When I first had the idea of taking a winter road trip through the Alps, I imagined snowy walks followed by fondue in the comfort of our van, feet warmed by 25kg of auburn fluff (it was to be our Irish setter’s first encounter with snow). Waking up to snowflakes on the skylight and the freedom of being able to go wherever we wanted. What I hadn’t quite pictured was spending our first night in a car park on the outskirts of a city, sandwiched between the medieval ramparts and a graveyard.
We were in Albertville, on the edge of the French Alps, in an enormous campervan that afforded theoretical freedom but size-induced restraints. Those born before the 1980s probably know Albertville as the home of the 1992 Winter Olympics, those born after may have passed it if heading for Chambéry for a ski trip. The new town of Albertville sprawls industrially through the valley, tower blocks overshadowed by snow-capped mountains, while the old town, known as Conflans, fortified and cobbled, is so pretty it looks like an illustration, and is home to more cats than a Greek island.
We live in Lyon, which means that you can be in the Alps in just two hours. My boyfriend and I had wanted to spend time in the mountains without leaving our dog behind. Most mountain chalets and hotels in France don’t accept dogs, and, even if they do, our particularly chewy dog isn’t one you want to leave alone in a luxury suite. So we decided to rent a campervan.
Val and I spend a disproportionate amount of time watching #vanlife reels on how to do up your own tiny van, so we were a little bemused by the swollen-looking campervan, the size of a minibus, that awaited us at the rental site. Two double beds, a shower, a fridge and a large living area – we could have taken several of our friends with us, and some four-legged friends for Ténor, too.
Put two novices, a large van and a lively dog into the equation, and the result becomes unpredictable. Our first mistake was thinking that we could simply download the free version of Park4Night (an app which shows car parks and campgrounds suitable for your vehicle) and hit the open road. We studied the map from a layby outside Lyon in confusion. Free parking spots in the Alps, in early March, for a vehicle of our size, were few and far between. Although we had our luxury hotel on wheels, #vanlife meant being cheap, so we were loathe to pay. A car park in Albertville it was.
The next morning we woke up to find that the heating had cut out during the night. We jabbed all of the buttons frantically and pored over the instruction manual as the campervan beeped angrily at us. At the risk of succumbing to frostbite (OK, just another uncomfortable night) we decided to ask the veterans. Our car park neighbour, a middle-aged French man, jumped aboard and explained how to check the battery levels, the reason for the shrill beeping (we hadn’t folded the step access), and gave us an insider’s tip. There was a great, cheap camper-van car park in the ski town of Les Saisies – and it doesn’t appear on Park4Night.
Armed with knowledge and flaky, pistachio pastries from Les Miches de Maman, we took Ténor to the old town, where he appreciated the cats much more than the panoramas from the old castle, or the art galleries, cheese shops and cobblers that fought for space on narrow streets. After stocking up on Savoyard wine from La Belle Échoppe, we decided to head to Megève for the day, a ski station that we’d read, for all its swankiness, was one of the most dog-friendly places in the Alps, with dogs allowed on all the ski lifts.
Megève’s little streets are very pretty, if you’re not driving a massive vehicle that hangs over the pavement edges like a muffin top. With a quiet, yet unmistakable crunch, Val reversed into a road sign, bending it in half so it gaped like a Venus flytrap. Our planned afternoon of snowshoeing in the mountains was replaced by roadside phone calls to Megève’s police station to confess our misdeeds. The amicable officer joked and said, “Not to worry, we’ll try to unfold it”, and we, two humans with tails between our legs, the dog still wagging his, made for Les Saisies.
We looped up the winding roads to the top, fortunately avoiding further brushes with road signs or any other obstacles, and at the entrance to the town were confronted by a surreal sight: a car park full of enormous campervans, some of which made ours look positively small, where people had set up deck chairs outside in the snow, and dogs were everywhere. It wasn’t free, but for the princely sum of €9 for 24 hours, we felt as though we were on to a winner. We squeezed into the last available space, I got the levelling ramps right on the third attempt, and, feeling as though we’d finally cracked van life, we headed into town to find beer and cheese for the fondue.
Les Saisies has been attracting skiers since the 1930s, and it’s a beginner’s paradise, the piste map so scored with blue that it looks like it’s covered in rivers. But with a badly behaved dog in tow, we were going snowshoeing.
The Tour du Chard du Beurre, a snowshoe hike up to a viewpoint straight from our car park, rapidly left the pistes behind, which was just as well. Ténor took to the snow right away (rolling in it, digging holes in it, chasing flakes), but the sight and sound of skis had the same effect on him as feeding a gremlin after midnight. Almost two hours of pine trees, very few people and the steady crunch of crampons on snow, and we arrived at Le Balcon du Mont Blanc, the viewpoint, to be blasted simultaneously by fierce panoramas of Mont Blanc and even fiercer winds that blew the dog’s balaclava straight out like a windsock. Down the mountain we went once more, snowshoes doing their best to combat Ténor’s newfound passion as a dogsled leader, as he towed us behind him.
Campervanning in the Alps in winter, particularly with four-legged company, requires more preparation than I’d anticipated. The more dog-friendly resorts, where they’re allowed on ski lifts, tend to be the larger stations, which are paradoxically the worst for a big campervan, because most of the car parks are underground and too low for large vehicles. Downloading paid versions of Waze and Park4Night, particularly if going on a longer trip, is worthwhile, a lesson learned the hard way by two #vanlife freeloaders.
Evenings spent creating our own heady cheese mix of abondance, beaufort and comté sourced fresh from the Coopérative de Beaufort (until the sink pipe broke and flooded the living room with diluted fondue water); a snow-globe scene of mountains and pines as we stuck our heads out of the skylight in the morning; and the scudding cloud inversions below us as we drank in the majesty of Mont Blanc – these were the things that made the misadventures worth it.
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