Pedestrianized tours in the winter mountain
Most winter sport resorts organize hiking tours that you can do with rented snowshoes or just good mountain shoes. The routes are generally designed so you can discover the beautiful viewpoints of the valleys and surrounding massifs and are marked with panels to inform you of the natural sites you traverse. The pedestrian pass allows you to use the lifts for a lower fare to reach the summits and to profit from magnificent mountain panoramas.
Discovering spaces inaccessible on skis
Hiking permits accessing natural preserved zones often protected, frequently far from slopes where the hiker can sense the lives of fauna in their natural habitat thanks to traces in the snow. Let yourself be marveled by the beauty of vast snowy spaces with the sound of birds chirping which is the only thing that disturbs the silence or by immense spruce forests with haunting mysteries.
The benefits it could bring
It is easy to do with the family, walking is a gentle physical activity that uses all muscles without punishing the joints. In the mountain, in winter, this activity offers a good and healthy physical cost and a fresh air on altitude that permits deep ventilation. The beauty of the landscapes provides a total change of scenery, sometimes suitable for thinking which allows forgetting daily worries rapidly. This results in a relaxing feeling both physically as mentally.
Numerous winter sport resorts like Les Menuires, Arcs 1800, Les Saisies, Villard-de-Lans, La Clusaz to name a few, have a vast fun water center but no baths like the resorts in the Pyrenees like Luz-Saint –Sauveur, Cauterets or Bagnères-de-Luchon. You can indulge in swimming in heated pools or simply laze on a deck chair in the solarium while benefiting from an exceptional setting of neighboring snowy landscapes. Children will love the diving boards, toboggans, rivers, pentagliss, surf zone… the oldest can participate in aquagym or aquabiking.
Wellness spaces
The spa offers you a wellness space that’s refreshing for the body thanks to bubble baths, Jacuzzi, jets, massage benches, hammams, Finnish saunas… To contribute more from the relaxing advantages, there are some massage cabins that offer you care and there is also a tea room.
The benefits obtained from fun water activities
Far from the biting cold of the slopes, fun water activities can relax you when doing a gentle off-ski activity, respecting the body and preserving it in comfortable temperatures without risking injuries. Massages and body care can be benefitted from to liberate it from tensions and relieve it from pains.
The visit to cultural sites in the mountain
Numerous winter sport resorts value their local cultural heritage while preserving the sites: monuments, churches or small mountain chapels in rich baroque heritage, cross or erected statue of the Virgin in memory of a remarkable event in the valley… Discovering these historic jewels permits the traveler to travel in time. Museums organize temporary expositions or permanent collections of clothes and jewelry, traditional utensils, furniture, testify to the richness of this mountain life which does not resemble modernity.
The discovery of an alpine farm
Numerous farms still use traditional ways of making mountain cheese and open their doors to visitors for them to discover their craft, ancestral and they can taste. The youngest ones are fascinated by the proximity of the animals when the oldest realize pastoral life. Other gastronomic specialties can be discovered in the regions: sausages, blueberry jam, mountain honey…
Interest to discover the local heritage
Absolutely compatible with hiking, discovering the local heritage offers an opportunity to cultivate your stay in the mountains and to discover the architectural richness and other cultures than TV or books. It is also a possibility to go meet the local population and make bonds. These would be the best memories you’ll have of your holidays.
