Brides les Bains

The praise is for the cheapest way into the Three Valleys: lodging and food cost noticeably less than in Meribel, and the Olympe gondola leaves from the middle of the village. People value the train approach via Moutiers, the thermal baths and the walking trails for non-skiers, and the fact that you can ski back down to the village at the end of the day.

The commute draws criticism: the advertised twenty-odd minutes stretch to around forty in practice because of the two intermediate stations, and that eats into every day. The last cabin down from Meribel goes shortly after five, so the day has to be built around it, and the gondola sometimes opens a week later than the rest of the area. Complaints cover thin snow low down early in the season, no ski-in/ski-out, almost no nightlife and no evening buses, and a village that is an ordinary spa town rather than an alpine one.