Val d’Isère is one of the world’s best resorts for experts – attracted by the extent of lift-served off-slope – and for confident, mileage-hungry intermediates. But you don’t have to be particularly adventurous to enjoy the resort, and the village ambience has improved greatly in recent years.

The list of drawbacks below looks long, but they are mainly petty complaints, whereas the plus-points are mainly things that weigh heavily in the balance, for us and for those who send us reports. The last of them – the clear recent improvements in slope grooming and lift staff attitudes – is as welcome as it is surprising. If the lift company would make a serious attempt to classify its runs sensibly, Val would make more friends than it does at present among nervous intermediates who panic on bump fields.

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