The valley at the bottom of Alpe d'Huez

The town

A working town, not a resort

Le Bourg-d'Oisans sits at around 720 metres on the flat floor of the Romanche valley, with mountains going up on every side of it. It is a working alpine town rather than a purpose-built resort, and that is the whole reason it works as a base. The bakeries, the pharmacy, the supermarket and the tourist office are open when you actually need them, not just in season, and the market fills the centre every Saturday morning.

The municipal pool is outdoors and open through the summer: a 25 metre pool, a paddling pool, a slide, a snack bar, and the mountainside standing behind all of it. There is a mineral and alpine wildlife museum in town as well, a reminder that this valley was known for its crystals long before it was known for bicycles. There are bike shops in the centre for hire, servicing and spares.

From the house it is about a kilometre into the middle of town, and every metre of that kilometre is flat.

The riding

Why riders end up here rather than somewhere else

Most cycling bases give you one famous climb and a lot of driving. This one gives you a flat bowl with roads leaving it in every direction, and going up. Alpe d'Huez starts three hundred metres past the drive: 13.8 kilometres, an average of 8.1 per cent, 1,120 metres of climbing and 21 numbered hairpins. Les Deux Alpes climbs out of the other side of the valley, a little over twenty kilometres away by road.

Between the two sit the Col d'Ornon, Villard-Notre-Dame with its unlit tunnels cut into the cliff, the Col du Glandon and the Col de la Croix de Fer up the Eau d'Olle, the Col du Sabot, and the long steady drag up the Romanche to the Col du Lautaret and then the wall of the Galibier. You can ride a different col every day for a week without putting a bike on a car once, and that is the part people underestimate until they get here.

The house has a proper garage with a wide door onto the drive and its own door into the house, so the bikes never come through the living room, and there is a brush and water outside for the mud.

Off the bike

The day the legs say no

The Vénéon and the Romanche are two of the better whitewater rivers in France, running anywhere from grade one to grade five depending on what you are up for. The rafting base up the Vénéon valley, between Venosc and Saint-Christophe-en-Oisans, is about twenty minutes from the door: rafting, hydrospeed, hot dog canoes and kayaking, in glacier water, inside the Écrins national park.

The Lac du Verney, up the Eau d'Olle towards the Glandon, has a watersports base for paddleboards, pedalos, windsurfing and canoes. For actual swimming there is the outdoor pool in town or the lake up at Les Deux Alpes.

And the whole valley is the front door of the Écrins national park, so the walking starts wherever you decide to stop the car: valley paths along the Romanche, refuge walks up the side valleys, and the high routes above the treeline for anyone who wants a full day out.

Above the valley

The two resorts, in summer

Alpe d'Huez is thirteen kilometres and eleven hundred metres above the house, and in summer it is a different place from the winter one. Lifts run for walkers and mountain bikers, there are downhill and cross-country trails off the mountain, and the Sarenne gorge drops away on the far side. Take the Col de Sarenne and the climb becomes a loop rather than an out-and-back. Below the resort sit Huez village, Villard-Reculas, Oz-en-Oisans and Vaujany, all small, all quiet, and all worth the detour.

Les Deux Alpes is the other way out of the valley, past the Chambon dam. It keeps a glacier open into the summer, has its own bike park and a lake with a swimming area, and makes an easy day out when you want a change of scenery.

Our other property, Chalet Magique, is up in Alpe d'Huez itself: four en-suite bedrooms, fully catered, and open all winter.

Getting here

Airports, trains and the bus up the mountain

Le Bourg-d'Oisans is about an hour and ten minutes from Grenoble, down the A480 and then up the Romanche valley. Most groups coming from the UK and Ireland fly to Lyon.

Grenoble Alpes Isère

About 1h 10. The closest airport.

Lyon Saint-Exupéry

About 2h 00. The best flight choice for most groups.

Geneva

About 2h 30. Worth it whenever the fares work out better.

Grenoble station

About 1h 00. Train, then bus or transfer. We can arrange a minibus.

Once you are here you do not really need the car. The T76 bus runs all year between Grenoble, Le Bourg-d'Oisans and Alpe d'Huez, and takes about forty minutes from the valley up to the resort. The stop is a hundred and twenty metres from the drive. Timetables change with the season, so check before you plan a day around it.

Dates

The weeks that go first

The summer calendar is the reason to book early. La Marmotte Granfondo Alpes starts in Le Bourg-d'Oisans and finishes at the top of Alpe d'Huez, and the Alpe d'Huez Triathlon takes over the same roads later in the season. Both fill the valley.

In July 2026 the Tour de France came through for its double ascent of the Alpe, the day Tadej Pogačar took Marco Pantani's thirty-year-old record off the mountain, and the town was full for a week either side. Whenever the Tour comes back this way, the same thing happens.

If you are aiming at one of those weeks, tell us early and we will hold the dates while you get the group together.