The Best Attractions In Saint-Chaffrey

Luxury chalet Val d'Isere - VIP SKI's Bellevarde Lodge

One of our 24 luxury chalets in Val d'Isere, this one boasts a ski in ski out location, breath taking views and a fantastic outdoor hot tub. Top it off with honest service, flights, transfers, great food and wine, you'll be hard pushed to find a better chalet in Val d'isere.

Short clip: Le Monêtier-Les-Bains centre, with organ music from the church. (1080p H.D. clip)

Video film taken around:
L'Eglise de Sacre Coeur, Le Monêtier-Les-Bains, Serre Chevalier, Hautes-Alpes de Provence, France.
April 2009.

In the High Alps of Provence. This part of the Southern French Alps is part of a National Park: Parc National des Écrins.

This is kind of the central part of the small Monêtier with the main places to visit and see along the road which the church is on, in the square you can see in the photo, and, moreso, in the few narrow streets and alleys behind the church. One place you shouldn't miss is the caravan from a local farm which opens and sells at the bottom of the main street in the video - about 10 minutes walk down the gentle hill from the church. It sells delicious local cheeses (lots of varities), farm ciders (delicious) wines, charcuterie.

While the bars around the front of the church can be quite popular, you're virtually guaranteed a very pleasant, quite quiet time in a nice bar, maybe a hotel bar, or a pleasant tea room in the alleys behind the church and down the hill a little. Monêtier feels like a village, though I guess it is big enough to be a town. It feels like that because, especially considering the town is a focal part of one of the ten largest ski resorts in Europe, and a major summer mountain visiting, walking and adventure location, Monêtier has had very little development in recent decades. However, it has its own little, very nice, cinema with 2 screens. It has one of the biggest spa centres in the country, opened last year for the natural hot springs which have been visited here since Roman times, and that's great, with indoor and outdoor pools and jacuzzis and steam rooms and saunas.

Monêtier has quite nice to very nice bars and restaurants and cafes, and indeed they're not so popular, especially compared to the inner parts of Serre Chevalier - Chantemerle and Villeneuve-La Salle Des Alpes. At peak times of the ski season you could have a good night out in a small, crowded place, but the town often quieter.

Monêtier has a reasonably sized supermarche. It's a place where nothing much happens, though is well liked. It has enough sports shops, naturally, renting and selling skis and boards and so on, and some nice gift shops. Serre Chevalier is cheaper all round than most of the Northern French Alps resorts, though it's bigger than nearly any other French resort. I suppose the prices in Monêtier particularly will climb in the next few years because of the very good spa centre (which is itself well priced for what it is). The ski resort, I wager, will become deservedly more popular in the next few years. It may be just different for people like me who came in the last few years, probably a relatively quiet patch, though I doubt I was alone in wondering why the resort wasn't much more full. Briancon, the city (the highest city in France), particularly, is I think the quietest part of Serre Chevalier in the evenings, but has really rewarding, simple and less simple restaurants and bars which are worth visiting, as well as Parc de la Schappe, which is a lovely place to spend a few hours in. Briancon was awarded U.N.E.S.C.O. World Heritage Site protected status last year (2008) mainly for its ancient walled sector (Cite Vauban).

I was impressed with the amount of events in Serre Chevalier in my visit this year. In 2008 I visited twice, and thought there is a reasonable amount more going on here than most ski resorts. But this year was really well programmed - all kinds of music, from local players to Bulgarian gospel singers, and theatre and so on in Briancon. There are at least 5 cinemas in Serre Chevalier, swimming pools, ice rinks, one of Briancon's 2 cinemas being an art film cinema. The adventure options, even during the winter, such as paragliding, are very good, and more affordable than a good deal of resorts, as I was comparing prices to what was offerred in Kitzbuehel where I was around last New Year.

Basic Serre Chevalier information:

Camera: Digilife DDV1080 H.D.