An absolutely fantastic journey
Cornwall to Méribel is a long way. And it took a while to convince my friends that it was definitely a good thing to do. But having done it the previous year from Cornwall to Tignes with four of us, I managed to enthuse six of us this time...
I showed my friends a comparison of the time and the cost of driving versus flying versus train.
For example, by air, from Cornwall, usually you fly from Bristol, so you've got a three-hour drive (at least) to Bristol airport. You've got the car park that you've got to park in, then the bus over to the actual airport. You’ve got two or three hours of sitting around in the airport, waiting often you might go up the night before because the flight options are limited. Everything is structured around when your flight is, and then you land in Grenoble or Chambery or Geneva and either you hire a car, with snow chains, or get a transfer. Then it's at least a three-hour drive if there's no traffic, but there always is, even in January.
I managed to persuade my friends that both in terms of cost and time, flying wasn’t really saving anything. Plus, emphasizing that instead of all that sitting around an airport, you can spend that time on a train with your buddies, with a bottle of red wine, baguette, cheese, and just the from the moment you step on the train, it becomes an adventure and a journey!
Photo: Tim Barton
So often, travel, becomes a process of getting from A to B, and we think of it as a necessary evil, of getting from one place another, and then you start your holiday once you arrive in your new place. Whereas with the train, we started the holiday as soon as we set foot on the station platform in Truro. It was absolutely fantastic!
Our journey was Truro to London, London to Paris, Paris to Moutiers. On the Friday night, we took the sleeper from Truro to London. This made the journey a bit longer but it meant that we could hang out, have a couple of drinks on the train.
We bought a four-day Interrail pass, as this covers travel in the UK on the day that your Eurostar departs, and this included the overnight. We chose a first-class pass so that we could get more space on the trains, more comfortable seating etc. On the Eurostar we got a light meal, too. Four days of travel within a month is the cheapest in trail pass. But also, you've got three or four points of the year where in Trail passes are on sale at 20 to 25% off. So, you can buy your Interrail pass for pretty much the same cost as the return journey from Truro to London.
In Paris the change of station on the RER was pretty easy, as it’s just two stops. There are big signs for which way to go and we had the RATP app on our phones and had pre-loaded tickets.
In Paris, we’d given ourselves an hour buffer before our TGV. So a couple of us went to get provisions from the Carrefour supermarket, which is five-minutes’ walk from Gare de Lyon. Wine, cheese, bread etc – all to enjoy on the four-and-a-half-hour TGV journey.
Photo: Tim Barton
At Moutiers, we’d given ourselves an hour buffer too, between the train and the bus. We went to the big supermarket near the station and stocked up on lots of food for the week, as we were self-catering. This gave us more choice and saved us money on the local shops in resort. We got things like chicken, beef mince, different cheeses, vegetables – and a dozen bottles of wine (to start us off, obviously). And then the bus straight to Méribel, and then the free navette bus to our accommodation. Amazing!
We stayed in the Rond Point area, two minutes’ walk out to the piste in the morning. So not quite doorstep, but close, and a lovely apartment. And five minutes to Ronnie’s bar. Five minutes and you're dancing on the table. Great bands, great buzz, couple of beers, bit of dancing on the tables and ski boots, and then go home cook a decent meal. Life doesn't get any better than that.
The snow was great. Méribel is a great starting point for the whole of the Three Valleys. You can choose to chase the sun around the whole ski area. Quite often we’d drop down in to Méribel Centre, get the Legends chairlift towards the Les Menuires valley. And we’d start to work out which lifts have no queues at certain times. So Jerusalem, for example, is such a lush run, but you don’t want to do it early in the morning or late in the afternoon because at peak times the Saint Martin lift is busier. Orelle is good in the morning, but gets busy later. Courchevel stayed very quiet most of the day. We spent run after run enjoying powder snow, just floating on the surface. Glorious!
Photo: Tim Barton
At the end of the week, two of us (Simon and I) continued the holiday for another week – this time down the road in Tignes, before heading back all the way by daytime trains, from Bourg-Saint-Maurice to Cornwall.