Summer
Tradi'Cimes, the traditional festival of Albiez-Montrond
Two free days in early August, on Place Opinel and at the Mollard lake: craft market, wood carving competition, farming demonstrations, traditional music and dance.
Tradi'Cimes is the village festival, in early August, and it is free. Two days of traditional music and dance, craft trades and farming demonstrations, spread across two sites: Place Opinel in the Chef-lieu, and the Mollard lake. It is the second half of a fortnight that holds two festivals — Celti'Cimes falls two weeks earlier, in the same village.
Two days, two places
Saturday, at the Col du Mollard lake — 300 metres from the flat. This is the festive day: entertainment, barbecue, bar and music around the water, with the swimming area and paddling pool open and the Aiguilles d'Arves opposite. You walk there from our door, and go back up whenever you like.
Sunday, on Place Opinel, in the Chef-lieu — where the roads from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, Albiez-le-Jeune and Le Mollard meet. This is the traditional day, from 9am to 6pm: folk dancing, craft workshops and Beaufort cheese-making.
The programme
The craft market
Trades, not resale stalls: soap-making, aromatic products, coffee roasting, wood carving, jewellery, pottery, honey. There is also a bas-relief wood carving competition, which you can watch progress through the day.
The farming demonstrations
This is what sets Tradi'Cimes apart from a country market: milking, sheepdogs at work, cattle presented, farm machinery. The working mountain, shown by the people who work it.
And Beaufort cheese made in front of you — the gesture you otherwise only see through the window of the dairy cooperative.
Music and dance
Folk dancing and traditional music — the Alpine repertoire rather than the Irish one, which is the difference with Celti'Cimes. Bar and light catering on site.
For children
Wood-themed activities, following on from the carving competition. The format suits young children well: you come and go, and nothing costs anything.
When: two days in early August — Saturday afternoon and evening, Sunday 9am to 6pm
Where: Saturday at the Col du Mollard lake, Sunday on Place Opinel in the Chef-lieu
Price: free
On site: bar, light catering, public toilets, free parking
Access: wheelchair accessible
Dogs: welcome, on a lead
Contact: +33 6 72 08 37 88 — tradicimesalbiezmontrond@gmail.com
Two festivals in a fortnight
It is a peculiarity of Albiez you would not guess from the size of the village: two festivals in a fortnight, late July and early August, both in the commune. Celti'Cimes is an Irish music festival with instrument workshops; Tradi'Cimes is the local fête, free and with nothing to book.
For anyone setting their dates across those two weeks, there is enough to fill two evenings a week without leaving the commune — which, in a resort this size, is not a given.
Extending the day
The skills shown on Place Opinel can also be visited the rest of the year. Twenty minutes away, the Vallée des Arves dairy cooperative makes Beaufort and opens to visitors. In the village, the Moulin Valentin bakery and the shops of Albiez.
And for the rest of the week, the six waymarked walks from the village, or the summer page as a whole.
Read next
- Trail de l'Étendard and the Espace Trail des Aiguilles d'ArvesThe race route also exists as a permanent waymarked trail: you can run it all summer, without a number.
- Cross Triathlon and Swimrun des Aiguilles d'Arves, at the Albiez lakeFour age brackets, four distances, the same lake — and a race that lasts a day when the week is still yours.
- Preparing for the Marmotte Granfondo Alpes from Albiez7,500 places gone in a day. Albiez is not where to sleep on race morning — it is where to spend the week before.