SkiSpots Espace Killy
Specialist travel guidebook to 'The most beautiful ski area in the world'
by Francis Johnston (Published by Thomas Cook Publishing: ISBN 1-841575-11-9) UK £8.99 US $14.95
One of Snowsport's most mythical destinations, home to some of Europe's most extensive and most exciting ski terrain. The Espace Killy is the collective name for the combined ski areas of Tignes and Val d'Isère, which have been joined together since 1971 to form one of the world's largest lift- and piste-linked ski domains. The two resorts share the same mountains, but present two contrasting faces and provide two very different holiday experiences: Tignes, with its once futuristic huge apartment edifices, stark above-the-tree-line landscape and ski-to-door convenience; and Val d'Isère, with its more traditional character, upmarket ambiance and more human scale.
The area is situated at the top end of the Tarentaise Valley, in France's historically important and once independent Savoie region (Savoy in English), on the rugged natural frontier with Italy and at the gateway to France's premier national park, the wild and beautiful Vanoise. The Tarentaise is a snowsports super-region, and the drive up to the Espace Killy passes the road junctions for some of the world's other biggest names in snowsports, such as Les Trois Vallées and Paradiski. What inspires the snowsports cognoscenti to pass these by and continue on to the top of the valley? Part of the answer is in the question: as the highest resorts in the region, both Tignes and Val d'Isère are blessed with favourable microclimates that endow their slopes with the best quality snow, their high-altitude setting also means that the abundant quantity of snow also lasts longer once it's fallen. Both resorts also have access to glacial zones, permitting snowsports even during the summer, with Tignes open during all four seasons.
More Information:
- Savoie region
- Ski Area
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