This is the largest single ski resort in Europe, if you base such a superlative on the number of lifts and lift capacity.

Other ski regions — such as the Trois Vallées, the Dolomites or the Portes du Soleil — may be larger, but they are formed by combining several independent resorts

That said, as large as it is, it wanted to be bigger. La Plagne recently linked its trail system with that of Les Arcs via Plan-Peisey. The combined area is called Paradiski and has 425 km. of trails. The enormity is mindboggling. The joint resorts boast 142 ski lifts: a funicular, twin-cable cablecar, three cablecars, 12 sections of gondola lifts, 66 chairlifts, 58 draglifts, 28 skilifts available for walkers, 26 free-ski lifts and six moving walkways.

A cablecar, Le Vanoise Express, with 200-person cabins spans the valley from Plan-Peisey on the Les Arcs side to Les Coches on the La Plagne side. The span is 3,000 meters and the futuristic cablecar is 380 meters above the valley floor. The trip, from station to station, will take four minutes. A new eight-seat chairlift at Arpette will allow easier transfers from Plagne Bellecote to the trails down to the Vanois Express. The Les Arcs trails can be found here.

La Plagne claims a vertical of 6,500 feet. The lower 1,700 feet of that is through trees and along winding roads. Still, when the snow is good a skier can start out from Roche de Mio at 8,775 feet and drop to Montchavin at 4,062 feet, which means more than 4,700 feet of working vertical. Another vertical drop across the western face of Bellecote down to Les Bauches provides almost 4,000 feet of nonstop vertical that will challenge any skier.

Even in the modest upper ranges of the area, the working vertical is about 2,500 feet. Since it is one of the highest resorts on the continent, La Plagne can’t be beat for certainty of snow; there will be snow here, up on the glacier, even in the middle of August.

La Plagne revolves around apartment life. It offers about 47,000 beds in small apartments, and only about 1,500 beds in the eleven hotels in the region. The purpose-built sections of La Plagne consist of the six high-altitude modern clusters, connected by a creative series of public conveyances called telemetro, telebus, and telecabine, and traditional shuttlebuses. Each complex has apartments, with stores and ski shops all interconnected by tunnels and walkways. These underground passages, while extremely practical in snow country, give several of the areas an oddly urban feel, reminiscent of a subway shopping mall. Four lower villages are also connected to the lift system.

Plagne Centre at 6,463 feet is the original, constructed 40 years ago as one of France’s first built-for-skiing villages. What the buildings lack in charm they make up for in convenience—two hotels, dozens of restaurants, scores of shops, a cinema and apartments are all connected by underground passages with 20 lifts fanning out from the just outside its doors.

Plagne Villages at 6,726 feet is a cluster of small apartment houses and Alpine-style buildings with wooden features and peaked roofs. There are no hotels, only apartments and shops.

Here are the village maps for La Plagne's resorts:

Aime La Plagne
Plagne Village/ Plagne Soleil
Belle Plagne
Plagne Centre
Plagne Bellecote
Plagne 1800
Montchavin
Les Coches
Montalbert
Champagny en Vanoise

Plagne 1800 is a consistently designed neo-Savoyard mountain village with wooden chalets and peaked roofs. This grouping contains squash courts.

Aime La Plagne, also sometimes called Aime 2000, is a newer purpose-built complex above Plagne Centre. Many consider it the most convenient, with many of the best apartments in the resort. There are a cinema and a good collection of shops and restaurants. A cable car connects Aime La Plagne with Plagne Centre.

Plagne Bellecote is a group of massive, interconnected, high-rise buildings over an underground shopping mall. There are no hotels in this group, but it has La Plagne’s only heated outdoor swimming pool and is the starting point of the gondola to the glacier at 8,858 feet.

Belle Plagne built in the Savoyard chalet style, is the newest of La Plagne’s centers. An underground garage system allows one to reach each of the chalet groups. A multilevel shopping arcade with covered walkways provides a touch of Alpine charm. There is also a fitness center.

Villages that are part of the complex have ski schools and ski kindergartens for children plus ski rentals.

Plagne Montalbert at 4,429 feet with a couple of two-star hotels, a selection of apartments and eleven restaurants has its own lift system that connects with the rest of the La Plagne region.

Montchavin and Les Coches are at 4,101 feet and 4,757 feet respectively. Les Coches is the new station of the Vanoise Express that will link to Les Arcs. These villages have lift tickets, which may be purchased separately, as well as a two-star hotel, some chalets and apartments and 14 restaurants.

Champagny-en-Vanoise at the top of a valley separating La Plagne from the Trois Vallées area is a picturesque town clinging to the mountain walls. A cablecar takes skiers up to giant snowfields that connect with all the other resorts. During the past two years, new lifts have made the connections between Champagny and Bellecote Glacier very easy. Skiers staying in Champagny-en-Vanoise can ski into town down two challenging intermediate trails with plenty of off-piste possibilities.

Here is a map that shows the parking areas for all the diffierent La Plagne resort villages in pdf format.

Reservations:
Telephone: 479 09 79 79
Fax: 479 09 70 10
Country code: 0033
Telephone: 479 09 79 79
Fax: 479 09 70 10
The tourist information office is in Aime, in the valley. Send mail to Bureau de Tourisme de La Plagne, BP 36, 73210 La Plagne, France.
Country code: 0033
Telephone: 479 09 79 79
Fax: 479 09 70 10
Internet: www.la-plagne.com
E-mail:
bienvenue@la-plagne.com

Bureau du Tourisme in
Plagne Centre
Country code: 0033
Telephone: 479 09 02 01
Fax: 479 09 27 00
E-mail: stations.altitude@la-plagne.com

Champagny en Vanoise,
Office du Tourisme
Country code: 0033
Telephone: 479 55 06 55
Fax 479 55 04 66
Internet: www.champagny.com
E-mail: info@champagny.com

Montchavin/Les Coches,
Office du Tourisme
Country code: 0033
Telephone: 479 07 82 82
Fax: 479 07 80 18
Internet:
www.montchavin-lescoches.com
E-mail: montchavin@wanadoo.fr

Plagne Montalbert
Country code: 0033
Telephone: 479 09 77 33
Fax: 479 55 52 67
Internet: www.montalbert.com
Email: plagne.montalbert@wanadoo.f

Note: All prices are in Euros unless otherwise noted.

For more information on skiing and staying in the country of France, click the map.