Although I know the ski area pretty well, having taken my first steps on skis there many (many!) years ago and skied there quite a few times way back, I'd not been back for over a decade so it was interesting to see how it's changed.
Executive Summary :- great skiing, as always, and many incremental (some major) changes to lifts, road layouts, piste signage and so on over the years. If anything, it also felt "friendlier" than I remember it and we were made to feel welcome and got good service everywhere we went.
The Architecture!
Let's get this out of the way first... the main resort centres of Tignes Le Lac and Val Claret are unashamedly purpose-built and, for ski resorts, quite "high rise" in parts.
BUT... thanks in part to judicious refurbishment and the use of stone and wood cladding, the buildings don't look out of place and (read this in the voice of Kevin McCloud) they do have an integrity with their surroundings.
Tignes Le Lac viewed from across the lake, from where you can see the lines of the buildings follow the lines of the landscape...
The impressive Tignespace sports centre, reflecting the surrounds.
The Ski Area
The ski area is huge and varied, with many runs having quite individual characters and almost all levels of skier are well catered for.
The only exception, in our opinion, might be beginners looking to stretch their legs; the less confident might find the progression from the nursery slopes to the Blues a little bit of a challenge here. That said, once that step is made there are long and winding Blues connecting all areas of the resort and an early intermediate will enjoy building confidence (and should progress rapidly) on these.
Beyond that level, it just gets better and better... challenging Reds, proper Black runs and interesting Itinerary routes (always read the piste map; some of these do NOT end at lifts and will need a walk or a bus to get back from!). The off-piste is immense.
If that's not enough, it's easy to drop next door to Val d'Isere and explore there.
The views don't come much better than from the top of The Grande Motte
On a clear day you can see forever... I think that's Mount Everest, K2 and probably Olympus Mons in the background...
Lifts and Queues
The majority of lifts are modern and fast, with the odd old-style exception still providing calf-banging excitement and scary take-offs for the faint-hearted...
It was a quiet week (we're pretty much hooked on coming out at this time of year - the week before Xmas), so very often the queues at the lifts looked like this...
The only tip we'd offer for the lifts is to beware the "interleaved" chair-lift, with two separate sets of gates, at the top end of Val Claret (Bollin) which serves two different arrival points by peeling every other chair off the line at a mid-point. This did provide great amusement as a certain teenaged member of our party loudly argued with us that both lift queues obviously went to the same place and he was going to go in the other queue to prove it... we waved goodbye at the mid-point as he continued off up the mountain. :lol:
Another run, another crowded piste...
There are more pictures, and some reports of the snow in our other posts from the week :-
Various posts from Tignes, Les Arcs and Val d'Isere in Snow Reports from Ski Resorts
Mountain Story - rebooted Ski Hire in Tignes Le Lac
Sleeping, Eating
We stayed in Tignes Le Lac with Ski Bonjour, who we're happy to recommend as a good value option. The chalet is a little tired, but they highlight this and the prices reflect that fairly. The team there looked after us very well - especially Max the Chef!
For our "chalet staff night off" meal we ate in l'Arbina at the centre of Le Lac and had an excellent meal and great service. For other snack stops and lunches we used the Sandwicherie of the Sherpa supermarket a few times; which was really excellent value for an interesting selection of sandwiches, wraps, patisserie and "chicken and chips"!
On-mountain prices were pricier but not outrageous, with the possible exception of the Tovieres restaurant which we did think was expensive although the food was good.
Skis
Our skis for the week were from Mountain Story in Le Lac (see post linked above).