Travel France - Massif des Aravis
You could be forgiven for thinking you have stumbled upon a simple cluster of mountain villages as you wind your way into the Massif des Aravis. Wooden chalets nestle into the snowy slopes and unadorned bell towers mark out each tiny mountainside community. Look a little closer though and you start to see the tell-tale signs that indicate Aravis’ other raison d’être: chair lifts, cable cars and the scores of ski-hire shops which dominate the street scene.
The handful of villages that constitute the Massif des Aravis have successfully managed to develop a first-class ski resort while still retaining their inimitable Alpine village charm and they make for a welcoming base for a winter break.
The four villages – La Clusaz, Le Grand-Bornand, Manigod and St-Jean-de-Sixt – that together make up the Massif des Aravis are found in the department of Haute-Savoie, an hour’s drive from Geneva airport and some 35km from Annecy and its breathtaking lake. A morning flight from the UK will have you on the slopes by lunchtime, breathing in the mountain air and feeling like you are in another world.
A pass across all four resorts gives you access to over 200km of pistes and a great variety of runs for downhill or cross-country skiing. There is something for every level with gentle wide and easy beginners’ slopes to challenging black runs, all within a stone’s throw of one another. Each resort has its own ski school and the red-suited instructors offer enthusiastic group and individual tuition; be prepared to book in advance.
The skiing infrastructure is very well developed and there are plenty of lifts and cable cars to take you all over the resorts. The restaurants on the slopes serve fresh, wholesome food and with those spectacular mountain views you might find yourself unwittingly extending your lunch at the expense of your skiing.
La Clusaz has a particularly illustrious skiing heritage and can lay claim to grooming eight world champions in eight different disciplines from moguls to aerial and everything in between. Skiing is part of the local schools’ sports curriculum and so it’s not difficult to see why it’s such a breeding ground of talent.
Mountain fare
We based ourselves in La Clusaz. It’s a delightfully pretty village, which is gently elongated to be cradled by the valley, and a pleasure to explore on foot after an afternoon on the slopes. Mountain air calls for mountain fare – even after a big lunch – and there are plenty of excellent restaurants to choose from. L’Arbé, in the heart of the village, serves traditional Savoyard dishes in a wonderfully rustic, candlelit restaurant; local specialities include the ubiquitous tartiflette, a calorific and therefore particularly delicious concoction of Reblochon cheese, potatoes, bacon and onion.
We were also introduced to the rather more distinctive, la poêlée d’os. This is bone marrow, served almost as nature intended – that is to say, in a sawn-off length of bone – accompanied by sticky onion marmalade, coarse-grain salt and great hunks of grilled bread which is particularly good to share over an apéritif.
The Savoie wines are very good, with lots of dry fruity whites and easy-to-drink reds and you are also sure to encounter génépy, a locally produced plant-based spirit. Frequently served as a digestif or as an ingredient in regional cooking, it is said to have curative properties in staving off a cold should you be in need of an excuse to try it.
There is more to the Massif des Aravis than skiing though and the area is particularly good for snowshoeing or raquettes as it is known in French. Get hold of the impressively detailed and contoured map from the tourist office and the Aravis is your oyster. There are 29 marked paths of varying degrees of difficulty that you are free to explore at your own pace. All are given a snowshoe rating of between one and three according to the terrain and climb; you can choose from an easy half-an-hour stroll with a snowshoe rating of one or a five-and-a-half-hour trek that has a rating of three.
Snowshoes can be hired from several outlets throughout Aravis as well as walking boots, if necessary, and poles. Simply strap the tea-tray-like contraptions to your shoes at the toe and ankle and you are free to go. It is a particularly special way to see the mountains by night and there are organised evening excursions with a guide every Thursday if you don’t want to go it alone.
We snowshoed our way to the somewhat remote restaurant, the Camp de Base, halfway between Manigod and La Clusaz, for a memorable evening meal. An inky sky, rich with endless stars, illuminated the gentle 30-minute walk and oil lamps signalled our arrival at the extraordinary Camp de Base.
