I tried the Cool Runnings-style bobsleigh track – and you can get there with £22 flights
HAVE you ever watched the Olympic bobsleigh and thought, “I would love to do that before I die”?
Well, in the French ski resort of La Plagne, you can.
In fact, “I would love to do that before I die” could be the motto for the giant family-friendly ski paradise in the snow-swept Alps.
Just a few hours by car from Geneva airport in Switzerland, La Plagne has 220km of ski tracks, including on a 3,250m-high glacier and among the woodland tracks in the village of Montchavin at 1,250m.
But it is not only skiing that this area has to offer.
It is home to France’s only bob-sleigh track, where you can exper-ience the pure thrill of screaming down an icy half-pipe at up to 80mph.
Immortalised in the 1993 film Cool Runnings — where an outsider Jamaican team go on a quest for Olympic glory — bobsleigh is one of the maddest and most brilliant sports you will ever experience.
Brave guests have the chance to crew a bob steered by Bruno Thomas, 54, who competed in France’s team in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
Over in just a matter of minutes, it beats any rollercoaster you can find.
But for those who want a more sedate experience of Alpine life, there is much else on offer too.
From electric mountain biking and sledging to snowshoe walks through stunning scenery and luxuriating in the spa, this resort has it all, alongside endless skiing or snowboarding, of course.
With stunning views across the valleys of Savoie to Mont Blanc, France’s highest mountain, you only have to look around and suck in the air to feel on top of the world.
I was staying in the 3* Eden des Cimes hotel in Belle Plagne, a charming village with restaurants serving the traditional calorie-boosting cheese fondues, raclettes, tartiflettes and pizza, washed down with wine and finished off with blueberry tart and the local herbal digestif genepi.
My trip, hosted by tour operator Sunweb, showed just how much you can pack in.
For an extra 25 euros on top of your ski pass, which is included in the cost of a holiday, visitors can head up the slopes before they open to the public and watch the sun rise to the sound of silence.
After a few runs in serene solitude, the guides drop you off at a piste-side restaurant for breakfast.
The area, which includes Les Arcs across the Vanoise Express cable car, has more than 400km of pistes.
And it caters for everyone, from the most wobbly-legged beginners to the more hardcore of back-country adventurers.
Our guide Bibi, a legendary ski instructor and gour-mande, treated us to a special lunch in a historic cabin which can only be reached by skis.
We were handed mojito cocktails, made using snow from the mountain, and a Savoie surf and turf (foie gras and salmon gravlax) followed by white sausage and pasta, set to a backdrop of Nineties pop tunes.
The boozy feast was enough to induce a coma but with the only exit option being to ski out of there, we jumped into our bindings and giggled as we set off through deep fresh powder across a narrow bridge over a glacial stream.
After a tiring but soul-quenching day’s skiing, the Arpette restaurant was an ideal spot to wind down in.
Guests can book the restaurant for private parties if they wish and enjoy the sumptuous Alpine decor, cool music and traditional dinner where you cook your own meat and veg on hot stones in the middle of the table.
You can even book a romantic post-dinner stay for two in a cabin under the stars on top of the mountain.
Manager Ben ended the evening by free-pouring genepi down our necks from a giant bottle topped with a silver stag’s head because, why not?
In La Plagne, you can do what you’d love to do.
GO: LA PLAGNE
GETTING THERE: easyJet flies from Gatwick to Geneva from £21.99 each way. See easyjet.com.
STAYING THERE: Seven nights’ half-board at Hotel L’Eden des Cimes Belle Plagne is from £667pp, based on two adults sharing double room and for arrival on March 31. See sunweb.co.uk.