Méribel across the valley

Méribel is over the Saulire ridge from Courchevel, in the Vallée des Allues, and it looks different on purpose. The resort was laid out from the late 1930s onward with a planning rule that buildings be built in local stone and timber with pitched roofs, and the rule held: the whole valley reads as wood and slate rather than concrete, which is unusual for a French ski station of its size.

The frames are wide. From the pistes above the village you look down on chalets scattered across an open slope, dark conifers marking the boundaries, and the rock teeth of the Dent de Burgin closing the head of the valley. In good winter light with a blue sky it is the most conventionally beautiful view in the Three Valleys, and it is the one worth the lift ticket if you only take one.

Méribel-Mottaret, further up the valley, is more modern and sits higher; Les Allues, the old village lower down, keeps the original farms and a church. Any of the three works, and they are ten minutes apart by road.

Getting there from Courchevel is either the Saulire cable car and a walk on the far side, or about forty minutes by road down and around, so a session that wants Méribel properly needs the longer booking and a plan. Lift links close for weather and outside the winter season — check on the day rather than assuming the ridge is crossable.