Marvellous for a moon dance

Rachael Oakes-Ash finds Verbier's celebrity-filled social scene just as alluring as the slopes.

'I hear you're a writer," says James Blunt. "I hear you're a singer," says I. "Yes but can you dance?" says James. "Can I what," says I, clearing the martini glasses from the table of the Hotel Farinet lounge bar and moon dancing on the table top.

My reward? Being hoisted on to the singer's shoulders and swung around the room to the envy of the young English trustafarians who camp in the family chalet each winter under the guise of "working a season". For "work" insert "party". Either way, it's all good fun.

This is a typical night out in the ski town of Verbier, a celebrity-filled grotto in the heart of the Swiss Alps. One night it's Blunty, next night it's Sir Richard Branson, who owns The Lodge in town. After that it's half the English rugby team and every night it's the bankers, financiers and Fortune 500 who have bought the town's chalets and turned Verbier into Little Britain.

The apres scene in Verbier is legendary. The brave make their way to the centre of town to the Farinet's apres bar, a narrow bar with a terrace and retractable roof where a foot-stomping cover band play from 5-9pm. The barmen are known for their "shot for a top" bargaining power, whereby both ski bunnies and boys dance on bars in ski pants and a bra.

Skiing in Europe takes some adjusting to and it's not just the dedication to serious nightly apres we're talking about. Gone are the super-perky "lifties" who staff the chairlifts and gondolas of North America, monitoring queues to keep everyone smiling and the lines running smoothly. It's every man for himself on the ski fields of France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. If you don't like crowds and waiting and can't fend for yourself in the ski equivalent of a rugby scrum as you negotiate your place in the trams and gondolas, then stay home.

But then you'd miss out on the kilometre after kilometre of runs that wind themselves from one stunning alpine region to another; the hundreds of thousands of hectares of off-piste back-country terrain on the back side of Mont Fort (accessible from most ski lifts) and the unforgettable apres scene.

Add the gourmet on-mountain dining at Chez Dany, a restaurant tucked away in the snow-laden woods; the long lunches with European wines at the mid-mountain Cabane Mont Fort; mulled wine and live music at the yurt-style 1937 bar on the run home; then beer and nachos on the deck at the Pub Mont Fort.

Verbier attracts an eclectic crowd, from Scandinavian ski bums rubbing their pennies together to those who spend up big at the world's most expensive nightclub, Coco Club, a place where British peers mix it up with Old Etonians in a fountain of French champagne. Yes, there are Australians but only a handful.