Ninety kilometres from Nice and two thousand metres higher up: the southernmost ski resort in the Alps, a hundred and twenty kilometres of pistes on the edge of the Mercantour national park, a pass that tips over into Italy in summer, and down at the bottom of the valley a village with a listed Romanesque bell tower and a ninety-metre waterfall. The addresses I give my own passengers, each with its phone number, its website and directions.
⚠️ TO BE HONEST ABOUT IT: Isola 2000 has no distinguished table — no MICHELIN star, no Bib Gourmand, no label. What you eat here is mountain cooking and ski-resort cooking. Here are three addresses, given for what they are: two in the resort, one down in the village. ⚠️ The restaurant on the snow front USED TO BE CALLED L'ESSENTIEL: it is now LA DIFFÉRENCE, and many directories still give the old name.
Both are on the snow front, a few steps apart. Book ahead in season.
Isola village is seventeen kilometres from the resort and eleven hundred metres lower. It lives all year round.
🚕 I'll drive you there, and I'll come back for you. The road up to the resort is seventeen kilometres of hairpins from the village: it is not a road you drive down after a long lunch at altitude.
+33 6 58 27 93 12Isola 2000 is the southernmost resort in the Alps and the closest to the Mediterranean: NINETY KILOMETRES FROM NICE, an hour and a half by road. It was built from nothing from 1968 onwards by British investors, on a plateau that until then had served only as summer pasture, and it opened IN DECEMBER 1971. ⚠️ The climb needs snow tyres or chains from November to April.
The 2026-2027 season is announced to open on 5 December 2026.
🚕 I'll drive you there, skis and luggage included, and I'll drop you at the foot of the pistes. In winter the climb needs snow tyres or chains — that's my job, not yours. Home in the evening at whatever time you name.
+33 6 58 27 93 12This is the argument my passengers forget: at two thousand metres it is some fifteen degrees cooler than in Nice, and it is an hour and a half by road. In summer the resort turns into mountain-bike country and a starting point for the Mercantour national park — and the pass above it tips over into Italy.
⚠️ The dates change every year: check before driving up.
🚕 I'll drive you there. In July and August it is fifteen degrees cooler than in Nice, and it is an hour and a half away. Up in the morning, back in the evening: just tell me the time.
+33 6 58 27 93 12The resort is at the top; the village is at the bottom, seventeen kilometres away and eleven hundred metres lower, on the bank of the Tinée. They are two different places, and the second is worth the stop — a great many people drive up to Isola 2000 without ever seeing Isola.
On the bank of the Tinée, on the road up to the resort. Lived in all year round.
⚠️ It is the only road. If it closes, there is no other way in.
🚕 I'll drive you there. The Tinée valley is best come down slowly, stopping: the village, the waterfall, the gorges. Nobody does that while driving themselves.
+33 6 58 27 93 12