were having their PE classes (lucky kids) along the many green and blue runs in the lower ski area. I headed up to Tête des Saix at 2120m, where I wasn’t quite high enough to see Mont Blanc in the distance, but the view was heavenly nonetheless. Nathalie, my Ecole du Ski Français instructor, pointed out the Lac des Nuages, the “lake of clouds” that swirls around the neighbouring peaks. There were more mountains than people.

I happily cruised along the wide red runs eventually took me back to the 1600m area, where a delicious lunch at Lou Camboëns beckoned. I was meeting the Grand Massif’s commercial director, Benoît, whose job it is to attract more visitors without causing the region to lose its distinctive Savoyard character.

French skiers make up the majority of visitors, while only about 10 per cent are British. I was certainly hearing more British and Irish voices than I expected to, and even spotted a British television personality who reportedly has a house in the village. But most of the ski signs were only in French, as were many of the restaurant menus. I knew there was an Irish pub somewhere in the village, but I had yet to come across it, its presence not an obvious one.

Time for Lunch

Lack of time meant I couldn’t try the Grand Massif special: Les Cascades. This incredible blue run starts in Flaine at the 2480m peak of Les Grandes Platières, and carries on for 14 blissful and scenic kilometres along the upper rim of the ski area and into the forest.

About two-thirds of the way is about the right time to stop for lunch at the conveniently located restaurant hiding in the woods. After a meal of Savoyard specialities (more cheese!) at the Gîte du Lac de Gers, continue through the woods until you arrive at Sixt, where the shuttle bus will take you back to Samoëns.

I came back in the afternoon to find Myriam in the Jacuzzi chatting to a Parisian couple who’d come for the snowshoeing. Conversation naturally turned to food. Myriam’s morning’s research included the discovery of La Cheminée, a café that served wonderful crêpe compagnarde, a savoury pancake filled with melting reblochon cheese, chunks of bacon and onions. That was on the next day’s to-do list.

Lively and Civilised

We’d already had a tasty cheese fondue at the hotel the first night, and that evening would look forward to tartiflette, a winter-warming dish of reblochon, potatoes and bacon, at the stylish Le Bois de Lune. I could see a pattern emerging here.

But these were just a prelude to what was undoubtedly the best cheese fondue I’ve eaten. As a connoisseur of the much-maligned dish, I met my match at La Table de Fifine. It’s a bit of a walk from the village centre and the fondue costs EUR 23 a head, but it’s worth it. Fifine gave me a list of the cheeses she uses – all local, and a devil to find outside the Savoie region.

We never did find the Irish pub, tucked away in a rather obscure location behind a supermarket. We did, however, stumble upon Café Guançao near the main square. I swiftly realised I was the only non-French person, the rest of the crowd entranced by a singer covering songs by one of France’s biggest rock bands, Noir Désir. A big hairy dog ambled in, got the requisite number of pats and shuffled out again. The atmosphere was warm, lively and civilised, bottles of Perrier outnumbering small glasses of beer. Val d’Isère might have cocktails and glitz (and Brits), but I know which one I prefer.

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