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The cross-country skiing in the area is excellent, too, and there are some wonderful outdoor thermal baths 10 minutes back down the valley towards Perpignan.As you’ll swiftly discover, skiing and boarding in the Pyrenees, particularly on the French side, is at least a third cheaper than in the Alps: an adult’s six-day, low-season pass for the Neiges Catalanes’ nine stations costs €132/£90 (Val d’Is?, by comparison, is €193/£130). As for accommodation, to generalise across different areas and seasons is difficult – but between £200 and £300 will get you a week’s B&B in a traditional, comfortable two-star hotel; expect to pay from £500 for a two-bed apartment.These prices apply in the Domaine Tourmalet, the Pyrenees’ largest ski area, with 99km of skiing over 69 pistes. Gear hire, mountain restaurants and caf?are similarly better value. Few of the pistes at any of the Neiges Catalanes stations are long or very demanding, but they are well maintained, with plenty of artificial snow cannons. And, unless you’re there during the school holidays or weekends, they’re deserted by Alpine standards. But no station is more than 20 minutes’ drive from the next and there are good, free parking facilities at most.Each station has its own ambience: the gentle, ambling slopes of Font-Romeu itself suit families best; Les Angles offers the most variety; Puigmal is where the cool Spanish riders like to hang out; but my favourite is Cambre d’Aze, with its high tree-line and panoramic views of the valley below.

It and the neighbouring Mont Louis, complete with its own Vauban fort, are small, handsome towns.The largest of the Neiges Catalanes stations, Les Angles, has just 30 pistes stretching over 40km, and if you spend more than a day at each station, you’ll be repeating runs. A few British tour operators do provide packages to the Pyrenees, but perhaps the best way to experience the extent of the Pyrenean resorts is to organise your own fly-drive trip.The Neiges Catalanes, for instance, in the Pyr?es-Orientales, is a charming network of nine stations an hour-and-a-half’s drive south-west of Perpignan and centred on Font-Romeu. Whether on the French or the Spanish side, Pyrenean resorts tend to be smaller, cheaper, less busy and rewardingly characteristic of the local region.This may not be the case for long. The healthy second-home property market on the French side of the Pyrenees has, in part, ensured that the 400km length of the range is well served by the low-cost airlines: the airports of Biarritz, Pau, Toulouse, Carcassone, Perpignan and, in Spain, Girona and Zaragoza, are all within two or three hours’ drive of the nearest resorts. For a start, the range’s mountain towns and villages bear little resemblance to the typical purpose-built mega-resorts of the Alps, with their winding lift queues, congested pistes, €10 hot dogs and bland, Euro-kitsch styling. But perhaps because of Andorra’s notoriety in the UK ski market, much of the rest of the Pyrenees, from Bar?s-La Mongie in the west to the Neiges Catalanes in the east, remains relatively unexplored by British skiers.
What distinguishes skiing in the Pyrenees? Perhaps it’s easier to say what it is not. How else can you explain the fact that Andorra, the duty-free principality high in the Pyrenees, last winter attracted more winter-sports enthusiasts from the UK than the US, Canada and Switzerland combined?

Admittedly, Andorra’s reputation as a downmarket and rather rowdy ski destination is outdated – you can, with a little effort, get away from the British party animals to find good skiing and improving facilities.

I’ve long suspected that one of the decisive factors for UK skiers when choosing a winter holiday destination is cheap booze and fags. Doubles start at £195 including breakfast; minimum two night-stay at weekends.The Serenity Spa at Seaham Hall Hotel (0191-516 1550; www.seaham-serenityspa ) is offering the Karin Herzog detox treatment at the discounted price of £30 (members £25) throughout January and February.MORE INFORMATIONCounty Durham Tourism (0191-383 3354; www.durham.gov.uk/tourism).. National Rail enquiries: 08457 484950; www.nationalrail.co.uk. If travelling by road, it is just off the A19.STAYING THERESeaham Hall Hotel, Lord Byrons Walk, Seaham, County Durham (0191-516 1400; www.seaham-hall ). Long live detox.Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel is ‘The Distance Between Us’ (Review, £6.99) TRAVELLER’S GUIDEGETTING THERESeaham train station is a five-minute drive from Seaham Hall, with links to Durham, Newcastle and Sunderland on Northern Rail (0845 00 00 125; www.northernrail ). I have no idea how many toxins I once had or now have in my body.Does detox actually do us any medical good? Does it rid us of anything other than cash? At this precise moment the question is: do I care? If it feels this good, it will be immortal.

I am massaged and pummelled and stretched and then covered in the miracle-working oxygen cream. Whatever its gaseous content, it smells wonderful and also expensive I lie on my warm couch like a cat in front of a fire. “It’s wonderful,” she says, with evangelist fervour, “the cream they put on you is impregnated with oxygen. The oxygen goes into your skin and breaks down the fats and toxins.” I examine her She is wearing, like me, a set of the karate pyjamas Her hair is relatively normal She would pass for sane, in the outside world Do you really believe that, I want to say. My fellow detoxer tells me there are as many as 250 toxins in the human body.