|Location: Chatel, France|
Skiing the Portes du Soleil is one of my favorite winter vacations living in Stuttgart. The ski area is quite large with a lot of connecting villages. You can even ski from France into Switzerland and back within the day which I think is pretty awesome. The Savoy region is an easy five hour drive from Stuttgart (well… that’s assuming you don’t put the wrong hotel into Google maps and drive an extra 2 hours through snowy Alpine switchbacks fearing your death… then drive two hours backtracking through the snowy switchbacks. Long story you’ll have to ask me about!) and this French ski town always seems to have reasonable accommodations which can be hard to find in Austria or Switzerland.
The past two years we’ve stayed in the cute Alpine village of Chatel, France. It’s right on the French side of the French-Swiss border and a super flat, easy 5 hour drive from Stuttgart. The town isn’t huge but it has everything you’d want for a ski holiday. The regional food specialties are Tartiflette, Raclette, cheese fondues, and carbonara, which is always served piping hot with a fresh cracked egg! Yeah, all the good stuff. Good Savoyard restaurants I’ve tried are Le Comptoir, La Fiacre, Le Refuge, or any restaurant on the slopes. For fresh, delicious food with fun service, you must try Le Hors Piste. It’s my favorite restaurant in Chatel. My favorite bakery? Le Grenier a Pain, yum.
Now on to skiing! As I mentioned, Chatel is part of les Portes du Soleil ski pass, which connects a bunch of towns together. Start in Chatel and ski to Avoriaz, which is a classic ski resort in the mountains. If you stayed in Avoriaz, you’d have to park your car and bring your luggage in the cable car to get to your hotel. It’s complete with horse drawn carriage rides and ski lifts surrounding it. It does look magical!
From the Avoriaz area, ski a few more slopes to take the Mosette lift and enter into Switzerland. Everyone knows, if you can help it make sure to eat lunch on the French side since Switzerland is expensive! Lunch aside, the runs in Switzerland are so wide and beautiful! The off-piste options are also so endless. I was above the clouds feeling on cloud 9. This is my heaven!
Some of the time we were above the clouds, other times the clouds descended on us and all of a sudden we couldn’t see 5 meters on either side. We also had a day of pouring rain which had us soaked, turned into blistering winds and snow. The other ski days were blue skies mixed with clouds. We had all the weather on this trip, but had the best time with great friends.
What are your favorite ski resorts? Chatel and the Portes du Soleil are high on my list!
xo