Resort information for La Plagne

La Plagne is made up of 10 seperate 'villages' - six are purpose-built high up in the main bowl on or above the tree line, with the other four scattered around outside of this bowl. Each is a self-sufficient mini-resort. The first to be built was Plagne-Centre and it is still the focal point.

Lifts radiate from Centre to all sides of the bowl and the majority of the slopes in the main bowl are above the tree line, though there are trees scattered around most of the resort centres. The slopes outside the bowl are open at the top but descend into woodland. La Plagne boasts 225km/140 miles of pistes over a wide area that can be broken down into seven distinct but interlinked sectors which can be confusing. Most of the resorts runs are snow-sure, but grooming could be better. La Plagne used to have some big queue bottlenecks, but recent lift upgrades have eased some of the worst problems, although there are still several lift queues that you can’t avoid, once you’ve descended to them. Crowds on the pistes are now as much of a problem as lift queues.

Mountain restaurants are an attraction of the area: numerous, varied and crowded only in peak periods. Plagne-Centre has ugly blocks and dreary indoor ‘malls’ that house a reasonable selection of shops, bars and restaurants – a free bus system between the core villages within the bowl runs until after midnight. Lifts between some resort units run until 1am. Through the resort there is a good range of casual restaurants including pizzerias and traditional Savoyard places serving raclette and fondue. Though fairly quiet during low season, La Plagne has a wide range of après-ski catering particularly for the younger crowd.