Shortlist 
-By Louise
Take me back to Meribel, please?
I have a confession. When looking at ski deals for a last minute trip with my family, my boyfriend turned to me to ask: “You’ve been to Tignes and Les Arc – which is better?”
I still cringe at my response, but in the name of confession (my Irish Catholic relatives would be so proud) here goes:
I replied: “To be honest, I’ve been to so many they all sort of blend into one.”
I know. I KNOW.
Thank GOD for Sarah at Interactive Resorts, a uni friend of my boyfriend’s, who came to our rescue. Mention a resort, and she’ll tell you where it’s ranked for whatever your criteria is. Tell her the name of the one you think you want to go for and she’ll tell you that the chalet next door is better because there’s a sneaky way you can almost ski-in ski out without paying the premium for the luxury. Her brain is encyclopaedia of ski resorts and it’s thanks to her extensive knowledge and saintly patience that we ended up in the fully catered chalet, Chez Menor in Meribel with our own driver, arriving shortly after 10cm of fresh powder, for a mere £399. Sarah, you ROCK!
Meribel is part of the world class Three Valleys, nestled between Courchevel, La Tania and Val Thorens – all of which you can ski to with a Three Valleys pass from Meribel. I’m a massive scaredy cat about mountainous coach journeys (the sheer drop cliffs! The ice! The idiot cars drivers who overtake!) so the first thing I fell in love with was the fright-free two and a half hour transfer from Geneva. I normally do my yoga breathing to get through it, but a mere 30 minutes after we started the climb, we had arrived.
The chalet Chez Menor in Meribel. Stock Image.
Our lovely chalet hosts Dave and Steph helped us dump our bags in our rooms, and we went straight off to explore the town. No great surprises here – it’s pretty alpine town mostly made up of ski hire shops (Ski Republic is cheapest, Sarah tipped us off about the 2 for 1 prebook offer), lively apres bars (we liked the Meribar – good food and comedy on a Wednesday night), studded with a few eye-wateringly expensive boutiques. And a chocolatier – OK, that was awesome.
Our first meal of the week set the tone for the rest of the week. Chez Menor is technically a 3-star chalet, but Dave is a SUPERB cook. He didn’t bat an eyelid about my awkward eating, and I always had tasty dairy/meat free options to rival the ‘normals’. I wanted to stay up to enjoy a few more glasses of the free flowing Cote du Rhone, but I love the white stuff waaaaay too much to ruin the first day’s skiing. It was bed at 9pm, excited as a kid at Christmas to put on my gold onesie.
Meribel’s apres-ski reputation precedes it, but for me Meribel is all about the trees. Big, beautiful trees that stud the mountains and line the slopes. Not only are they chocolate-box pretty, but they also serve a very useful purpose – keeping the wind away from the snow on the slopes (which is a problem for neighboring Val Thoren). After realising this, Meribel was an instant hit.
Skiers in Meribel. Image courtesy of Leo-setä via Flickr.
The more runs we did the better Meribel ranked in my (admittedly, blurry) resort list. It’s mostly reds and blues, making it perfect for fast carving – my favourite. A two-stage cable car from the central lift point the Chaudanne, the Sauliere Express, takes you right up to the top where Meribel borders Courchevel before people staying in Courchevel can get to the top, so you can make fresh tracks on the awesome long Creux before anyone else gets to it. And the icing on the cake was the the red Jerusalem run down into Saint Martin; heaven on a bluebird day (of which we were treated to four).
Over the next six days we skied over to Val Thoren and Courchevel, which is actually two resorts (1650 and 1850). VT, as the seasonnaires call it, was a pain to get to and not worth the trip. It was crowded, the snow was either ice or sugary-slush and the piste restaurants noticeably more expensive. I’d been before and didn’t like it, and was annoyed at myself for going again just because we could.
Because we should have spent an extra day in Courchevel 1650, which was packed with wide, fast blue and red runs and spectacular views. This was by far our favourite part of the holiday and is now our number one choice for next year. Fingers crossed we’re rich enough to fly in via Courchevel’s death-defying 1500 foot sloped runway airport that the Russian billionaires use. No treacherous coach journeys for them!
Starry sky over La Saulire in Meribel. Image courtesy of Loïc Lagarde via Flickr.
Meribel has its downsides though. Two days were whiteouts with strong winds and high avalanche risks. I’m not blaming Meribel for the weather, but if you’re going to get stuck in one resort Courchevel is the one you want – the Meribel slopes can be a bit samey if you can’t move in and out of the other valleys freely. But this was where our awesome driver Rory was invaluable. Every day he’d cheerily pick us up to take us to the lifts armed with up-to-date info about the conditions, and recommended runs to try, along with areas to avoid.
Overall, it was definitely one of the best ski holidays I’ve ever been on – excellent food, awesome chalet hosts and brilliant weather – even despite the two whiteouts, because those clear blue days were some of the best conditions I’ve ever skied. I’d thoroughly recommend the chalet we stayed in, especially since we heard it’s getting a hot tub for next season!
Take me back to Meribel… Please?
