More information - Montchavin - France

Montchavin and les Coches are neighbouring hamlets, often marketed as a single place - Montchavin - Les Coches. They are certainly easy to ski between, but Les Coches is 200 vertical metres further up the mountain so it's a bit of a walk if you're not on the ski lift or the free ski bus.Montchavin is one of the few traditional villages in the area and both centres are designed with traditional alpine wooden chalet style buildings, so are certainly amongst the most attractive and most genuine of the French resorts.The villages are part of the huge La Plagne ski area which has ten or so bases (depending on where you divide it up), seven of them are relatively close together purpose-built altitude centres, the other Plagne Montalbert is, like Montchavin - Les Coches - somewhat separate to the rest.The villages became a key part of a great pass with the opening of the Vanoise Express cable car - the world's largest, a 200 person double decker - which links the giant La Plagne ski area with neighbouring giant Les Arcs across the valley. The cable car access point is by Montchavin - Les Coches. The resulting ski area, Paradiski, is one of the world's biggest with more than 400km of piste.There is even a fourth dimension to extend the amazing ski potential these villages offer still further. The Savoy Olympic Ski pass is valid for a day in many famous ski areas in the region, together offering more than 1,500km (about 1,000 miles) of ski runs.

La Plagne's commitment to winter sports has long been evident with its own Club des Sports established in 1962 to encourage domestic talent. Famous Club members include Eric Labourex, five times Freestyle World Cup circuit winner) and most recently Jean Luc Crétier, winner of the Men's downhill at the Nagano Olympics. There are no less than 11 different Ecole de Ski Français operations in business from the different villages. Each offers a wide variety of tuition options but also individual schools have unique ideas. The ESF in Montchavin for example has a guided off-piste 'Ski total' course whilst Plagne Bellecôte's school has carving-ski courses.

At Aime la Plagne the 'Modern stages' package introduces students to the different modern methods of sliding as well as offering advice on improving technique and powder skiing. Apart from the ESF there are yet more choices the Oxygène school operating out of Plagne Centre or Eric Laboureix's 'El Pro' school. Evolution 2, based in Montchavin limits class sizes to 8 participants.