Lydia, our Public Relations Executive, describes her VIP experience in Alpe D’Huez:
Helicopters, like Bugattis and Super yachts, are a mode of transport reserved exclusively for rich playboy types, F1 drivers, or extreme sports junkies. Or so I thought until I took a ski trip to Alpe d’Huez in the French Alps. The mountain made famous by Tour de France winners Fausto Coppi, Bernard Hinault and (whisper it) Lance Armstrong, also hosts a vast ski area and is famed for good snow and sunny days. Both were in abundance when I visited for a week on the slopes this April; t-shirt weather combined with two metres of snow on the rooftops serving up dream skiing conditions.
Included with the six-day ski pass are two days at the neighbouring resort of Les Deux Alpes, just 45 minutes away by bus. But who wants to sit on a bus and waste slope time when, for 70 Euros return, you can travel in style by chopper from Alpe d’Huez’s Altiport.
No excess baggage charge here, oh no! No waiting in line to check in, no passport control or claustrophobic departure lounge. We simply pre-book, ski down to the Altiport, wave hello, throw our skis in the ski-cage, and jump in! As the rotors crank up, the excitement builds and before we know it we are soaring above the spectacular mountain view towards our destination.
Eat your heart out, Abramovic!
The journey lasts just five or six minutes, the Alpine equivalent of about two stops on the tube, but the ‘look at me, I’m practically a millionaire!’ feeling lasts all day. No sooner have we hopped out and clipped back into our skis on the snow-covered landing zone at our destination than our chopper has wheeled away back towards home. All that remains is to ski off and look forward to the return journey at the end of the day.
So millionaires, billionaires, sheikhs and oligarchs, you can keep your caviar and your Faberge eggs, but give me a helicopter over the National Express any day!
Take a look on our Inghams site for more information on Alpe D’Huez or Les Deux Alpes.