Welcome to our Ste Foy Travel Information section

Getting Ste Foy Tarentaise

Sainte Foy village and ski resort can be accessed from the UK and other parts of Europe via train, air or by ferry / driving to Ste Foy.

Driving To Ste Foy Tarentaise

Getting to Ste Foy from Calais (for cross-channel ferry crossings) or from Boulogne (for Eurotunnel) can be achieved in about 9.5 hours, which is probably an hour or so longer than it takes to reach the Northern Alpine ski areas like The Portes du Soleil.

As changeover day in many of the Ste Foy chalets and Apartments will be Saturday, the best plan is generally to have a very early start from the UK on the Saturday at the start of the holiday, so that you can reach Sainte Foy that day, or alternatively, to take the Friday off as well, and stay 2/3 of the way there at somewhere like Dijon, which enables you to then get to Ste Foy at a reasonable time on the Saturday. That's obviously a fairly relaxed way of getting there, arguably suited to family skiing trips with children in tow, whereas adult-only groups might prefer to reach Sainte Foy resort in the day.

On the return journey from Ste Foy to Calais / Boulogne, you've got the choice of either skiing the Saturday, and having an overnight stay in the area of Dijon again, or setting off first thing, and getting a bit further north towards the channel ports.

Flying To Sainte Foy Tarentaise

If you are flying to Sainte Foy, the three best options are Chambery, Geneva, Lyon or Grenoble, all of which offer car hire, or from which you can get taxi transfers to Ste Foy (see our Ste Foy Taxis section for Transfers to Ste Foy)

Flying to Chambery Airport

The best airport for flying to Sainte Foy is Chambery airport, about an hour away from Sainte Foy. Flights from the UK to Chambery are provided by Flybe (www.flybe.com), but only during the winter months - routes include Birmingham to Chambery, Southampton to Chambery.

From the North of England, Jet2 provide flights from Leeds Bradford to Chambery.

Flying to Lyon Airport or Grenoble Airport

We'll group these two together, as Grenoble St Geoirs Airport is pretty much on the southern outskirts of Lyon anyway, so travel times to Sainte Foy are pretty similar from both Lyon airport and Grenoble airport - roughly 2 hours.

Flying to Geneva Airport (Aeroport de Geneve)

Getting to Sainte Foy from Geneva is slightly more of a drag, although more than made up for by the increased flight options - both from the low-cost carriers, as well as the traditional scheduled airlines - enabling you to generally get a better deal, as well as flight times to suit your requirements.

The main thing to remember though is to stick to the motorway - and specifically avoid the route which takes you down through Megeve (which appears to be the shortest route, but very windy, through lots of small towns and villages, plus of course the traffic getting to Megeve itself!).

Take the road therefore from Geneva to Annecy, then either continue on the motorway to Chambery (longer / quicker), or cut across to Albertville (shorter / slower), then on to Bourg-St-Maurice and then Ste Foy. The route via Chambery on the motorway probably takes around 2.5 hours, whereas going across to Albertville is more like 2.75 hours.

By Train to Sainte Foy

The easiest way of getting to Sainte Foy is obviously by train - although this comes at some considerable cost, unless you book early and get good deals! The journey however runs something like this - you hop on the train on Friday afternoon in London or Ashford, then arrive in Bourg St Maurice early the next morning, from which you can then take a bus transfer, taxi (see our Ste Foy Taxis section) or hire car up to Ste Foy, just over 10 minutes away!!

On the way back, it's generally a morning start from Bourg St Maurice, for a train to get you back into the UK late in the evening the same day.

All therefore blissfully simple, but as we say, EXPENSIVE!! We are however researching exactly when tickets go on sale for these ski trains, so will post this info as soon as we have it.

The Snow Train

A good place to start for the Snow Trains is RailEurope (Snow Trains ) The Snow Train runs from London St Pancras and Ebbsfleet International in the UK, leaving the UK on Friday evening and arriving in The Alps on Saturday morning. The return leg from Bourg St Maurice to London and Ebbsfleet leaves last thing on the following Saturday and arriving in the UK on Sunday morning. The Snow Train includes couchette sleeping accommodation, which are essentially 6 bunk style beds in a shared sleeping compartments. For the wild party-goers, the Snow Trains include a Disco Carriage, which can get rather noisy, so if you are travelling with children, you might want to get a cabin at the opposite end of the train from the disco!! There is (currently) no extra charge for carriage of skis or boards, which is worth bearing in mind when comparing costs with flying, where you do generally have to pay something like £15-£20 each way for ski or board carriage.

Sale of tickets for the Snow Train starts during July, with services starting on 18th January 2008.

Other Trains To The Alps

If the timing of the Snow Trains isn't suitable for you, there are also a number of other ways of getting to The Alps by train, again either via overnight trains from London to The Alps, which generally require a change in Paris or Lille (probably preferable, as connections in Lille are generally just a matter of crossing platforms, whereas Paris connections involve going across Paris).

Again, Raileurope (www.raileurope.co.uk) sell through tickets from London to Bourg St Maurice, as well as Eurostar tickets with onward SNCF connections.

Eurostar

If you want to get the best prices though, it's probably best to book the Eurostar and TGV / SNCF elements separately, since Eurostar tickets become available 120 days in advance of the final date of travel, whereas the SNCF tickets can only be purchased 90 days in advance, by which time you might have missed out on the best Eurostar deals. Book direct with Eurostar at Book Eurostar Tickets