It's a long way to drive to the French Alps, but if there are a couple of drivers it's not a bad way to travel. You have all your things there at hand, you can carry far more stuff and you don't have to suffer the hell that is airports and air travel. Of course, there are French farmers blocking roads and French fishermen blocking ports from time to time, but that is temporary hell - airport hell is permanent.
For Sam, Lucy and I, travelling by car meant an early start - 4am from London, so that we could get the 6.40am ferry from Dover. Sam drove and we got there in good time. It was quite foggy as we approached the coast and for the whole of the crossing. It was a bit slower than we expected, probably because of the fog, and we lost about 30 minutes.
In France, the drive was pretty uneventful. It always amazes me what a massive country France is compared with England and how much countryside and farmland there is. It was the usual Autoroute south, starting through the First World War battlefields, past St Quentin, Laon and heading for Dijon then Chalon Macon. We cut through the French Jura, heading towards Geneva, but turned south before the Swiss border for Annency, Chambery, Albertville. Moutier and Bourg-Saint-Maurice. The cost in tolls was about 75 Euros.
Apart from a short drive in London and the last 10 miles, it was motorway or dual-carriageway all the way. We stopped only for petrol (twice) and Sam's car does around 300 miles before it needs filling. I calculated we were getting 35mpg and with an 11 gallon tank, we would have a range of around 380 miles, but we went by the petrol gauge, which is clearly set to allow a good margin and to encourage you not to run out of fuel.
We were making really good progress until we hit some minor delays in the Jura, but we got going again and it was easy running past Chambery when things slowed down again. The last section of the journey is up the Isere Valley on the N90 and this is the route to the most popular ski areas in France - Val d'Isere, Tignes, Les Arcs, La Plagne, Courcheval, Meribel and Val Thorens. Consequently, it being French half-term, the road was exteremely busy. We were stop start past Albertville to Moutiers and, after Moutiers, the last 10 miles were a real crawl.
We had hoped to get to the apartment before dark, but that hope was soon dashed and Sam was doing a lot of map peering while I drove. We were looking for a road up to the left before Bourg where we could cut across. The map we had was a pretty poor copy and when we did turn off, we made a mistake of turning left too soon because a road was only feintly marked. We soon realised the mistake, but the road we were on (to a place called Vulmix) was steep and narrow and with snow and a drop on one side or the other, it was a while before we could turn. Back we went and found the road up to Villaret de la Rosiere. It was pitch black by now and the road hairpinned up the mountain with a steep drop into the blackness, but we came into the village, which is tiny and built either side of a steep central road. Sam couldn't work out the instructions and they made sense only after you'd done the journey and in daylight. Basically, the further into the village you went, the steeper and narrower the road became. The last bit was a first gear job and the road wide enough for just one car. Then the road turned sharp left and the gradient increased still further. At this point, there was a small space to the right where you could park a car, but no barrier and a drop of some hundreds of feet. Sam got out of the car to have a scout and soon came back to say the apartment was just round the steep bend. At this point, it would be remiss of me not to mention that in the act of doing a hill start on a 1 in 3 and trying to let a Frenchman in a 4x4 get past, I put a minor scratch on Sam's nearside rear bumper where the car was backed against a wall in the pitch darkness.
Anyway, we were there! The apartment was very nice and we were greeted by a very thin border collie from the adjoining farm. She was called Maurice (by Lucy) and we soon found she was top dog of a pack of collies which became regular visitors. It's surprising how a description of a place can be misleading. Sam is thinking of renting this place long term, so that he can spend six months in France for the ski season. He thought it was just outside Bourg-Saint-Maurice (which it is), but he didn't know it was 500 feet above it reached by a road that would be scary for a lot of people in summer and would be mighty scary with a frost or snow (not unknown in these parts). I did find a path down to Bourg later in the week, but it would be a hard route in the dark and snow and quite a climb as well.
Anyway, we were here, unpacked, comfortable and ready for our holiday.
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