This, the latest venture from a quartet of entrepreneurial brothers, is quite an experience. An apéritif is served from the outside bar before you move through to the low-beamed restaurant where a veritable feast is served. Dish upon dish is brought forth: local Diot sausages in red wine, leeks cooked with cream, tartiflette, crozets pasta with yet more cream, cabbage cooked until soft and sweet with onion – it’s endless. And delicious. The welcome, the food, the wine and the surroundings all in the heart of the mountains make the walk home insignificant.
Wooden sleigh
Just down the road towards St-Jean-de-Sixt, you can turn your hand at dog sleighing with the soulful and free-spirited René. His extended family of huskies are a sight to see – not to mention hear – as they line up ready to go. They are thick-coated with piercing eyes and their excitement as René prepares their harnesses is deafening.
Not quite the gentle sleigh ride one might imagine – René’s mushing verges more towards an extreme sport. Two or three dogs are attached to a lightweight plastic and wooden sleigh and your job as musher is to hold on for dear life, shift your weight and apply the brake as necessary. It’s surprisingly demanding and seems to work all the muscles in your body but equally, it’s exhilarating flying over fresh snow and you can reach quite a speed.
As an alternative to travelling at breakneck speeds over snow, take a tour around a cheese farm in neighbouring Le Grand-Bornand. As with many of these mountain villages, geography dictates that there are two centres: Le Grand-Bornand Village and Le Grand-Bornand Chinaillon, further up the mountain. The old town of Chinaillon is charming and you are able to bear witness to the sympathetic development that has taken place over the years. It is difficult to distinguish the original Alpine chalets from the modern ones and traditional building methods have been adhered to for the large part. Of particular interest are the wooden tiled roofs. From a distance they resemble a slate-tiled roof and it is only when you get up close that you can see that the tiles are wooden. Two or three long wood lengths, weighted with stones, lie horizontally across the tiles as an added precaution against the elements.
We visited a family-run farm in between Le Grand-Bornand’s upper and lower villages. The farm produces the local cheese, Reblochon, that has appellation d’origine contrôlé status and so can only be made in designated areas within the department of Haute-Savoie but whose spiritual home is most definitely the Aravis.
The cheese is made from the unpasteurised milk of the Abondance cow in this case but can also come from two other breeds under AOC regulations. Abondances are particularly suited to the Alpine altitude and from May to September they graze high up on the lush mountain pasture. The cows are brought back down for the winter and the area still celebrates this, the transhumance, with a festival in its honour.
Reblochon is a strong and creamy cheese and is the signature ingredient in the local dish, tartiflette. The cheese’s name is derived from the ancient patois of the area. The peasants used to milk (blocher in patois) the cows but would not milk them completely dry, rather they would keep a little back in the cow. Once the milk had been collected they would go back and do a second milking (hence the re-) and use it to make cheese, the Reblochon, for themselves. Following an age-old tradition, the local producers still sell their Reblochon to individuals and wholesalers alike at the Wednesday market in Le Grand-Bornand.
Rustic earthenware
Le Grand-Bornand, just as La Clusaz, has its fair share of good restaurants and Au Bon Vieux Temps is certainly one of them. The restaurant’s unassuming façade gives no indication of the theatre that lies beyond and not until you are comfortably installed at heavy wooden tables does the fun begin.
The place settings are all laid with heavy, rustic earthenware and the menu is a thick slice of varnished wood with the writing etched in. When it comes to reading it, you will undoubtedly require a little assistance from the obliging and charismatic owners as much of it is written in patois and includes local specialities from years gone by.
Each option gets a careful and detailed explanation from the hands-on owners and other diners may well join in due in no small part to the intimate dining area.
Choose from pig’s cheek in red wine or farcement, a savoury suet pudding with dried fruits encased in bacon and potatoes, a favourite mountain Sunday lunch due to it taking three hours to cook. The perfectly pink beef we shared was served and carved before us at the table and our attentive hosts saw to it that we left extremely well-fed and equally well-informed.
This feeling of complete satisfaction is one that follows you around the Massif des Aravis. A popular resort with the French as well as neighbouring Europeans, there is a relaxed bonhomie that infuses your break; the simple mountain way of life continues happily alongside world-class skiing. Aravis is an intoxicating combination and you are sure to be planning your summer Alpine getaway here before you leave.