Am looking to start dreaming about next years summer holiday (anything to get me through the winter!)

We’d like a mountain resort in France with good trails (XC type, not hard core downhill and ideally with some really easy blues for the nipper), good road riding (so Chamonix wouldn’t be great as the valley limits the riding), a 50m Olympic pool with kids area and lots of kids type stuff to do (our son will be 5 1/2 then). Quieter is better too!

I assume the choice is alps or Pyrenees but I’m not sure if there’s anywhere in the Jura or the Massif Central that might fit the bill? We would be going to two weeks so would drive and rent a place.

Morzine fits the bill, but I was wondering if there were any others?

Any advice/experience welcome, thanks.

Alp d’huez would fit the bill – really quiet, not a 50m pool but a pool, loads of stuff for kids to do and loads of off and on road riding including XC and green and blue trails.

chattel is worth a look, Morzine was a bit hectic for my liking, obviouly depends what you are looking for though…

any accomodation in the porte du soliel has the multi pass card. for 2 euros a day you can use the lifts, swimming pools and loads of other bits. theres a lovely new pool inthe village and a couple a few miles away that are free on the MP card.

there is down hill stuff but also lots of nice scenic high up trail (which you can use the uplifts to access if you want to avoid the ups)

we stayed at l’oustalet camp site in the chalet, best of both worlds really as there’s an on site indoor pool too.

Morzine. But don’t stay in Morzine. St Jean D’Aulps is nice, as is Les Gets, and the lake at Montriond is fantastic to swim in. Avoriaz in the summer is cheaper, if a little souless. All these are 10 mins in the car from Morzine.

Les Arcs?

Plenty to ride and explore. Plenty of passes close by to get your roadie on. Loads of activities for kids. Several pools/leisure centres/spas, and lots of choice of accommodation throughout the area.

I went this year (just riding mind) and it’s my new favourite destination.

Just back from two weeks in Le Grand Bornand and really impressed. Probably one of the lesser know resorts, but we loved it. The main village is at the foot of the col de la colombiere so a tick in the box for some classic tour climbs. In terms of mtb trails, there are loads. I bought a map for 3 euros and there’s 600k of trails on it, mostly xc, there are a couple of blue and green dh runs but the xc stuff was much more interesting IMO. You can ride the Roc Des Alps route from 2013 as well if you’re up for an epic ride! Chamonix is only 30 miles away so you can still do a day trip if you want to do the bigger resorts. We went there twice. It’s lovely, but I’m glad we didn’t stay there as it’s much busier. Great outdoor swimming pool for the kids as well in le Grand Bornand village.

PdS staying in Morzine. It’s a nice town with great facilities. Even in the middle its pretty quiet. You can stay in one of the outlying villages if you want real quiet but that means you can’t really walk to the pool, skate park, ice rink, etc. Depends what you priorities are. It’s also central and downhill from most of the biking areas at the end if the day.

Thanks for the replies everyone, and sorry for not thanking sooner. I thought if I ‘Favorited’ the thread I’d get emails when there were replies… so I assumed no one had.

Will check out Alp D’Huez, Grand Bornard and Les Arcs and also look into accommodation around Morzine that will fit the ‘very quiet’ bill.

Thanks again, I need to start dreaming about this to get me through the winter 🙂

Olympic pool in the Alps is a bit ambitious. The one at AdH is nice but I was pleased it wasn’t 50m – swimming at 1800m is hard work!

@shifter…. Given I haven’t swum seriously for about 4 years pretty much any pool, Olympic or not, will break me :). I just love swimming in them, something about having to turn less I guess.

Update on the Alps trip that I asked about in the OP. We found an apartment in Bourg St Maurice and had two excellent weeks, I’d really recommend it as a base for a family/riding holiday.

Obviously everyone is different and wants different stuff but staying in Bourg gave us the best of all worlds, we could get the funicular up to Les Arcs or easily drive to Tignes/Val D’Isere but we were in a town that had a supermarket and access to road rides etc. Both Les Arc and Tignes/Val D’Isere had a good trail system of marked/lift access stuff (the Tignes lift pass was free (!), Les Arcs was 72 euro for the week). The 50m pool in Bourg was lovely and being in the valley there were flat roads/trails for running or easy rides.

Road rides were good, the Cormet de Rosalend was lovely as was the Col De Petit St Bernard and there were lots of other smaller roads on the valley sides, or you could do the climbs up to the main ski resorts (but these had quite a lot of traffic).

Kids wise the green (and some blue) DH trails were great for our 5 1/2 yr old son, just for being able to ride with him in the Alps it made it the best holiday I think I’ve ever had.

Thanks for the tips and advice. If anyone is planning a similar trip I’d be happy to give more detail.