Five-star hotels in Les Arcs: Arc 2000, Bourg-Saint-Maurice

Les Arcs hotels and the town of Bourg-Saint-Maurice

Bourg-Saint-Maurice stands at about 840 m on the Isère, in the upper Tarentaise, and counted 7,270 residents in 2023. Its commune covers 179 km² and rises to 3,816 m at the Aiguille des Glaciers; the Italian border at the Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard is about 30 km away.

The ski resort was built on its slopes. On 15 December 1964 Bourg-Saint-Maurice merged with Hauteville-Gondon to prepare the Les Arcs project: the town provided financial guarantees and Hauteville-Gondon the land, under an agreement with the future developer, Roger Godino. Today the tourist office presents the destination as the valley town, four high-altitude sites and, in summer only, the wild valley of Les Chapieux at 1,550 m.

So anyone looking for Les Arcs hotels is, administratively, looking in Bourg-Saint-Maurice. The town is the year-round base, with shops, services and an international railway station; the resort villages begin at Arc 1600 and end at Arc 2000, the highest, at about 2,000 m.

From the station platform to Arc 1600

The link between town and snow is older than the resort. In 1961 two chairlifts first carried skiers from the valley to Courbaton, at 1,750 m. A cable car to Arc 1600 followed in 1974, and in 1989 it was replaced by the funicular, which the resort describes as fully electric.

The line is about 2.9 km long and climbs from its lower station beside the railway, at about 810 m, to Arc 1600 at about 1,620 m, by way of Montrigon and Les Granges. Each of its two cars carries up to 270 people, and the trip takes about seven minutes. A footbridge over the tracks connects it to the SNCF station. In winter 2026–27 it runs from 12 December 2026 to 25 April 2027; in summer 2026 it ran through July and August, with some weekends in June and September.

At the top, shuttle buses continue from the upper station to Arc 1800, Arc 1950 and Arc 2000. For a stay at Arc 2000 a car is therefore optional: the resort suggests leaving it in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, while reminding drivers that winter equipment is still compulsory for that short drive.

Arc 1600, Arc 1800, Arc 1950 and Arc 2000

Les Arcs was conceived in the 1960s by the developer Roger Godino and Robert Blanc, with Charlotte Perriand leading a collective of architects and planners. Their principle, in the words of the architect Guy Rey-Millet, was that building on a pristine site demands great humility: buildings follow the terrain instead of taking the finest spot.

Arc 1600 welcomed its first holidaymakers at Christmas 1968 and was the laboratory for that approach; the tourist office calls it intimate and suited to families. Arc 1800, first presented in 1970 as a car-free project, opened at Christmas 1974 and groups four pedestrian villages, Charvet, Villards, Chantel and Charmettoger, with golf, swimming and bowling, and sunsets towards Mont Blanc.

Arc 2000 followed in 1979. Bernard Taillefer designed it around the Varet hill as a 'fort' facing the sun and sheltered from the weather, with sloping roofs inspired by ski jumps. Arc 1950, the newest, opened in 2003: developed by Intrawest as a fully pedestrian village, it mixes slate, stone and wood drawn from both Alpine villages and North American resorts.

Les Arcs holds the Ministry of Culture's former 20th-century heritage label, renamed Remarkable Contemporary Architecture in 2016. In Bourg-Saint-Maurice–Les Arcs it covers five sites: the town hall and the community centre in the valley, the planning and architecture of Arc 1600 and Arc 1800, and the Aiguille Rouge cable car stations at Arc 2000.

Hôtel Taj-I Mah on the slopes of Arc 2000

Hôtel Taj-I Mah stands on the slopes at the centre of Arc 2000, registered at Place Olympique, facing the Cabriolet gondola. It belongs to the Les Etincelles collection; the Atout France register lists 48 rooms, with a five-star classification dated 8 February 2022.

