Vars

Overview of Vars Ski Resort

A Vars ski holiday has been a popular option for the domestic French ski market for several decades but only in recent years has it embraced more international visitors. Although it remains, “very French” there’s a distinct international marketing push underway and the resort is appearing in more foreign brochures. This is also resulting in better prices being available, have a look at the PowderBeds deals page.

Brits will be more familiar with the resort it shares the large Foret Blanche (White Forest) ski area with, purpose-built Risoul, which has been a favourite with British guests for three decades now. As well as sharing this popular ski domain, Vars also shares the lowest-in-the-French-Alps adult lift-ticket prices for the area.

Vars has four different village bases each featuring accommodation but three quarters of the facilities are concentrated in the main slopeside village Les Claux, which is the usual French hotchpotch of some ugly concrete blocks, and some nice chalets from the era before and after they realised the concrete blocks were a mistake, albeit conveniently located! At 1900m it's one of the highest resorts in the Alps, handy at this southerly latitude.

The ski runs continue down to 1660m, where Vars’ second largest base, one of the original villages, Sainte-Marie is located. The other two small, pretty hamlets, Sainte Catherine and St Marcellin are not connected by lifts but you can ski back to St Marcellin. Guests to Vars can opt for either self-catered apartments or hotels for their ski accommodation.