Tignes, France

One of the highest resorts in Europe, Tignes also offers more skiing in winter and in summer than pretty well anywhere else, thanks to its high altitude skiing on the Grande Motte glacier and its commitment to maintain a vertical of at least 1000 metres (3280 feet) for eight months of the year. Sharing the vast and exciting 'l'Espace Killy ' ski area with neighbouring Val d'Isère, purpose-built Tignes has the stronger French influence of the two, as well as being largely based at a higher and more snow-sure altitude. There are in fact five base areas to Tignes, although three of them - Le Lac, Le Lavachet and Val Claret - more or less run in to one another to form the main section. They stand together in a vast snowy...

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10 places to swim with sharks

source The only sounds are breath and bubbles. A tuna head floats just feet away. I peer through the blue to the limits of my visibility, straining to see that tell-tale shape emerge from the murky edges of the water. Suddenly, a frantic tap on my shoulder from a fellow diver forces me to pivot to my right, and there, barely a foot away, is one the world’s greatest predators — his black eye staring right into my wide blue ones as he slowly glides past the cage. I had met my first Great White Shark... The fear elicited by sharks — by the very idea of something toothy and hungry lurking beneath the surface — is primeval. But it is also, for the most part, unfounded. Sharks don’t want to eat humans. We’re far too bony. They want to eat fish...

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