Baguette Love in Les Saisies

21/03/2026

Once through the tunnel we were back in France, the land of the boulangerie and fabulous bread.. It’s not that there is anything wrong with Italian bread, in fact there are some Italian breads that rank very highly in our regard. But a ‘Baguette Tradition’ is a pretty awesome thing.

When we first started travelling we had no idea of the variety of French bread. Our experience of baguettes were the supermarket staple long white loaf. Nice enough, but very little substance, valued more for it’s shape than it’s flavour. Since travelling in France we have come to understand more. Among all of the breads you can find in boulangeries across France, the ‘Baguette Tradition’ is the ubiquitous loaf. But that doesn’t mean it’s boring or low quality. It comes with a crusty irregular exterior and slightly spongy, chewy interior. Like the best sourdough breads it is nourishing and present. It doesn’t just disappear in your mouth but feels like a food group in it’s own right.

We bought a baguette as soon as we could.

Destination Les Saisies

Les Saisies was our next ski destination. We drove back through Saint Gervais and up through the sunny resort of Megève. Then through the outlying Espace Diamond resorts. This is a very useful way of scoping out the skiing from Les Saisies which is the hub of the Espace Diamant. Praz-sur-Arly was looking very green at the bottom, but the lifts were running and a strip of white piste was being skied all the way to the bottom. Notre-Dame-de-Bellecombe was a different matter, the lifts were shut and the pistes had been left to melt away.

Turning off the D1212 the road became more wriggly, ascending up past Crest-Voland (which was open and looking good) and through some hamlets to arrive in Les Saisies. It’s not the smoothest drive around the mountainside, but it is scenic and on this day it was easy. No snow, no ice, just a dry mountain road. It made a change from previous visits.

Grand Tetras Aire

There are two aires in Les Saisies and both are now run by Camping Car Parks. One – Col Saisies (often known as Le Signal) – is near town and slightly cheaper. It is invariably busy but we could see on the app that it had 4 spaces. We were being picky though, as we wanted to have an inside space away from the road noise. A slow drive by showed that there were no spaces that would work for us.

The second aire is the Grand Tetras aire and is about €10 more expensive. In fact it will probably turn out to be the most expensive nightly cost of our trip at over €30 a night. Given that it doesn’t have campsite facilities and the parking surface is pretty unpleasantly muddy, the cost is a bit of a wrench. On the plus side it is a truly ski-in ski-out location and very peaceful. It also had lots of spaces available. We got ourselves a space just meters from the piste and settled in.

Parked up in the Grand Tetras aire

For the three nights we were here we watched people gradually vacate the aire. My suspicion is that they were just waiting for spaces to become available at the Col Saisies aire before moving down there to save themselves a bit of money.

A few days in Les Saisies

We had two long days of skiing, seeking out the north facing slopes for minimum slush factor and clocking up our highest number of runs per day due to the short pistes. We managed a whole morning at Crest Voland – one of the areas we haven’t properly explored before where we bumped into a family of British skiers. A bit of a shock in this very French area.

Motorhome Ski Les Saisies – the practical stuff:

Here is the practical stuff, an update from our previous visits

Parking

There are two official aires in Les Saisies, both are now managed by Camping-Car Parks. ‘Grand Tetras’ aire is outside of the village, whereas ‘Col’ (formerly referred to as ‘Le Signal’) is on the edge of the village and close to the swimming pool.

Now that these are CCP aires, both are bookable and both now have EHU. In 2026 both had to be booked in advance during the French school holiday period (this also means paying for an upgrade with Camping Car Parks as you can only pre-book using their Pack’Privileges subscription which has an additional €29 annual fee).

We did notice motorhomes parked in the main Le Signal car park, but we don’t know if that’s officially allowed.

Getting to the Slopes

You can walk out the far end of the Grand Tetras aire and be on a ski run, you will see a chairlift overhead which is the Les Carrets lift. A lift pass office is situated at the bottom of the Les Carrets lift so you can ski down to buy your ticket. At the end of the day (and for lunch) you can ski back to the aire, taking your skis off at your motorhome door (if it’s snowy enough).

From the Col Saisies aire you can easily walk to the slopes, it’s only a little further to go than the Grand Tetras aire. Walk through the aire southwards and through the bus station (for info, there is a toilet here). At the end of the bus station area you can ascend a short slope onto the piste. There is a small beginners area here, but you can also ski across the bridge to the Chard du Buerre or Bisanne lifts. Ski back down the Sapinette run to exit the piste where you entered, just before the bridge.

Ski passes

Ski passes can be ordered online, or bought from manned kiosks in the central area. I’m sure there are self service kiosks but we didn’t look for them.

You can buy local passes for the Les Saisies area, or area tickets for Espace Diamant which includes Les Saisies plus the satellite areas.

There are full day and 4 hour passes available as well as the usual longer duration passes.

Skiing Les Saisies

Les Saisies is not particularly high, but due to the way it is nestled in the mountains it is more snow sure than you might imagine.

The ski area splits into two with the resort town sitting between. The smaller Bisanne half (on the same side as the Grand Tetras aire) rises to 1940m. There are plenty of gentle blue and green runs here, which makes it great for beginners and early intermediates. It is possible to find more difficult reds and blacks (we like the area off the Chamois lift for some short steep runs) . The larger half is accessed by ascending the Chard de Buerre lift and reaches a height of 2069m. The rest of the wider Espace Diamant area can be reached from this side. The plateau on this side has some more lovely gentle blue and green runs.

Generally runs are pretty short, but there are some longer resort runs in the outlying areas. These can suffer in warmer conditions.

There have been quite a few lift upgrades in the years we have been coming here so the proportion of old lifts is a lot smaller that it once was. There are still a few that seem too fast when picking you up and too slow once you’re on them.

On top of downhill skiing there are plenty of snowshoe routes and nordic skiing tracks. It’s a great all-round resort and is very popular with French families.