With the new Eurostar route to Lyon making French ski resorts more accessible by rail than ever before, we look at the practicalities – and benefits – of getting to Val d’Isere by train.

Val d'Isère's closest railway station is Bourg St Maurice, just 30 kilometres from the resort. I say “just” because transfers from airports to ski resorts is always long and often tiresome.

Every day throughout the winter a number of train services, including the Eurostar, arrive from London into Bourg St Maurice train station. From here, eager skiers and boarders can easily hop on a bus or grab a taxi straight to Val d’Isere, avoiding spending hours in (and waiting around for) a transfer vehicle.

And isn’t travelling by train an altogether more relaxing and enjoyable way to get to a ski resort anyway? No travelling out of the city to reach your chosen airport. No having to arrive two hours before your departure time. No pesky airport queues, and (perhaps best of all) no oppressive baggage restrictions and extra charges to carry all that ski gear.
 

Travel by train and enjoy more time on the slopes above Tignes and Val. Image courtesy of Marc Baertsch on Flickr. 
 

Getting to Val d’Isere by train doesn’t even take as long as you might think. In fact, if travelling in the daytime, door to door, it takes little longer than flying. If you travel by night, you can usually wedge in an extra few days of piste time too.

Did I mention the scenery? Well, it’s decidedly better from a train window. If you’ve got kids, they’ll undoubtedly love riding the rail and watching all that foreign scenery unfold as you whizz by. (Kids also get some pretty hefty discounts on train fares, bringing the cost of your family ski holiday down all the more.)

Planet-lovers will also be pleased to learn that travelling by train is a far more sustainable way to reach your chosen ski resort, creating only a fraction of the emissions of flying or even driving.