Courchevel

Or in Saint-Martin or...

Even in Courchevel, there's live music happening every single day of the week through the winter.

And I think that that is also a driver now for people that want to go to these places because they want to party.

They want to ski and they want to party.

35 pounds each.

Oh, in like in Courchevel, it's like 30, 85, 90 euros.

That's cheap.

Yeah.

You know, in a typical apres bar, as a regular customer, somebody who's not living there, then you're going to be paying maybe 10 euros a pint.

In some more bougie places like Courchevel, you can be paying 21 euros per a pint if you get caught in the wrong town.

It's a very expensive part of the trip.

And I suppose that's really where you then have to really think, well, where am I going to get the most value? If I'm going to spend a thousand pounds on the bar, where could that money get me if I was to reinvest that back into my own experience? Could I stay in a nicer chalet? Could I have a more experiential trip like one of ours, for example? Could I...

Depending on the resort, that's at least 400 euros in the resort that we're in, in Meribel, in the three valleys.

That then gets you access to the entire three valleys.

So that's not just Meribel, but Courchevel, Val Therons, the other little mini towns in between, like La Tania and so on.

So you've got a huge amount of ski area.

And that is where you need to be very, very careful.

Because venturing across to Meribel and Courchevel brings you face to face with the single most expensive mistake in European skiing.

The dreaded last lift trap.

And if you get caught out, it will cost you an eye-watering amount of cash.

Crossing into the wider three valleys is the ultimate adventure.

You have 600 kilometres of interconnected runs and it is ridiculously easy to ski from Val Thorent, drop over the ridge into Meribel Motare and cruise all the way across to Courchevel 1650 for a coffee.

But that seamless connection is a double-edged sword.

People get completely carried away by the sheer scale of the map.

But, um, you can go to the Three Valleys if you want with this system as well.

Um, and, and I know you're a massive fan of Courchevel as well, and, and that's another experience, isn't it? You know, totally different to Val d'Isère.

Incredible skiing, like you've never-

Yeah

...

The skiing in Courchevel's amazing, but yeah.

Yeah.

I, I love the Three Valleys in general.

Take their holidays in 2025.

In January, they hit the slopes of Courchevel, where previously they have shared snaps taken in front of a $133 million chalet where they may have been staying.

Come summer, they flew a private jet to Greece where they bobbed around Kefalonia in a $38 million superyacht replete with its own pool, faux Greek columns and a Renaissance-style frescoed ceiling in the dining room.

Funnily enough, William and Kate didn't post a single image or video of any of these high-end holidays to social media, instead getting their professional social media team to put out videos of them JLU-ing on a bland bit of Norfolk beach or enjoying a windswept bit of Cornish coastline.

The accepted wisdom across the Alps in the late '60s was that 1,800 meters was the absolute ceiling for human holidaymakers.

Places like Courchevel 1850 and Avoriaz were considered the edge of the world.

The banks and private investors laughed in Schneebelen's face.

They told him it was far too cold.