Tours in Val Thorens

Val Thorens is the highest ski resort in Europe, built at 2,300 metres in a bowl at the top of the Belleville valley, and it looks it: there are no trees, the buildings are functional rather than pretty, and the mountain starts where the street ends. What the altitude buys is snow — the season runs from late November into early May, longer than anywhere else in France, and the pistes come back to the village rather than to a bus stop. The resort is the top corner of Les Trois Vallees, which means six hundred kilometres of linked piste on a single pass, with the Cime Caron cable car climbing to 3,200 metres for the view across to Mont Blanc and the Ecrins.

Skiing is the whole point, and what gets booked here is teaching: a full day with an instructor, which at this altitude is as much about reading the snow and the wind as about technique, and off-piste guiding for people who want the couloirs on the far side of the ridge. Beyond the pistes the resort runs the usual high-altitude programme — the toboggan run that drops seven kilometres from Cime Caron, ice driving, snowshoeing above the treeline that is not there, and a good deal of eating in mountain restaurants that are reached on skis and not otherwise.

Practical. Cold is the thing to prepare for: at 2,300 metres a bright February day can sit at minus 15C with wind on top, and the equipment that works in Austria at 1,200 metres will not do. The altitude also means thin air for the first day or two — drink more than feels necessary and take the first afternoon gently. Transfers come from Geneva, Lyon or Chambery and run three to four hours, all of them arriving on Saturday, so book them when you book the room. The resort is pedestrian in its centre and everything is walkable in ten minutes. Instructors are tipped for a good week rather than by percentage. And one legal note: helicopter drops for skiing are banned in France, so heli-ski days from here cross into Italy.