OUR STORY
In the spring of 1974 we, David and Lynda, met up again having both returned to the UK after working away – David from South Africa and Lynda from Canada, and we set out on a six month European adventure having purchased a Bedford CF minibus.
Initially we advertised in “Time Out” magazine offering fellow travellers transport for a small fee to Andorra followed by Spain and Morocco. By standing outside the American Express offices in Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris and Athens, we managed to pay for our travels by taking “customers” along with us on the journey. We drove through Yugoslavia as it was then (a nightmare of a journey) through to Greece and then onwards to Crete (the ferry being the only one big enough to take the minibus), returning home via Corfu and Italy. The beaches south of Rome were deserted and fabulous.
Returning home after our six months of self-funded travelling, we decided to start up Club Cantabrica (named after the Cantabrian Mountains in north-west Spain) by offering holidays by coach to camp sites with ready erected tents and equipment initially on the Costa Brava and the Basque region in Spain. Over the years, this operation expanded greatly with mobile homes and hotel rooms being added to the programme and at one stage we had coaches heading off to Spain, the South of France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Portugal and Corfu. We chose to have the head office in St. Albans initially sharing a desk in our accountant’s office - Lynda’s mum was even roped in to help before moving to our purpose-built office block in 1982.
We opened our coach yard in 1983 and developed the coach business which also incorporated Len Wright Coaches. The toy manufacturer Corgi made a replica of the Cantabrica Coach and we all loved going to the Coach Rally in Brighton! One year, we even won a cup!
In 1978, whilst the coaches were very busy in the summer months, they were mostly idle during the winter and as David loved skiing (having been twice!) we decided to offer skiing holidays to Austria and Andorra. Watch one of our videos from the 80's complete with ski onesies HERE!
The skiing side of our business was rebranded to Snowcoach and then once again to Snowcoach & Snowbreaks to encompass the offering of air travel and self-drive.
However, time moved on and due to a change in the travel climate and the introduction of EasyJet and Ryannair, the face of travel changed, and with it, so did we.
Today, we are still a family run business, albeit with a much smaller operation, offering our fantastic Hotel L'Aigle (owned by us) high in the French Alps in the quaint village of Valmeinier 1800, which is ideal for snow sure skiing throughout the season.
We cater for singles (solo skiers) families, couples and groups with a range of en-suite rooms available at an extremely reasonable price.
Generations move on and we are now meeting clients who were taken as young children, to the L’Aigle by their parents - it’s amazing and lovely to acknowledge such a loyal following!
We very much look forward to welcoming you to the hotel and skiing with you.
