 Poster: A snowHead
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| colin_g wrote: |
Not been to that many places but for pure ugliness it's got to be Alpe d'Huez or Les Menuires.
At least Menuires doesn't pretend to be pretty.. |
In fairness to ADH, while not the prettiest, IMHO its a long way off the ugliest ski resort in france. I think Flaine, les Menuires, Val Thorens, Tignes are some way ahead in the absence of charm criteria
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I haven't been to that many places, but I'd definitely put in a vote for Alpe d'Huez with Tignes running it a close second. Neither are picturesque, but the Alpe is pretty bleak.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Bode Swiller wrote: |
| Aviemore Centre was never too pretty |
At least its got one grand building in it - the Cairngorm Hotel, and some decent houses that aint hideously out of keping.
Id swap you Aviemore for any number of French carbuncles, esp Tignes, and some of the over twee obviously purpose built Canadian resorts.
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Not just French resorts (where my vote would be for Les Menuires) - Cervinia is another ugly resort.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Flaine for me. Winter or Summer. The consolation as many have said is that has great skiing and convenience. Give me this over the other option of commuting best part of an hour to get onto the planks. Mind you the place I am thinking of is one of the most beautifu alpine towns with spectacular scenery. 
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I am generally quite impressed with the often innovative French architecture. They are always game for trying something new on the design front.
In retrospect we decry these once cutting edge designs, but really now we ought to be a little more open minded and try to see these buildings how they were originally intended to appear - as radical design concepts in tune with their environment.
If anything I would rather see a 21st century version of Tignes or Flaine or any of the others at Les Menuires rather than a mock tyrolean or mock anything.
At the very least these "ugly" resorts are authentic.
(Rant over) 
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Kaiser, I bet most folks' main grumble against such architecture is that the rooms tend to be too small.
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Kaiser, with you all the way. I like geniunely pretty resorts, but mock pretty resorts ar egrim. Vail is the worst I've seen, but Meribel is pretty depressing. Tignes looks OK to me given where it is; it might be aesthetically better to have nothing built there, but I'd rather have bleak architecture in bleak surroundings than dreary little wooden buildings.
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Helen Beaumont, I think that if you had stayed at the Hotel Aujon you might wish that it had disappeared.
I am not so sure about Tignes looking ugly; I have a very nice picture of Val Claret (admittedly from a distance) set as my desktop.
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My vote would go for Puy St Vincent, the little resort that's held the ESC Championships the last couple years. Some nice skiing through the trees, but at the end of almost every run you see this huge concrete eye-sore in front of you spoiling what would otherwise be a beautiful place:
http://www.snowbizz.co.uk/resort.htm
Oddly, the resort seem proud enough of it to put it on all of their postcards!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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iblair, given that you have to accomodate the customers somewhere, what style would you prefer?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Frosty the Snowman, I hear them on the room size, but I do think they still represent value for money if not booked as part of a package, ie through the resort website or one of the independent agences immobliers.
Ultimately I do all cooking and sleeping and a lot of eating there at maximum occupancy and other than a few shocking experiences with overactive bowels at inopportune moments.
I am not aware of many apartments where there is serious mog-rotational viability - do you?
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richmond, this year they seem to have added some much nice wooded/wood clad smaller appartment blocks, so hopefully the concrete council flats will go soon 
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You know it makes sense.
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| Kaiser wrote: |
| mog-rotational viability |
Is that a Friday afternoon question or what? 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I don't know? Is it?
I thought everyone knew that term! 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Bansko looks like a cross between a bomb site and a building site and the roads are ridiculous! even 4X4s tread carefully. Its cheap and the skiing is reasonable if limited compared to big re sorts in France etc.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Bode Swiller wrote: |
| For me it's a close call between Flaine and Les Menuires.. |
I think Flaine, whilst having dreary concrete buildings, nestles in a beautiful valley, whilst Les Menuires just looks like Benidorm with snow snow sprinkled around it - and what is that church spire made out of meccano 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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It all comes down to IMHO that the French had a style bypass in the 60's / 70's and it was only in the mid 80's that they found the legendary French style again and started trying to put some of their mistake right .. even if it is a bit choclate boxy at times!
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The French have had a long love affair with concrete which has always puzzled me. Still, as I've said, anything's better than Meribel, aesthetically.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| richmond wrote: |
| The French have had a long love affair with concrete which has always puzzled me. Still, as I've said, anything's better than Meribel, aesthetically. |
Le Corbusier perchance?
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bh1, yes indeed, but whether he was the cause or a symptom, I don't know. It can look great, but often it doesn't; concrete telegraph poles down every street in an otherwise picturesque village, for example.
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I really don't mind the modernism of Flaine but like a couple of others above I find the 'mock' period resorts like Arc 1950 terribly twee. It all looks a but like Disneyland to me. I find Tignes or Les Menuires the ugliest of all though.
Paul
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| bh1 wrote: |
| richmond wrote: |
| The French have had a long love affair with concrete which has always puzzled me. Still, as I've said, anything's better than Meribel, aesthetically. |
Le Corbusier perchance? |
Does it have a good snow record?
