Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Review of Flaine

24th November 2008 by Elizabethm 

Flaine is a lovely resort. It’s a modern architectural gem with great skiing. Don’t be afraid of the concrete - Marcel Breuer’s buildings fit well into the limestone landscape and provide maximum accommodation with minimum sprawl. The resort is carefully designed so that all the blocks are south-facing with unimpeded views, and all are close to the lifts and pistes - everything is convenient. It was designed as a ‘cultural resort’, with architecture, modern art and music (in the summer). The Cultural Centre does a tour (in French), and has a library and plenty of information (in English) about the architecture. Any skiing architect should certainly come here. We stayed in the dramatic Hotel Le Flaine, cantilevered out over a cliff. It’s a listed building (but is rather tired inside). The food was good (full board) but the evening ‘club hotel’ entertainment was a bit relentless.

In Flaine Forum, Les Cimes does a good lunch, while the White Pub is lively in the evenings. The Perdrix Noire in Flaine Foret is a friendly comfortable pub. We didn’t eat lunch out on the slopes much, as it was convenient to return to the hotel and take up our full-board opportunities.

The best skiing (in a sparse season Jan 06) was around the blue and red runs at the top of the Flaine bowl - Serpentine etc. The off-piste under the 4-man (Col de Plate) chair was fun, but you need to be sure of the routes, as you don’t want to disappear into one of the bottomless holes. Even though we could only ski about half the Grand Massif area, we had a great holiday and will certainly go back.

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