While the imposing, purpose-built concrete hotels of Tignes may not exactly scream ‘culture’, there are countless other alpine towns and villages that live and breathe the mountains.

By culture we’re not really talking about drinking at apres until you can’t pronounce your own name anymore (we’ll get to that later…) but rather the people that have lived and worked in these mountain towns all their lives.

If you pick the right spot, the sense of living alongside local people who belong in the mountains is a really cool thing to experience. We’re talking about the families that farm the valleys in the off-season and the small-town shop and bar owners – all who’ll have countless spawn who will have ridden the local hills since they were old enough to poop by themselves.