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| velodocuk wrote: |
| I really don't mind the modernism of Flaine but like a couple of others above I find the 'mock' period resorts like Arc 1950 terribly twee. It all looks a but like Disneyland to me. |
I know what you mean, although I think it is considerably nicer than its nextdoor neighbour Arc 2000. I think there would a justifiable outcry if Intrawest built something like Arc 1950 in the middle of a traditional Austrian or Swiss ski village, but to my eye at least development like this a step towards making the purpose-built resorts in France a bit less unattractive.
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La Thuille - a quaint, Italian, moutain village dominated by one vile 1960's style hotel. Getting planning permission for the Plannibel complex must have taken an awful lot of backhanders to local councillors.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Clive, if you think La Thuile is ugly then you can't have visited many ski resorts. Get real.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Nick L wrote: |
| Helen Beaumont, I think that if you had stayed at the Hotel Aujon you might wish that it had disappeared. |
Fortunately, we stayed in Les Lindars which then became Club Aquarius/Club Med.
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The first purpose built French resort I skied in was La Plagne. I can remember sitting on the coach, chugging up the road & being completely horrified by the buildings I could see! I think I've become immune to them now! Just focus on the snow...
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You know it makes sense.
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| sazza42 wrote: |
| The first purpose built French resort I skied in was La Plagne. I can remember sitting on the coach, chugging up the road & being completely horrified by the buildings I could see! I think I've become immune to them now! Just focus on the snow... |
best way I think! I've been to a fair mix of lovely and shocking resorts now and tbh I would rather stay in an ugly, older (but probabaly larger) hotel room/apartment and pay less than fork out a tonne of cash just to look at the architecture...which I'm not there to do....
If it's pretty: bonus, if it's not: not a dealbreaker!
Tignes for example is one of my favourite ski areas in france but it's renowned for being a bit of a concrete jungle. Dont really care! Each to their own though
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Zermatt
Typical Swiss , copying their designs from Chocolate boxes .
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Poster: A snowHead
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La Plagne (that monstrosity that was designed to look like ship!) closely followed by Les Menuires.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well i reckon some of you are looking at the wrong things.
I don't look at the buildings - i look up at the snowy mountains.
All resorts i've been too look lovely in the snow.
Even Les Menuires. Even Plagne Centre.
(sorry about setting off that buzzer again @RG )
If the pistes are all snowy-white, who cares what the building look like?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Plagne Centre has actually had a makeover at one stage. It used to be all concrete and they decided to put some wooden facing about. Bellecote was, for many years the prettier sister.
Aime La Plagne however takes some beating. I once read a La PLagne brochure describing it as like a sailing ship with it's majestic sails sweeping through the mountain. The reality is a cocktail of a Sheffield housing development / Coventry post war/ Brazilian Shanty town.
http://www.laplagne-immobilier.com/en/rentals/aime-2000-resort/aime-la-plagne.htm
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Bode Swiller wrote: |
| Aviemore Centre was never too pretty |
Probably true but the question was about ski resorts...
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I am going to it next Sunday -its called Tignes - fortunately we have other trips planned later in the season, Zermatt and Ischgl - far easier on the eye
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Although it's low (non-existent) on my list of priorities I headed to Val Thorens last year expecting it to be pretty horrid. I didn't find it to be the case at all, plenty of newer chalet looking buildings no real high rise concrete structures I can recall. I was up the top end-Hotel Tango. Les Menuires on the other hand did look Fugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
Nicest? I liked a snowy Kitzbuhel and Courmayeur of the ones of been to so far.
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| Bene wrote: |
Although it's low (non-existent) on my list of priorities I headed to Val Thorens last year expecting it to be pretty horrid. I didn't find it to be the case at all, plenty of newer chalet looking buildings no real high rise concrete structures I can recall. I was up the top end-Hotel Tango. Les Menuires on the other hand did look Fugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
Nicest? I liked a snowy Kitzbuhel and Courmayeur of the ones of been to so far. |
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Wengen must be up there for one of the prettiest?
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I find the buildings at Aime La Plagne to be magnificent. If you catch it in the right light coming from the Plagne Centre area, you can suddenly see what it is about. In the late afternoon, its shadow echoes the shadows of the mountains and you understand what the architect was seeing. Give it a try. It was also, I believe the first building in the world to have full disabled access. Anyting in a mountain environment will be an intrusion. It needs to say something. For me, it does.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Flaine is ok until you go into the shopping area, or to catch the lift up to the Foret. Then it resembles a British multi story car park.
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| hedley wrote: |
| Bene wrote: |
Although it's low (non-existent) on my list of priorities I headed to Val Thorens last year expecting it to be pretty horrid. I didn't find it to be the case at all, plenty of newer chalet looking buildings no real high rise concrete structures I can recall. I was up the top end-Hotel Tango. Les Menuires on the other hand did look Fugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.
Nicest? I liked a snowy Kitzbuhel and Courmayeur of the ones of been to so far. |
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Wengen must be up there for one of the prettiest? |
It may be but I've not been.
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