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Tarentaise traffic at Feb half term - how bad?

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 andy 05 Aug 2013
Family ski trip is booked to Peisey Nancroix, and due to the insane pricing of Eurostar tickets (£450 a head!) we're now flying into Chambery - on the saturday of half term. Which is the same day as Paris holidays. At 1400.

My dilemma is now how to get from the airport to the chalet - I've heard absolute horror stories about the N90 from Albertville to Bourg St Maurice, so I'm looking at getting a taxi to the station in Chambery, local train (90 mins) to Landry which is 7km from our accommodation. The only worry about this is the number of moving parts...

So, how bad is the traffic on what presumably is THE worst saturday at THE worst time of day? How long can 120km realistically take to drive?

Cheers
 Pinch'a'salt 05 Aug 2013
In reply to andy:

Bad. Very bad. I avoid at all costs going down the valley on pretty much any Saturday through the winter (we live above Moutiers towards Pralognan..). Have seen the N90 'stocked up' all the way from the Aigueblanche lights to the outskirts of Albertville. No ideas on timescales but that's a long long time...!

Train could be a good option - not experienced it miyself (particularly at that time...). Alternatively, find something to do in the valley for the day and wait til mid-evening to head along to Moutiers.
OP andy 05 Aug 2013
In reply to Pinch'a'salt: Cheers - I'm as worried about the return - short of leaving at 6am and spending the day in Chambery I think that could be a bit of a nail-biter!
 Carolyn 05 Aug 2013
In reply to andy:

Agree. Haven't done Feb half term, but have hit last week of French hols in March, and it can be bad. One thing to bear in mind is that local registered minibuses are allowed to use the old back road on the other side of the river (the Police stop bigger and non-local traffic from using it) and can so bypass a lot of the jams. So if you can find a transfer company who use buses that meet that criteria, you cut out some of the jams, but from what I remember it's not all of them - there may well be a lengthy jam before they can cut off the main road. (We used a Coolbus this year who did this and explained the rules, and have also been rallied along it by other companies in the past)

Haven't done the train thing, but friends did it with two really small kids in tow and it was apparently fine.
OP andy 05 Aug 2013
In reply to Carolyn: Our kids are 11 and 13 but our friends have got a couple of tinies - the thought of "I need a wee..." in a massive traffic jam is too hideous to contemplate...

I'm quite keen on the train idea - if the flight's on time then we'll have a couple of hours to get the station 10km away, 90 minutes on a train then 7km up the hill. No weather or traffic jams to worry about, and coming back we'll probably have to leave fairly early but not the 5am that some people have suggested if we're driving!

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