Tignes
Ski Resort

Tignes’ ski area, shared with Val d’Isere, is hard to fault. It’s certainly big enough, with about 75 lifts and 300km of slopes divided into more than 150 different runs, which is easily enough for a week-long ski holiday, however well you ski.

It’s also very high. The top lift in Tignes on the Grande Motte glacier reaches an altitude of 3,456m, accessing pistes with year-round snow. The three main villages (Tignes Val Claret, Tignes Le Lac and Tignes Le Lavachet) are collectively called Tignes 2100 to emphasise their 2,100m elevation and status as some of the highest ski resorts in Europe.

And Tignes has good skiing for all ability levels: absolute beginners have free nursery slopes; novices and nervous skiers have a network of relatively easy blue pistes; more confident intermediates have a vast ski area to explore; whilst experts have some steep black runs, plus superb off-piste freeride that’s easy to reach through the lift system.

About the only thing lacking is trees. Purpose-built in a snowy bowl high above the treeline, Tignes 2100 can be cold and bleak in bad weather. Its three villages are all dominated by unattractive big box-like buildings, but they are largely car-free and very convenient, with most accommodation just a few metres from the piste. They also bristle with efficient ski lifts which rapidly disperse skiers in all directions to the surrounding mountains.

Lower down, Tignes 1800 (which includes Tignes Les Boisses) and Tignes les Brevieres are much nicer to look at. Set among woods, their more traditional buildings blend into their environment more successfully. But these lower Tignes’ villages are slightly out on a limb, so you must take two or three extra lifts every morning to join the main ski area that’s on your doorstep if you stay in Tignes 2100, although there are some lovely long runs back at the end of the day.

And ultimately Tignes is all about the skiing. It’s what it was designed for back in the 1950s, and what it still excels in providing.