An amazing weekend in Val d’Isère

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Put on your ski shoes, I’m taking you to Val d’Isère where the Boyfriend and I we spent an amazing weekend in the wonderful five star hotel Les Barmes de l’Ours.

First of all here this is the video of our weekend:

We never had the opportunity of skiing together before this day. Ski vacations are so expensive that I prefer to keep my money for summer, to the regret of the Boyfriend who were used to go skiing for the weekend whenever he wanted to (Milan is only 1h drive from the mountains).
A few years back when my father was still leaving in Croatia, I used to go skiing with my family in Slovenia while the Boyfriend was skiing in Italy.

In a few words, being able to ski together was just great and even more so in Val d’Isère, the best French ski resort! The ice on the cake: the amazing hotel we stayed in!

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Let’s start the visit with the spa, a 1000 SQM wellness space with 11 treatment booths, a hammam, 2 saunas, a jacuzzi and a pool under a starry sky.  I began my Saturday by a massage with Valmont products. I wish I could start my days like this every day and the jacuzzi with a snow view was just magical!  There is also an hair salon and for the most courageous ones a fitness room.  I don’t know about you but after skiing I’m so tired that I just can’t go to the gym.

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This hotel is just beautiful. It’s a luxury hotel but without being ostentatious, you have the advantages of luxury like the quality of service, the comfort or a refined decoration but without the disadvantage of being stiff. I’ve rarely felt comfortable in these kind of atmospheres so I was very happy of realizing that it wasn’t the case at all here, it even was the contrary. The atmosphere was very friendly, cosy and relaxed, I had the impression of being in a chalet with friends.  I love these different tones of wood with stone and animal skins, it’s a good illustration of a bear’s cave (in French “barmes de l’ours” means just that).

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Above you can see the smokehouse with this amazing idea of tree trunk on the ceiling and I absolutely love the bear armchairs!

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Let’s go see the rooms now. The 76 rooms and suites are distributed over 4 floors where each floor has its own identity. The 1st floor where we were was Scandinavian spirit, the 2nd: Lodge of the American great white North, the 3rd: Alpine chalet and the last one: contemporary.

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In one of the rooms we visited there was a jacuzzi on the terrace!

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And here it is our beautiful Scandinavian room with our bathroom!

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At the Barmes de l’Ours, bears are everywhere, even on slippers and room keys. Isn’t it cute?

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There are 3 restaurants inside the hotel: « A la Table de l’Ours«, the gastronomic restaurant that has one Michelin star, « La Rôtisserie » to eat delicious meats and « Le Coin Savoyard » to share a raclette or a tartiflette (or both).

We had lunch at La Rôtisserie twice, the meat was delicious and the dessert buffet was perfect for a stomach on legs like me.

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On Saturday evening we had dinner at the restaurant « Au Coin Savoyard« . We wanted to have tartiflette and raclette so we decided to take them both and share. When we saw the size of the raclette cheese and the tartiflette big enough for 4 people we thought there has been a mistake! Of course we couldn’t eat everything even though I’m a competitive raclette eater and even after taking several breaks.  We were supposed to go bowling after that but no need to mention that it was impossible, we would have rolled with the ball if we did! So we went back to our rooms literally rolling on the floor (which explains my behaviour in the video ah ah).

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Finally, the bar close to the fireplace is very nice, the cocktails are good and this evening there was a very good music band.

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In a few words, everything in this hotel is amazing and the restaurants, the bar and the spa are not only open for hotel guests so if you’re in Val d’Isère don’t hesitate to come have a look at this charming den Les Barmes de l’Ours.

And that’s not all, the hotel is also very well located because it’s at the foot of the legendary Bellevarde run. It snowed so much that we skied on powder snow, it was a bit dangerous but it was so nice! The hotel director, Valérie Boulenger, skied with us on Sunday so we were able to ski on the best runs.

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We had been very lucky with the weather because it was snowing non-stop but as soon as we arrived on top of the mountains the sun came out. We even got tanned in only 2 days!

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Before going back to Paris, we strolled a bit in Val d’Isère and let me tell you that it’s a lot more charming that the concrete ski resorts we usually see.

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the delicious Chevallot pâtisserie

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A big thank you to Mélinda and Valérie for their warm welcome and for their company, we spent an amazing weekend thanks to you. We wish we could hibernate here like bears the whole winter! Thank you also to Sophie from Article Onze for the invite. You should have seen the Boyfriend smiling from ear to ear running down the tracks, we were happy like kids!

Where do you go skiing ? Did you know Val d’Isère ?

I wish you all a very happy Easter weekend my stroller friends!

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