Now pistes are back in business, a ski holiday could be just the refresh your family needs

I’m trying to remember at what age our children started losing interest in coming on holiday with us.

Inter-railing to exciting cities, or weeks in the sun-soaked clublands of Zante and Ayia Napa seemed much more tempting to my son Will and daughter Grace in their late-teens, when the thought of spending leisure time with their parents left them reaching for the tequila shots.

We wondered if ski-ing would tempt them back to a holiday with the old fogies. Now France has reopened to British tourists, there’s been an avalanche of bookings – but there are still holidays available for those who don’t want to miss this year’s season.

We first introduced them to ski-ing when they were seven and eight. Back then, they didn’t care about the accommodation, the food or entertainment, so absorbed were they in the prospect of snow-ploughing down any slope they could tackle, and enjoying chips, crepes and hot chocolate on the mountain at lunchtime.

Indifferent, was the immediate knee-jerk reaction, until a suggestion of ski-ing prompted them to pause TikTok and jump at the offer. They’re both single, love sports and get on well, so it seemed an ideal chance to reconnect.

This is how we came to be in Belle Plagne – shortly before the first lockdown in 2020, when no masks or health passes were required unlike today’s restrictions (detailed at en.la-plagne.com/coronavirus-information).

It was a resort we’d visited as a family years ago, when, as little ones swamped in oversized salopettes and brightly coloured ski jackets, the kids were duly enrolled in ski school, but had more fun in the afternoons with us, taking on easier blues before progressing, with great gusto and zero fear, to the reds.

Belle Plagne is among 11 self-sufficient base villages which make up La Plagne, in the south-eastern region of Savoie in the western Alps and dominated by Mont Blanc.

Each village is its own ski-in ski-out mini-resort. If you don’t want the hassle of carrying skis to buses to get to the lifts, as we didn’t when the kids were little, La Plagne is ideal.

With six resorts at high altitude of 1800m and above – Plagne Aime 2000, Belle Plagne, Plagne Soleil, Plagne Bellecote, Plagne Centre and Plagne 1800 – the season can run to the end of April and it’s an intermediate’s paradise.

Its vast terrain and lift network enable you to ski to a variety of villages, while the Vanoise Express cable car connects to Les Arcs, forming the vast ‘Paradiski’ ski area with La Plagne, incorporating a total of 425km of slopes and 264 pistes.

Now, we’d rather enjoy a leisurely raclette with a bottle of local red quaffed in front of a fire before bed, turning in just as the kids get ready to go out.

One of our family friends from home quipped that grown-up kids only go on holiday with their parents for the free drinks, but in a French ski resort where the price of a beer ranges from about 5-9 Euros, we weren’t going to be funding their bar crawls.

We met our ESF instructor, Jean-Louis, on the slope outside the Hotel Belle Plagne 2100. While I reminisced nostalgically about those early days of family ski holidays, corralling the kids down the nursery slopes as they attempted snowploughs, lifting them up and dusting them off as they tumbled, today’s reality turned out differently.

Within an hour, Will and Grace had found their ski legs. By lunchtime they were waiting for us at the foot of each slope we tackled.

The digital revolution had not been lost on La Plagne since our last visit. There were mobile charging boxes and digital maps on the mountain to indicate which runs were open.

A handy app, Yuge (paradiski.com/yuge/?lang=en), will locate the busiest slopes, give waiting times for lifts, offer route suggestions and track your position in real time, which is handy if you get lost. I was on a digital detox, but my brood had it covered.

We quietly soothed our aching muscles in an almost deserted outdoor 35-degree heated pool and Jacuzzis, ventured into the sauna, and sampled a cup of herbal tea in a relaxation room overlooking the mountains. It was one of many moments on the trip when none of us were looking at our phones.

New attractions have also sprung up to tune into the wellbeing zeitgeist. In nearby Montchavin-Les-Coches, you can take up ski sophrology, reputedly a fresh, more serene approach to learning to ski, which encourages you to be at one with nature and fuel positivity (wish I’d known about that earlier).

And what about the social reconnection on a ski trip? As parents, we may be too old for the late-night circuit, but as a family we still found some cool hangouts to down apple cider and take in a party vibe on the mountain.

Catching the double decker Vanoise Express cable car to Les Arcs one day, we skied down to La Folie Douce (lafoliedouce.com), a hipster party addition to the chain of French mountain restaurants, complete with house DJs, singers, acrobats and dancers. It was like upmarket Ibiza, but colder.

You won’t find anything like this in Belle Plagne, but there were several less showy but equally eclectic apres ski bars in the village acceptable to the four of us. And they both had happy hours, with beers starting from around three Euros. A true bonus.

I hope we are all ski-ing together a decade from now, even if by then my children have their own families and I am once again negotiating snowploughs – with the next generation.

How to plan your trip

Crystal Ski Holidays (crystalski.co.uk; 020 8610 3123) offers a seven-night half-board holiday at the three-star Hotel Belle Plagne 2100, Belle Plagne from £740pp when booked online (based on two sharing) including flights from  London Gatwick to Geneva and transfers. Based on departure March  26, 2022. Direct flights available from all major UK airports.

For full details on entry requirements visit gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france/entry-requirements.