Val d'Isere
— — where the Isère begins.
Not only on a wall.
“A high village at the head of the Tarentaise Valley, where the Isère river begins as a trickle below the Pointe des Lessières. The road keeps climbing past it, up to the Col de l'Iseran at 2,770 metres, one of the highest paved passes in the Alps. In winter the village sits inside the ski domain it shares with neighbouring Tignes; in summer the road opens and cyclists arrive in waves. The baroque church of Saint-Bernard-de-Menthon has been standing in the centre since the 1660s, the saint of mountain travellers, in a place that asks for one.
Val d'Isere, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Val d'Isère sits at 1,850 metres at the head of the Tarentaise Valley, in the Savoie department of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. The Isère river rises just above the village in the Sources de l'Isère, below the Pointe des Lessières, then flows about 286 kilometres west through Albertville and Grenoble before joining the Rhône. The village backs onto the Vanoise National Park, France's first national park, established in 1963. The only road access is the D902 from Bourg-Saint-Maurice, the same road that continues over the Col de l'Iseran at 2,770 metres into the Maurienne Valley. The Italian border, at the Col de la Galise, sits less than ten kilometres east as the crow flies.
The road from Bourg-Saint-Maurice into Val d'Isère stays open through winter for the ski season, but the section continuing east over the Col de l'Iseran closes from mid-October until late June or early July, depending on snowfall. The lifts run from late November to early May, with summer skiing on the Glacier de Pissaillas typically open through July. The village hosts the Critérium de la Première Neige, an early-December World Cup race that has opened the international alpine season here since 1955. Most hotels close for two windows: late April through June, and September through mid-November. The Tour de France crosses the Col de l'Iseran roughly once a decade, most recently in 2019.
The combined ski area shared with neighbouring Tignes covers roughly 300 kilometres of marked piste, served by about 80 lifts and reaching above 3,400 metres on the Glacier de Pissaillas. The 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics held the men's alpine downhill and combined events on the Face de Bellevarde, which Patrick Ortlieb of Austria won in 1:50.37. Val d'Isère is also the hometown of Jean-Claude Killy, winner of three gold medals at the 1968 Grenoble Olympics; the joint ski area carried his name as the Espace Killy for decades before being rebranded to Tignes–Val d'Isère. Lift passes are sold by Val d'Isère Téléphériques for the local domain and by SETAM for the shared resort. The village core is largely closed to cars in winter, with paid garages on the periphery.