the times Saturday February 9 2019

Travel 37

evening for €20pp to helicopter rides for€80. In summer there will be music festi-vals and a climbing wall.

It could have been considered a riskyendeavour, opening such a large hotel ina resort known more for po-faced endeav-our than its après-ski larks, yet it seems tohave filled a gap. Crucially, locals seem tolike it — vital to ensure that its huge publicareas (75m from end to end) stay buzzing.

What Multrier says appears to ring trueat après-ski on my last night. It’s very cold,and the huge terrace bar outside is almostdeserted (although it will come into itsown on sunny spring days). But down inthe club at 6pm the party is getting lively,with a saxophone player boogieing up onstage and women dancing on the podium.Yet it’s a mixed crowd, these women are intheir fifties, and children dart around thefringes in pursuit of a parent. Even a darklittle secret seating area, which would playhost to all kinds of debauchery in a late-night club, has been commandeered byseveral generations of the same family.

While the atmosphere is consistentlyloud and fun-focused in the main part ofthe hotel, there are enough spaces withdifferent atmospheres that you can easilyget away from it.

The music is still pumping when Iretreat to the spa for a sauna and swim inthe steaming outdoor pool. I’m alone, gaz-ing up as the mountains turn pink, thenblack, thinking I might not be too old forthis place after all.

Skiing

The hot new place to stay in ChamonixLa Folie Douce, the famous apres-ski bar, has opened a hotel. By Gemma Bowes

Ever since my friends starteddoing ski seasons 20 yearsago, I have heard tales of theraucous après-ski parties atLa Folie Douce. This slope-side bar, which originated inVal d’Isère, but spread to five

more French resorts, including Méribel,Alpe d’Huez and Val Thorens, becameinfamous in skiing circles, its outdoor ter-races a stage where inebriated snow bun-nies danced on tables and knocked backvodka Red Bulls, and rich kids sprayedeach other with champagne.

Now La Folie Douce is the subject of skichatter again, this time in a new and ratherdifferent incarnation, because the brandhas just launched its first hotel, inChamonix. It promises allthe fun and frolics of theoriginal bars, with thebonus of somewherestylish under thesame roof to layone’s spinning head.

The party cer-tainly appears infull flow when Iarrive late on a Fri-day. The receptiondesk seems almost anafterthought to the rev-elry in the bar, where I cansee the DJ nodding and smilingat the crowd, the bar staff behind himjuggling and flipping bottles in maroonvelour Folie Douce onesies.

Am I too old for this, I wonder. Almostcertainly, but here we are, so my partnerand I ditch our bags and venture into thecrowd to order a drink. Some lads withbandanas tied round their heads charge in,looking suspiciously like a stag-do, andwhoop at the DJ, hands in the air. We retireto the larger, quieter Janssen cocktaillounge, where grey-haired couples sit onvelvet sofas giggling over their ice bucketsand elegant French women sip cocktails.There’s another group here too — Britishestate agents. Hundreds of them. It be-comes apparent they’re all staying forsomething called PropSki (they haveT-shirts), one of the biggest jollies in theindustry. It’s quite a mix.

Yet the setting is undoubtedly glamor-ous. Throughout much of the large hotel(it has 250 rooms across two buildings),walls are stripped back to bare concrete,revealing the bones of what a century agowas one of Chamonix’s three grand palacehotels, the Savoy Palace, which opened in1904 and hosted fabulous balls in its ele-gant dance halls. Then, for 40 years, it was

a Club Med, but the Foliedesigners are ignoring that, choosing toimagine the hotel as a 1920s ruin, justrediscovered and revived with Gatsby-esque parties.

The decor is bonkers. Fun bonkers. Inthe lobby there’s a Renaissance-stylepainting of voluptuous naked womenleaning towards a DJ manning the decks— as if Titian had spent a summer inMykonos. Intermittently an acrobaticdancer writhes and spins above a sweepingstaircase, dangling from aerial silks ora circus hoop. There are gold palm trees,a taxidermy chamois wearing a sparklynecklace, chandeliers, vintage pommelhorses, animals from carousels, even a

confession booth. By 11.30pm I’m ready tobrave it. It’s gobsmacking,

then, to hear the bounc-er say that it has closed(in fact, it closes at10pm). Call me old-fashioned, but I’msure people neverused to arrive atclubs before mid-

night. And anothersurprise: we sleep

soundly, undisturbedby noise from the bars or

other guests. All is explained the next day

over a cup of tea with GuillaumeMultrier, the president of Les Hôtels (très)Particuliers, the company that has part-nered with La Folie Douce to launch thehotel. The goal, he says, is not debauchery,but inclusivity.

“On holiday, you don’t remember yournights, you remember your days,” he says.“If you go to bed at 4am you won’t have thesame day after. Here, we want parents,kids, young people to live together, andthat doesn’t happen at 3am. At 3am you’vegot drug dealers and tons of alcohol andrisk; at 6pm things are easier.”

The bedrooms and the restaurants arealso designed to encourage a wide range ofclientele — there are hostel bunk beds thatcost from €37 (£32), doubles and bedroomsfor four can be joined to sleep six, as well asmore luxurious superior doubles. All havefunky black ceilings, brass lights, blown-upexpedition photographs as wallpaper.

Likewise, there are different restaurants:La Petite Cuisine, where dinner might be a€10 pizza, and the upmarket bistro LaFruitière, where we ate blue lobster with acreamy bisque poured from a teapot.

The concept of mixing different peoplewas a fundamental principle of the first

Folie bars, intended to be somewhere mil-lionaires, seasonnaires and holidaymakerscould party together. It’s the expansion ofthe brand that has set it apart in the Alps,where most hotels and businesses arefamily-run and passed through the gener-ations. Brands have never really existed(with the exception of Club Med, and per-haps the small, discreet group Sibuet), butnow, with the importance of online search,that seems to be changing. Hyatt and FourSeasons opened their first Alpine hotelslast winter (in La Rosière and Megèverespectively), and Radisson Blu launchedin Andermatt last month.

Folie Douce is already working to rollout more: two are scheduled to open in2021, in Samoëns and Serre Chevalier,with more under discussion for Val d’Isèreand Val Thorens. The Chamonix hotel isalready almost fully booked for the skiseason. “That’s the power of the brand,”Multrier says.

One thing that hasn’t changed in theSavoy Palace’s long history is its winninglocation — next to the Savoy beginners’slope, with a drag lift that links to the mainBrévent lift, one of the best areas for inter-mediates. Chamonix can be a frustratingplace to ski, with several areas spreadalong the valley, which usually meanstaking a bus. From here it is incrediblyeasy. The hotel has its own ski school, withfreeride and jumps, “Yolo Sessions” (Youonly live once) led by local pros, and well-priced excursions from a wilderness yurt

Gemma Bowes was hosted by Folie Douce (lafoliedoucehotels.com), which has doubles from €70 and superior doubles from €120, and the Chamonix tourist board (chamonix.com). Flights were provided by Swiss (swiss.com), which has returns from London City airport to Geneva from about £140; Mountain Drop Offs (mountaindropoffs.com) runs shuttles from the airport to Chamonix

Need to know

La Folie Douce hotel in Chamonix