The kitchen is fully equipped, and more than caters for the eight man capacity. Everything you would expect is there - big fridge, oven, microwave, gas hob, two sinks. Sunday roasts or fishfingers and chips, there's nothing missing here.

Bivouac doesn't have all the blasé trimmings that most chalets do. There is no hot tub, no sauna. No playstation, no indoor rock-climbing gym. There is a widescreen TV, but no DVD collection. There is a basement play area for the kids - but it is just a room with nothing in. Bring Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit.

Bivouac is simple and we've decided to leave it that way. We do not add our standard concierge pack as we do for our other properties, because if you've chosen to stay here you probably aren't coming for wine tastings and you probably don't care if there are flowers on your pillow when you arrive. All of it is available, of course - all you have to do is ask.

This one starts with a limerick:

There was a young man who said "Damn,
For it certainly seems that I am
A creature that moves
In determinate grooves:
I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram!"

Holiday chalets, for all their charm, are trams. A sloping roof, an open fire, an outdoor hot tub and a ground-floor games room - on the whole they are very pleasant trams, but trams they are, right down to the heart-shaped cushions and the 'authentic' traditional snowshoes hanging off the wall, as if the man who single-handedly built the place has just popped out to chop some wood.

Not so the Bivouac. It is not a converted farmhouse - in fact it has only just been built. But it is not designed for the holiday market, so you'll find no sauna, no hot tub, no heart-shaped cushions. It was built to live in - and it was built, single-handedly, by its Chamoniard owner.

The Bivouac is simplicity defined. Well, perhaps quirky simplicity defined. Every beam was hand-cut, and intentionally none of it was done with angular precision. The whole place is a little like the moment in Dead Poets' Society where Robin Williams has the kids stand on their classroom tables to get a different perspective on things. Bivouac barely even looks like a chalet. But it is beautiful, if no supermodel. This is not somewhere to bring your corporate banking trip - it is somewhere to bring your family and your board game collection. You aren't five minutes walk from a lap-dancing club, you are ten seconds from nature. With the exception of the one other visible chalet, the only other life you'll see will be the deer wandering through the garden.

Do not hesitate if you've got pre-teen kids: there is space for play, space to relax, and no traffic at all; if you are coming for nature as much as for sports: Bivouac may not be ideal for lift access - but for mountain access, you just need to step outside the door.

Think again if you want to be close to shops, or bars, or restaurants: Bivouac isn't; if you want bells and whistles: Bivouac has none.

Bivouac is like Le Planet - a long way from anywhere, raised above the valley floor and commanding an impressive and entirely different view of the valley to the one you get in town. It's aboue a 15 minute drive from Chamonix town, and half of that drive is up - Bivouac is the last chalet at the top of a road not many people go up - you're in a field above the Les Bossons ski jump, and effectively in the woods. You'll see deer, not people.

The ground floor is an open plan collection of kitchen, dining room and living space, running the whole length of the chalet, with the tremendous staircase against the back wall. It is prehaps from here that the quirkiness is on best display, with the central fireplace dominating the room, cosy warmth bound by not quite symmetrical beams.

There are two bedrooms, both of which can sleep four, making Bivouac perfect for a family with two or three (or four!) children, or for two families. The master bedroom has a double bed with a mezzanine to plonk the kids on, and the second bedroom is the reverse, with the main bed up on the mezzanine and a sofa bed by the door.