There are few things left in this day and age that are both great and yet to be discovered/ruined by huge swathes of British people. But, strangely enough, the Alps in summer is one of them.

Of course, the Germans and French and Italians have discovered them, but that doesn’t count: we haven’t.

You can go a whole day in the Alpine meadows and it’s all “guten Morgen”, “salut” and “ciao”. You won’t get a single “Nice day for it”. It’s refreshing. And it’s not stiflingly hot. And nobody is wearing a yellow thong.

I know this because we were in the Alps last summer. No sand. No pebbles. No humidity. Fresh air. How much better than a beach holiday.

Six of the best summer Alpine resorts

Sean Newsom selects his favourite summer resorts in France, Austria and Switzerland

• Mule trekking in the Swiss Alps

Our bit was the Dolomites in Italy, but so far north that they drink and eat like Austrians, which is a good thing. Proper-sized beer glasses if you so desire. Proper foresty meat casseroles — deer and rabbit and stuff — but pizza if you want.

I’ll be honest: the village of San Cassiano, the base for our week, is posh. Too posh. It’s so posh, you can’t buy a shirt in one of its boutique shops for less than €100, which, I’m afraid, is as much as your house is now worth in pounds.

Take your own shirts, because you need to dress smart for dinner if you’re eating at St Hubertus, which you absolutely must, regardless of the fact that the menu costs as much as your house as well. Norbert Niederkofler, its two-Michelin-star chef, does full-on gastronomic superfood, but it doesn’t leave you feeling the need for a bulimic bout by course 10.

By which I mean it’s light. And, shock horror, kids are welcome, too. Ours disappeared for a whole hour, hanging out with Norbert’s pastry chefs while we did the thing parents don’t do very often . . . no, not that thing, not in a Michelin-starred restaurant. I mean we had a conversation.

Now, cost. Michelin stars and swanky shorts don’t make for a cheap holiday, but you can find ways to stretch your pound. Relatively. You’ll pay at least 25% less to stay here when it’s nice and summery than you would in winter. You’ll also pay about 200% less than you would going anywhere Michael Winnerish down on the coast. And if you aren’t eating at Norbert’s caff, you can fine-dine for a tenner in the mountain restaurants, or rifugios.

It’s definitely posh, though. The locals dress smart for breakfast. And for tennis. And for taking the coiffed dog for a walk. Ignore them: you’re on holiday, and you’re British, and what the Germans are to deckchairs by the pool, the Brits are to a crumpled shirt that isn’t tucked in properly, bad shorts, perhaps with some sort of misjudged bermuda print, an old panama and skin that hasn’t seen sunshine since the previous July.

It was thus attired on day two that I took the Piz Sorega cable car (the poshest cable car I’d ever been on, the Lamborghini, you might say, of cable cars) up out of San Cassiano — and before you can say yodel-ey-hee-hoo, I’m hiking with my family in the Alpine meadows.

When it isn’t smothered in snow, it is absolutely beautiful . . . dark, looming mountains in the distance, lush, grass-covered, less looming ones in the foreground, clear trekking paths and all the continentals with their non-English hellos and their walking sticks.

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