La Tania

La Tania is praised as an affordable base for the whole of the Trois Vallees: prices sit well below the rest of the region and the slopes of Courchevel and Meribel are just two lifts away, via the village gondola and a high-speed chair. The way home runs through the trees, which shelters you from wind and keeps the light usable when the upper mountain clouds over. The village is pedestrianised, so it is relaxed with children, and reviewers like the friendly, unsnobbish feel the bigger neighbours have lost.

The criticism is that there is barely any skiing of its own: local terrain is thin and everything depends on the single gondola out of the village, where a queue forms in the morning. The village is tiny, the bars can be counted on one hand and there is next to no nightlife. The nursery drag by the gondola is no good for a true beginner: it is fast and steep.