Transfer to Alps: The Essential European Ski Resort Guide
Oct 10, 2026 · 31 min · 10 segments
Welcome to Season 3 of Transfer to Alps! In our season premiere, hosts Liam and Chloe head to the roof of the European Alps: Val Thorens. Perched at a dizzying 2,300 metres at the very head of the…
Sitting at 2,300 meters, it is officially the highest ski resort in Europe.
When you drive up past Saint Martin de Belleville and Les Menuires, you leave the trees completely behind.
You enter this vast, stark, high-altitude amphitheater of rock, ice, and pure white snow that looks more like a lunar colony than a classic French village.
It genuinely does.
But what completely blows my mind is that 60 years ago there was absolutely nothing up here.
No roads, no chalets, not even a summer hut.
Back in the 1950s, the entire Belleville Valley was one of the poorest corners of the Savoie region.
It was on its knees, honestly.
The young people were abandoning the mountain farms in droves, heading down to the factories in Albertville and Chambery because you simply couldn't make a living farming cows on those steep slopes.
Villages were emptying out, schools were closing, and the valley was heading towards complete abandonment.
That was until the local mayor of Saint Martin de Belleville stepped in, a bloke named Joseph Fontanet.
He was a proper heavyweight, a wartime resistance hero, and a senior French government minister.
He looked at the emptying valley and decided the only thing that could save his community from extinction was winter tourism.
But while Les Menuires was being built, he crossed paths with a brilliant, totally uncompromising developer named Pierre Schneebelen.
Schneebelen was an engineer from the prestigious Arts et Metiers school, and he had already been involved in developing Tignes.
The man was an absolute visionary.
But to most people at the time, he sounded like a raving lunatic.
[laughs] They thought he had completely lost the plot.
Schneebelen looked up past Les Menuires right up to the head of the valley at 2,300 meters and said, "That is where we are going to build the real resort." At that time, nobody in Europe had ever dared build a permanent resort that high.
The accepted wisdom across the Alps in the late '60s was that 1,800 meters was the absolute ceiling for human holidaymakers.
The banks and private investors laughed in Schneebelen's face.
They told him it was far too cold.
Sitting at 2,300 meters, it is officially the highest ski resort in Europe.
When you drive up past Saint Martin de Belleville and Les Menuires, you leave the trees completely behind.
You enter this vast, stark, high-altitude amphitheater of rock, ice, and pure white snow that looks more like a lunar colony than a classic French village.
It genuinely does.
But what completely blows my mind is that 60 years ago there was absolutely nothing up here.
No roads, no chalets, not even a summer hut.
Back in the 1950s, the entire Belleville Valley was one of the poorest corners of the Savoie region.
It was on its knees, honestly.
The young people were abandoning the mountain farms in droves, heading down to the factories in Albertville and Chambery because you simply couldn't make a living farming cows on those steep slopes.
Villages were emptying out, schools were closing, and the valley was heading towards complete abandonment.
That was until the local mayor of Saint Martin de Belleville stepped in, a bloke named Joseph Fontanet.
He was a proper heavyweight, a wartime resistance hero, and a senior French government minister.
He looked at the emptying valley and decided the only thing that could save his community from extinction was winter tourism.
But while Les Menuires was being built, he crossed paths with a brilliant, totally uncompromising developer named Pierre Schneebelen.
Schneebelen was an engineer from the prestigious Arts et Metiers school, and he had already been involved in developing Tignes.
The man was an absolute visionary.
But to most people at the time, he sounded like a raving lunatic.
[laughs] They thought he had completely lost the plot.
Schneebelen looked up past Les Menuires right up to the head of the valley at 2,300 meters and said, "That is where we are going to build the real resort." At that time, nobody in Europe had ever dared build a permanent resort that high.
The accepted wisdom across the Alps in the late '60s was that 1,800 meters was the absolute ceiling for human holidaymakers.
The banks and private investors laughed in Schneebelen's face.
They told him it was far too cold.
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