Saint Martin de Belleville

Saint Martin de Belleville, France

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Saint Martin de Belleville

An authentic Savoyard village which upholds its culture and traditions, but is lift-linked to Les Trois Vallées - the world's most extensive truly lift-linked skiing area. Saint Martin is characterised by narrow streets of stone and wooden houses with slate rooves. The local cheeses are Tomme, Sérac de Chèvre and Beaufort.

Summary

The French ski resort of Saint Martin de Belleville is in the French Alps at an altitude of 1,450m4,757ft, with 160km99 miles of marked runs.

Saint Martin de Belleville is part of the Three Valleys ski area with access to 600km373 miles of downhill skiing, with 497 marked pistes, served by a total of 180 ski lifts. In addition to the skiing in Saint Martin de Belleville itself (160km99 miles of pisted ski runs), the appropriate ski Lift Pass will allow you to ski or snowboard in the other Three Valleys ski resorts of Courchevel, La Tania, Les Menuires, Méribel and Val Thorens.

With ski lifts as high as 3,200m10,499ft, skiing and snowboarding is assured throughout the season.

Ski Area Stats

Saint Martin de Belleville Overview

Saint Martin de Belleville, a traditional villae of stone, wood and slate and centred on its historic Baroque church is a real postcard savoyard village. Unlike most of the other centres in the 3 Valleys, it has not been purpose built nor expanded excessively to meet tourist demand. However, at 1450m, it is a very high village by the standards of traditional mountain communities. Yet despite its long history the resort is well linkeds in to the vast 3 Valleys, the world's largest lift-linked ski area, by state of the art lifts.

Slowly but surely, Saint Martin has made a name for itself, a few kilometres down the valley from its bigger neighbours, purpose-built Les Menuires and Val Thorens, the highest resort in Europe. The local Patois language is still spoken here by some of the older members of the community and a group of locals have recently created a dictionary of the local dialect to ensure the language is not forgotten.

 Notable Ski Runs

The longest possible descent in Saint Martin de Belleville is 8km5 miles long and the most difficult run is the 'Lacroix', which is 2km1 miles in length.

Skiing

Saint Martin de Belleville's ski area, shared with it's neighbours Ls Menuires and Val Thorens up the valley, are part of the huge 3 Vallées, the biggest ski area in the world with over 600 kms of pistes and 200 ski lifts. The 3 Vallées offers not only the largest number of pistes but also a wide range of terrain spread over an area of 1400 km2. The sheer size of the area means skiers can follow the sun throughout the day.

La Tougnète (2430 m) can be reached directly from Saint Martin de Belleville with the Saint Martin cable car followed by the Saint Martin chairlift. Using this great access point into the 3 Vallées ski area, skiers can ski down to Les Menuires, turn towards Méribel, or ski down to Saint Martin.

From Les Menuires the skiing at Le Mont de la Chambre (2850m) offers a wide range of pistes and opens up the link to Méribel and Val Thorens. Secondly La Pointe de la Masse (2800m) is suited to good skiers. From the top you can access several mythical off piste itineraries (Lac du Lou, Col de la Fenêtre or Vallée des Encombres).

The huge snowfield between St Martin and Les Menuires has seen a great deal of upgrading in recent years. The two Mont de la Chambre chair lifts were added in 2001, the Saint Martin cable car in 2002 and the six-seater easy access Becca chairlift in 2003, and in 2004 another new six seater covered chairlift Les Granges replaced two draglifts Le Grand Lac and Les Choumes. The old Chef Lieu draglift in the centre of Saint Martin was also replaced in 2004 by a rolling draglift. The new ski lift, called the Village draglift, offers greater safety and a gentler start than its predecessor and the Roc des 3 Nanches II replaced the old Auamando Chairlift.

The French Ski School has around 20 ski instructors based in the village. Specially trained to teach all snow sports, the school offers group or private lessons, alpine, nordic, snowboard, free-ride and off piste courses.

There are 28 kms of cross country ski pistes winding along through the woods of the Vallée des Belleville. Starting from the village, cross country skiers can visit the hamlets of Le Bettex, Praranger or Saint Marcel on their way as well as the Burdin Mill.

Saint Martin de Belleville offers good sking, particularly, for Expert and Intermediate skiers.

Snowboarding

The French Ski School gives six day intensive courses dedicated to snowboarding, free-ride, or off-piste, following safety rules and respecting other riders.

For fans of jumps and other figures, the Becca snow-cross has two fun zones, each for a different standard of skiing or snowboarding:

-an experts area, with a boardercross (raised bends), whoops, a zone with four slides and hand rails, as well as four big airs [two reds, two blacks]

-a new boardercross accessible to everyone

-a learning area full of beginner modules, ideal for learning in complete security.

Competitions are also regularly organised by the two permanent supervisors.

Aprés Ski

Apres ski options naturally tend to be quieter here than at most of the other resorts on the 3 Valleys. However if you do fancy a night out there are several option including a piano bar and a pub with occasional live music.

Classical music or jazz or blues concerts are organised in the evening several times a month, in the Saint Martin parish church.