British skiers and snowboarders got a fright last winter. When the pound sank
beneath 1.10 to the euro and 1.70 to the Swiss franc, we woke up to the
horrors of high prices in the big-name ski resorts of the Alps.
Six quid for a beer, £15 for a plate of spaghetti and lift passes for £220
were not uncommon, and the old faithfuls such as Val
d’Isère, Verbier
and St
Anton suddenly didn’t seem quite so faithful any more.
This winter, many of us are casting about for alternatives, and suddenly the
bargain-basement destinations of Bulgaria and Andorra are back in the frame.
So what are they really like — and is there a way of holidaying cheaply in
the Alps that can match their prices? If you’ve been wondering, here are
your answers.
Bansko, Bulgaria
I skied Bansko
for the first time last winter, and in one important respect, I was
impressed.
The ski instructors are good. I’d still rather be taught by someone in the
Rockies or the Alps, but all the same, I found that Bulgarian tuition was
patient, painstaking and effective. You get a lot of it for your money, too.
When you sign up for a week of ski school — often as part of a tour-
operator’s “ski pack”, which includes lift pass and ski hire, and costs
£140-£180 — you commit to four hours a day, six days a week. In the Alps,
you get roughly half that.
It’s a good job there’s so much of it, though. Officially, Bansko’s ski area
offers 40 miles of pistes, but when I was there in January, several runs
were shut because of poor snow cover. Effectively, we had just three pistes
to play on. I’m glad we skied them one turn at a time, discussing technique
all the way down, otherwise I’d have chewed my arm off in frustration after
day one.
At least, up on the mountain, Bansko looked like a proper ski resort. Down
below, the new town is still a building site. It’s actually a suburb of old
Bansko and was thrown up in a frenzy of development during the bubble years.
Work has now ground to a halt, leaving plenty of abandoned, half-finished
apartment blocks.
The roads are strung with telegraph wires and, in one street, I could smell
the drains. You won’t want to go out much.
Yet, despite all the limitations, I met plenty of Brits who were on their
second or third holiday there.
In part, that was simply because of the low prices (see box), but there’s more
to it than that. Nothing is more satisfying than becoming a better skier —
not the food, not the drinks, not the size of your hotel room — and with so
much tuition on offer, improvement is pretty much a certainty. Clearly,
these Bansko loyalists are having too much fun to notice the unfinished
buildings.
Sample package: with Inghams (020 8780 4444, inghams.co.uk),
a week in the four-star Lion hotel, arriving on January 16, costs £355pp,
half-board, including flights and transfers. Or try Crystal (0871 231 2256, crystalski.co.uk).
Soldeu, Andorra
The Pyrenean principality of Andorra likes to think it has moved on from its
days as Europe’s bargain basement for skiers, and this is especially true of
Soldeu. Back in 2002, the resort joined forces with its neighbour, Pas de la
Casa, to create the Grandvalira mega-area. Together, they offer an
impressive 120 miles of pistes, spread out across a series of high and
undulating hills.
With this expansion has come a different set of aspirations. Soldeu is now
home to a five-star hotel and a vast four-storey spa, and thinks of the big
resorts in the Alps as its rivals, rather than Bulgaria. In some respects,
it has reason to.
If you’re the wobblier sort of intermediate, who’s looking for lots of
easy-going, confidence-boosting pistes to play on, it’s a good choice.
Beginners will like it, too. The ski school is run by an Englishman, and
there’s a good, flattish plateau halfway up the slopes offering snowsure
nursery areas to practise on. All-in-one beginner packages offering a local
lift pass, five half-days of tuition and equipment cost about £200pp a week.
Just don’t come expecting Alpine sophistication or visual drama. There’s
nothing to see here to match the likes of Mont Blanc or the Matterhorn, and
the fact that the main road into France runs through the middle of the
village sucks away a good deal of charisma. Despite its ambitions, Soldeu
will always be B-list, but I think it’s better for it: less snobby, more
reasonably priced and offering good value for money.
Sample package: with Crystal (0871 231 2256, crystalski.co.uk),
one week, at the three-star Soldeu Maistre hotel, arriving on January 17,
costs £565pp, half-board, including flights and transfers. Or try Neilson
(0844 879 8155, neilson.co.uk).
Tignes, France
Can you still ski the best of the Alps if your budget is tighter than a
whalebone corset? The answer is yes — but only if you’re prepared to make
sacrifices.
I tested the theory in Tignes
last winter, at a time when the pound was at its lowest ebb: money-changers
at the airport were doing a straight swap — £1 for €1. It meant staying in
the cheapest self-catering flat, cooking all my own meals, eating out of a
rucksack at lunchtime and eschewing any kind of tuition.
It was hard work — but for someone like me, absolutely worth the sacrifices.
Tignes lies in the better half of one of the world’s best ski areas — the
Espace Killy — and offers a mouthwatering array of top-class slopes at every
level. Of course, my budget meant I couldn’t afford to hire a mountain
guide, so Tignes’s stupendous off-piste descents were out of the question.
But I still had 200 miles of A-grade pistes to play on.
What’s more, the flat, in the ageing, ugly Hameau du Borsat development, was
ski-in, ski-out. Each morning, I walked out of the back door, clicked into
my skis and I was off. Neither Bansko or Soldeu can match that. Nor can most
luxury ski hotels, for that matter.
This kind of holiday is not for everyone — particularly those who want
tuition, or for whom a ski holiday also means a holiday from cooking. But if
you’re a more advanced skier and you want to spend all day on the mountain,
then there really is no alternative.
Sample package: with Inghams (020 8780 4444, inghams.co.uk),
a week in a basic self-catering studio in the Hameau du Borsat, arriving on
January 16, costs £432pp, based on four sharing and including flights and
transfers. With Erna Low (0845 863 0525, www.ernalow.co.uk),
the same apartment costs £159pp, self-drive, including Eurotunnel crossings.
You’ll need to factor in about £100pp for fuel and tolls.
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