The hotel explains its name as 'crown of the moon', after a 115-carat diamond held in the Iranian royal collection. Its architect, Marc Miginiac, gave the building comma-shaped roofs and set the large windows to frame the views; inside, Indian- and Tibetan-inspired pieces sit beside a grand staircase and chandelier. Rooms, spread over four floors above the restaurants and terraces, face either the village square or the ski area to the south and south-east. They start at 24 sq m, and five mezzanine and duplex suites on the upper floors reach 70 sq m.

The 400 m² spa has a 15-metre pool, a sauna, a jacuzzi, a hammam, experience showers and a relaxation room with a Himalayan salt wall, plus four treatment rooms using Valmont and Phytomer. La table du Taj-I Mah serves traditional and contemporary cooking, with a six-course daily menu, a tasting menu and a vegan menu, on a south-facing terrace overlooking the pistes. The cellar holds more than 2,000 bottles across more than 300 references.

Les Arcs and Paradiski at a glance

The Les Arcs/Peisey-Vallandry area has about 200 km of pistes, and the Vanoise Express joins it to La Plagne to form Paradiski, with 425 km of slopes. The highest lift, the Aiguille Rouge cable car of 1982, reaches 3,226 m with no intermediate towers; from the top, a 7 km run descends to Villaroger at 1,200 m. Arc 2000 sits at the foot of that massif, with ski-in, ski-out access.

Getting to Les Arcs by train, road and air

Because Bourg-Saint-Maurice is the end of the Tarentaise line, the resort calls itself the most accessible by train. For 2026–27 it lists TGV INOUI services from Paris all year, OUIGO and the Travelski Night Express overnight train in winter, and extra Paris trains between 27 November and 12 December 2026. From Lyon, TER and TGV trains take about three hours. From London, Eurostar Snow runs on Saturdays from 19 December 2026 to 20 February 2027, changing at Lille Europe, and takes just under eight hours to Bourg-Saint-Maurice; new this winter, the Travelski Night Express also runs direct from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Brussels.

Since 6 January 2026 the station, taxi rank and bus station have formed a single interchange. In winter, two coach lines booked through Altibus, Alpskibus from Geneva Airport and LYS'Express from Lyon's airport, terminate at that bus station, near the funicular.

By road, the approach is the RN90 up the valley from Albertville, then the resort road to Arc 2000. On heavy winter weekends the Savoie département runs its RÉCITA traffic-light system on the RN90, and for the whole winter period, 1 November to 31 March, cars need four winter tyres or must carry chains or socks.

Speed skiing, film and music

Les Arcs has a habit of trying new things on snow. The 1983 short film Apocalypse Snow, part of the resort's history, helped popularise snowboarding in Europe. At the 1992 Albertville Games, Arc 2000 staged speed skiing, then a demonstration sport, on the Kilomètre Lancé course: Finland's Tarja Mulari won at 219.245 km/h, and France's Michaël Prüfer reached 229.299 km/h. In 2001 the resort held its first Alpine Ski World Cup races, on the Cachette course at Arc 1600.

Culture follows the calendar. The Les Arcs European Film Festival, founded in 2009 by two natives of Bourg-Saint-Maurice, opens each winter season in December with a programme of European arthouse cinema and a different guest country every year. In summer, the Académie Festival des Arcs, created in 1973 by Roger Godino and Yves Petit de Voize on the model of American music academies, gives free concerts alongside its teaching.

Down the valley to Moûtiers and the 3 Vallées

Down the valley, Moûtiers is the gateway to Les 3 Vallées: Méribel (Les Allues) and Courchevel are both reached by road from there. The hotel puts Moûtiers about 50 km, or just under an hour, from Arc 2000.

Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is about 143 km by road from the hotel, by its own figure. Beyond the Tarentaise, our five-star addresses across the French Alps cover the rest of the range; to weigh a slope-side stay at Arc 2000 against a base in the valley, read comparing five-star hotels before booking.