Over the border, up the Val d'Ayas
Champoluc is at the top of the Val d'Ayas, in the Aosta Valley, at 1,568 metres. It is the southern side of the same mountain Zermatt looks at from the north, which makes it closer than it sounds: about three hours from Geneva through Chamonix and the Mont Blanc tunnel, or over the Grand-St-Bernard from Martigny. In winter it is the Monterosa Ski area; the rest of the year it is meadows, larch forest and the peaks at the end of the valley.
Concrete, wood and glass
The building does not do the carved-balcony thing. It is concrete, wood and glass — a former sports hotel called CampZero, reworked into fifty-three duplex rooms and suites, most of them split-level with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the valley. The effect is closer to a gallery than a chalet, and it is the reason to choose this over the more predictable alpine options nearby.
A climbing wall in the lobby
The lobby opens onto a twelve-metre indoor climbing wall, overlooked by the cocktail bar — you can order a drink and stay in the room while someone is mid-route above you. In winter an ice wall goes up outside, with guides for anyone who wants to be talked up it; the hotel claims it as the only one of its kind.
Twenty-five metres of saltwater
The spa is the other half of the hotel, and on a grey day it is the whole of it. The lap pool is twenty-five metres of heated saltwater behind full-height glass, with the valley in front of you. Outside there is a heated pool and a wooden hot tub; inside, a wood-fired sauna, a hammam, cold plunges and a relaxation room. A glass-fronted cabin in the garden is used for facials and treatments for two.
Dog and child friendly
Dogs are welcome in any room, at fifty euros a night, and arrive to a bed and bowls of their own. Children are no more complicated: the paths through the meadows and forest around the hotel are flat and quiet enough for a stroller loop, and the duplex layout gives you a second level to retreat to. A pram parked beside the table at dinner is no trouble.
