Tignes in France, where the Grande Motte glacier is currently busy with summer skiers and boarders,

New this year is an ice grotto, an ephemeral world where you can journey to the centre of the ice. Located at an altitude of 3,500 m, every morning the Ice Grotto reveals all its secrets in perfect transparency. There's an almost religious silence, the central corridor is full of fantastic ice sculptures, right inside the glacier.

�For around ten days this summer, five sculptors will make the very entrails of the glacier come to life in transitory works of art. The way the light plays through he frozen bas-reliefs, the metamorphosis of matter as the temperature varies; the ice grotto is anything but a fixed composition. On the contrary, in perpetual movement, hardly perceptible to the naked eye, the ice grotto takes you off into a phantasmagorical world where the imaginary flirts with reality.� said an excited spokesperson for Tignes.

Summer snow facilities at Tignes include skiing and snowboarding, slalom and half pipe, ski schools and summer camps. The ski area is open daily to 5th September, from 7.15 a.m. to 1 p.m. It re-opens on 2 October 2004 for the entire winter season. A one-day adult pass cost �30.50, 6 days adult pass: �145.