Uncover the Vallée des Belleville – this French alpine paradise is ideal for lovers of the nice open air and nice meals.
It’s early summer time within the Vallée des Belleville, and I’m in the beginning of a three-week journey within the Alps with my teenage daughter. Maybe finest often known as a winter vacation spot – it kinds a part of Les 3 Vallées, the biggest ski space on this planet, and it contains Val Thorens, at 2,300m the best ski resort in Europe. Right here native custom meets understated boutique luxurious, whereas jaw-dropping surroundings and oodles of marked climbing trails are offset by picturesque villages and fabulous gastronomy and makes for a wonderful vacation spot year-round.
Uncover the Vallée des Belleville
We spend our first evening in Les Menuires, heading out for dinner at La Fromagerie – as a result of nothing says welcome to Savoie fairly like an enormous pot of simmering fondue. It’s solely a 30-minute stroll as much as Lac de Lou, on a broad, well-trodden path, however we take a barely longer route, strolling with native information Roland Lelay. In between snippets of native historical past, we learn to spot the distinction between the similar-looking yellow gentian and hellebore – the previous typically used to make eau de vie, the latter extraordinarily poisonous.
For a lot of, probably the most lovely village hereabouts is Saint-Martin-de-Belleville – and with its conventional stone homes, window containers overflowing with flowers, small Baroque church and nice huge mountain views, it’s onerous to not agree. We keep on the Lodge Lodji, which is superb and has one thing of a Nordic really feel. The museum, subsequent door to the vacationer workplace, is an effective place to be taught concerning the improvement of Val Thorens – and about native cheesemaking. And simply a few kilometres away, the Ferme de la Trantsa in Le Châtelard is a superb place for a spot of cheese tasting. The small sheep farm and artisan cheesemaking is run by sisters Jennifer and Samantha Jay and it’s pretty to see the ewes, sheltering quietly on the adjoining hillside, within the shade of lengthy, low branches and previous drystone partitions. Their Tomme de brebis has a tender, ivory-cream centre giving approach to an ochre-coloured rind, and the flavour is deliciously wealthy – solely barely salty, with some nutty notes.
Tasting tomme de brebis is thirsty work – or no less than, that’s my excuse – which means a chilly beer is so as. So we head over to Brâva Vela, a small natural brewery housed in a transformed former goat farm, additionally in Le Châtelard. Julien Arto, co-founder of Brâva Vela, meets us outdoors, and after a fast tour of the brewery, we head into the faucet room. ‘So’ he suggests, rubbing his fingers collectively enthusiastically, ‘lets attempt some beers?’
Brâva Vela provides three traditional, signature brews – a blonde, a blanche, and a brown ale, named La Belleville, La Thorens and La Masse respectively – together with a crisp IPA, and a number of other seasonal numbers. Lemon peel and dried elderflowers say the tasting notes on the bottle of La Thorens Julien is pouring – which sums it up fairly nicely. La Thorens took the silver medal on the prestigious Concours Worldwide de Lyon in 2023 and 2024. La Passionette, a passionfruit New England IPA which was extraordinarily refreshing – and alarmingly drinkable – on a sunny afternoon in late July.
I ask Julien, initially from Paris, why he and co-founder Sophie Belorgey selected the Belleville Valley once they arrange the brewery in 2023. ‘Effectively, it wanted one’ he replies after a short pause, his expression creasing right into a broad and quite contagious smile beneath his flat cap. Then, extra particularly, he goes on to focus on the purity of the water on this most lovely nook of the French Alps, and the abundance of native produce in Savoie, a lot of it natural.
Returning to Les Menuires we go to the small Mellifera Museum by the banks of the river. Mellifera – the Museum of Nature and the Black Bee to provide it its full title, is devoted to the native black bee, an extremely sturdy and hard-working little insect, which is however at risk as a result of widespread importing of non-local bees into the valley. These imported bees then cross breed with native queens, weakening swarms and making them much less in a position to face up to the tough mountain surroundings. With this in thoughts a conservation challenge was established within the distant Vallée des Encombres, with an apiary and breeding program in an space free from imported bees.
Native beekeeper Kelly Duqueine, who oversees the challenge within the Encombres Valley, stops to speak with us outdoors the museum. Kelly labored as a beekeeper in Canada and elsewhere for a number of years. Ultimately although she returned to advertise small-scale, sustainable beekeeping within the mountains of Savoie, within the hope of preserving the native black bee species right here.
For probably the most native and genuine flavour of the Vallée des Belleville, lookup. Dotted among the many breathtaking mountains which encompass the valley and its fairly villages, are some great mountain huts, the place the meals is implausible. Refuge du Lac de Lou is one instance, set on the sting of a lake, tucked off the primary valley and backed by a wall of mountains. Together with the beautiful location and environment in spades, the meals is excellent – like most of the mountain huts hereabouts, locals come right here to eat as a lot as for the setting. Others embrace Refuge de Gittamelon and Refuge Plan Lombardie. Each these refuges lie on a street, so you may simply attain them by automobile, or by ebike. We walked between them, as a part of a four-day hike which led us in a spectacular horseshoe-shaped route by the mountains and valleys west of Les Menuires and Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, a part of the vaguely outlined and epically lengthy Tour de Tarentaise.
Refuge de Gittamelon is about in a fairly hamlet, midway up the Vallée des Encombres – we arrive after climbing over from Lac du Lou. After sitting out on the terrace having fun with the late afternoon solar, with a well-earned bottle of La Thorens (yours actually) and a ebook of GCSE revision questions (the fortunate teenager), we head inside for dinner. We start with an unlimited salad, then transfer on to a scrumptious and fabulously wealthy variation of a tartiflette, with plenty of potato slithers embedded in cream and cheese, oven-baked and nonetheless scorching. For dessert there are feathery mild crêpes, smothered with native jam, all topped off with impeccable espresso. The theme continues at Refuge Plan Lombardie, set at 1764m in direction of the top of a stunning valley, beneath the enduring Cheval Noir. Right here we get pleasure from an enormous bowl of crozets – small, conventional square-shaped pasta which has been a Savoie staple since no less than the seventeenth century and may simply be the final word consolation meals, on this case cooked with cream and mushrooms.
‘Would you want a digestif?’ hints Emmanuel, the hut warden, turning to our desk and gesturing in direction of a cluster of half a dozen home made spirits and liqueurs. I decide the gentian eau de vie, and hope for the most effective.
For extra info: lesmenuires.com/vallee-des-bellevilles
Rudolf Abraham is an award-winning journey author, photographer, creator of over a dozen books and has contributed to many extra, and his articles and pictures are printed extensively in magazines. rudolfabraham.com
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