Courchevel 1300 Le Praz Village
Most visitors never venture below Courchevel 1550, but Le Praz — the original farming hamlet at 1,300 m that predates the ski resort by centuries — rewards the curious with a Romanesque church, an Olympic ski-jump ramp, and a handful of genuinely local restaurants where the fondue costs half what it does up the mountain.
A Village Before the Lifts
Le Praz clusters around the 12th-century Église Saint-Nicolas, a small stone church whose painted wooden interior has barely changed in 400 years. The bell tower is the oldest structure in the Courchevel valley and the churchyard offers a quiet, unhurried contrast to the resort energy above. The village fountain still runs with mountain spring water year-round.
The Olympic ski-jump ramp built for the 1992 Albertville Winter Games stands at the edge of the village, its concrete launch tower now weathered and slightly eerie in summer. You can walk right up to the base of the landing slope — there are no fences — and the sheer angle of the jump hill is genuinely vertiginous when seen from below.
Eating and Drinking Like a Local
La Bergerie de Pierres on the main square is the kind of place where the patron knows every regular by name and the tartiflette is made with Reblochon fermier from a farm three valleys over. Prices are roughly 40 percent lower than equivalent restaurants in 1850, and the atmosphere is pure Savoie rather than global luxury resort.
The Brasserie des Jeux Olympiques, a few doors down, is the village bar where ski patrollers and lift technicians drink after their shift. Order a pression (draught beer) or a glass of Mondeuse, the dark peppery red wine of Savoie, and you will feel a million miles from the designer boutiques of 1850 — even though it is only 7 km up the road.
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