| Ski Les Deux Alpes! www.alpine-hideout.co.uk |
| Getting there:
Les 2 Alpes lies approximtely 90 minutes by road east of Grenoble airport, or 2 hours from Lyon along the autoroute to Grenoble and then up the N91 mountain road in the direction of Briancon. I have found the simplest method of travel is to fly to Grenoble or Lyon and hire a car from there, although obviously you could drive all the way from Calais (10 hours at a leisurely pace including stops). Also, the TGV/Eurostar provides an excellent service via the Channel Tunnel. It's comparable to the aeroplane when you consider price and all-in journey times, particularly if you live in the South East and can get to St Pancras/Ashford/Ebbsfleet.
Flights: www.ba.com for flights to Lyon from various UK airports. Booking online is often comparable in price to Easyjet/Ryanair when booked well in advance, and 100 times more civilised! www.easyjet.com for flights to Grenoble and Lyon from Luton or Gatwick and from Stansted to Lyon. This season, Gatwick-Grenoble involves a crack of dawn departure, which means you can be skiing at lunchtime on the day you arrive! Alternative, a 6.30pm flight makes for an arrival in resort about 11.30pm www.ryanair.com fly from Stansted to Grenoble, with mid-morning departure times. www.gatwick-airport-guide.co.uk and www.stansted-airport-guide.co.ukprovide all the information you need about how to get to these two airports.
Rail: www.raileurope.co.uk will sell you tickets for Eurostar/TGV, from either St Pancras, Ebbsfleet or Ashford to Lyon Part Dieu or Grenoble. You generally change at Lille for the TGV to Lyon/Grenoble, or you can go via Paris and have lunch somewhere nice between the Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est. Alternatively, take the RailEurope overnight sleeper to Chambery from St Pancras, using Eurostar to Paris Gare du Nord early in the evening, and then the sleeper (complete with bar and disco carriage!) to Chambery. You get about 1hr40 to mill around Gare du Nord - enough time for a bit of dinner - and the porters will trolley your luggage from the Eurostar platform and onto your sleeper for you. This is a great way to travel, and I think it's far more enjoyable than the plane. From Chambery station (arr 0633 on a Saturday morning), you can then catch a local train to Grenoble (dep 0649, arr 0735), followed by VfD (Transisere) bus up to L2A (dep Grenoble Gare 0805, arr L2A 0940). Also, SNCF run a nightly sleeper train from Paris to Briancon, from where it is a spectacular 1hr drive over the Col de Lauteret to Les 2 Alpes. To my knowledge there are no direct public bus services from Briancon to Les 2 Alpes, which is a shame.
Car hire: www.carhiresearch.co.uk will find you the cheapest airport deals, I have found. They will also do a price search for railway station pick-up.
Bus transfer: If you use Lyon St Exupery airport (previously called Satolas), www.satobus-alpes.com run a direct service to Les 2 Alpes from the airport. From Grenoble St Geoirs airport, www.grenoble-airport.com provide a bus to Grenoble central railway/bus station, from where regional bus company www.transisere.fr go direct to Les 2 Alpes (Line 3030). www.bensbus.co.uk does minibus transfers from Grenoble airport to L2A, too.
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