Paris to Courchevel by road: what to know before you book

On paper the train wins. The TGV takes a little over four hours to Moûtiers against six and a half hours by road in good conditions. Except that Moûtiers isn't Courchevel, and that's where the arithmetic gets complicated.

The route, honestly

From Paris you run down the A6 to Lyon, then the A43 towards Chambéry and Albertville. That's the easy part: motorway, flat, nothing to do but drive.

The last twenty-five kilometres are a different proposition. From Moûtiers the road climbs to Courchevel through a run of tight hairpins — around twenty of them, depending which village you're heading for. In January, with fresh snow and a queue of hire cars whose drivers are discovering mountain roads for the first time, that stretch can take as long as the previous hundred kilometres.

It's why we run winter tyres and carry chains from December through March rather than offering it as a box to tick.

Saturdays in the Tarentaise

This deserves saying plainly: Saturday is the worst day of the week to drive up the Tarentaise. The entire valley changes tenants on the same day, and the road up from Albertville saturates. A six-and-a-half-hour drive becomes a nine-hour one without much difficulty.

When the dates are yours to choose, leaving on a Friday or a Sunday changes the day completely. When they aren't — and most chalet lets start on Saturday — going early is the only real defence.

Why some clients choose the road

The train forces a change. Suitcases and skis come off at Moûtiers, you find the transfer, you wait for it to fill, and then you do the climb anyway. With children and equipment, those forty-five minutes on a station forecourt are often the worst part of the trip.

A car is door to door: your address in Paris, your chalet at the other end. You load once and unload once. You stop when you want to, not when a timetable decides.

For one or two people travelling light the TGV is still excellent. From four upwards, with equipment, the price gap narrows sharply and the comfort gap does not narrow at all.

What to tell us when you book

The chalet's exact address, not just the resort: at Courchevel, the difference between 1550 and 1850 is twenty minutes of road and a serious amount of altitude. The number of pairs of skis, which decides the vehicle. And what time you collect the keys, because arriving before the agency opens helps nobody.

The same applies across the Tarentaise and the Maurienne — Méribel, Val Thorens, Tignes, Val d'Isère. Only the final climb changes.