All aboard the snow train! Skiers looking to hit the slopes without the guilt trip of yet another short-haul flight now have the option of a straightforward rail journey from London to the Alps once again. The Eurostar service to Bourg-St-Maurice gets you to within a 40-minute drive of resorts beloved by Brits including Tignes, Val d’Isère and Les Arcs.
I joined hundreds of holidaymakers at St Pancras International for the 9.01am train which delivered us all to the mountains in time for dinner.
The daytime snow train’s relaunch for the first time since the pandemic is a welcome return for those who can’t resist the lure of a winter escape but want to leave behind the smallest possible carbon footprint.
It offers a refreshing change from hours staring at the walls in an airport departure lounge as you instead watch the French landscape whizzing past you gradually become more alpine by the mile.
And when you switch to a rebranded Thalys train at Lille for the second leg of the journey, you can take it all in from the comfort of reclining red cushioned seats which could have been salvaged from an old independent cinema.
Snow train holidays can be booked as a package through ski trip specialists Inghams who hosted me on my journey to Tignes in the French Alps.
Inghams are encouraging customers to let the train take the strain to 18 resorts across France, Switzerland and Austria including Courchevel, St Moritz and St. Anton.
We stayed at their cosy Hotel Rosset in Tignes where their focus on sustainability extended to the removal of all single-use plastics and giving staff branded jackets made using recycled PET bottles.
In an effort to drive down food waste, they have brought in a new system where guests pre order and the ingredients needed are calculated down to the nearest gram.
There is a real focus on locally sourced produce and they have increased the number of vegetarian dishes while reducing the amount of higher carbon meat on offer to make their menus as sustainable as possible.
Tignes’ high altitude means it enjoys more reliable snow for more of the season than lower lying resorts and it is also blessed with easy access to the picturesque pistes of neighbouring Val d’Isère.
Our mountain guide was the former World Cup alpine racer and Inghams ambassador, Chemmy Alcott, widely regarded as Britain’s most successful female skier.
The four-time Team GB Winter Olympian was great company, even if she was soon barely a blur on the distant horizon for me.
