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Clockwise from left: Tyrolienne Varet; Mini Quad 25; waterpark, Bourg Saint Maurice
French activity instructors told me, a dream factory for kids. As well as rising early, so families can pack as much in as possible in summer, Les Arcs goes to bed early. By 7pm, our kids were exhausted and so were we (the first day’s agenda? Archery, trampolines, an inflatables park, the Go Ape course, mini golf, then the outdoor water slide at La Piscine). By 8pm, my reward was a drowsy bottle of red and a heavy-lidded view of Mont Blanc across the Upper Tarentaise Valley, as it lit up from our fifth-floor balcony. By 9pm, everyone was snoring. We stayed in main hub Arc 1800 at Le Roselend, a self- catering apartment block with an American cowboy vibe, run by Pierre & Vacances, and it became the hub of our life for a week. The original architectural idea behind Arc 1800 was affordable mega-apartments for low-budget holidaymakers, and we thought so much of its family-first, easy-on-the-wallet concept, we’re hoping to stay again this year. It’s a cliché that the French know how to do family holidays well, but clichéd as it is, our days flashed by at such a pace there was no talk of TV, iPads, or screen time. In a nutshell, parental bliss. Before going, I’d recommend buying a multi-activity Hero Pass for your kids, giving them access to a raft of 30-odd activities. Some require a reservation in advance, like the high ropes course, but otherwise the red-and-white lanyards are a magic key to unlocking all sorts of pursuits. It felt like a Center Parcs, but one scattered across a near-vertical mountain range of climbing grasslands and plunging gullies. On our second day, things began to slow down, but only slightly. I wanted to get high — figuratively speaking — and preferably on a walking trail with a chough’s-eye view of the Aguille Rouge: the Shangri-La peak that tops out Les Arcs at 3,227m. Up there, I’d been told, we’d get a better sense of the
whole destination, away from the carousel of activities. And only once was there a gripe about going for a walk. Onto the Carreley chairlift, above the self-catering apartments, goat-filled pastures and treeline, we hopped off at the Col des Frettes, with its bumper 2,000m-plus views of rocky crags and the exaggerated pointy-ness of so many summits. It was comforting to see our kids scuttle off over the mountain saddle and down towards Arc 2000, along a helter skelter trail of loose stones. On reflection, there’s a chance it was the Haribo sugar rush and not the views, that got them moving so fast. All around were wildflowers and a handful of like-minded families, parents beaming, up in the high Alpine for a breather. Two marmots appeared along the track, took no notice of us, then continued on their day-to-day business, squirrelling obsessively in and out of their burrows. Another highlight was the mountain reservoir above Arc 2000: it glittered silver and the children were at their happiest “THE FRENCH KNOW HOW TO DO FAMILY HOLIDAYS WELL ”
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