DATELINE: Albertville

One of the nicest things about the Winter Olympics, wherever the host city may be, is that the surrounding countryside is a scenic wonderland. And the Savoy of France is certainly a match for any of them.

Lakes Bourget and Aiguebelette sparkle in the sunshine and the Isere River, coming out of the mountains, carves its way through the Tarentaise, the valley guarded by the French Alps. Even if you don’t have time to go to the mountains, they so dominate the area that all you have to do is look up and you can get lost in them. Sheer faces, plunging ravines, gentler slopes, trees wearing their winter lace, everything is postcard perfect.

There is more to see, though, than still life. Times computer technician Tony Cruse, coming down the mountain from his lodgings in Doucy, spotted a herd of wild boars by the roadside.

And getting out of town and into the mountains isn’t difficult. In fact, it’s almost a necessity for Games goers. Although Albertville is the host city, the city of 18,000 is merely the staging point.

Only speedskating and figure skating are being contested here. The other sports are scattered around various--and in some cases far-flung--mountain sites. The idea was to spur economic recovery in the entire Savoy, but that hasn’t happened yet and probably won’t. Most of the towns involved are in serious debt because of building cost overruns.

Albertville, though, will forever hold a distinction among Winter Olympic host cities. It’s the site of the last Winter Games to be held the same year as the Summer Olympics. In two years, the Winter Games will have a “leap year,” moving out of the Summer Games’ orbit and into their own four-year cycle.

The next Winter Games are scheduled for 1994--instead of 1996--in Lillehammer, Norway, and the ones after that in 1998 at Nagano, Japan. The Summer Games will continue the cycle they have been in: Barcelona this year, Atlanta in ’96. That’s because the International Olympic Committee decided it had grown too difficult to manage both Winter and Summer Games in the same year.

Incidentally, the Albert in Albertville was Prince Albert, the German royal consort of England’s Queen Victoria. The French are not likely to name anything after a German who spent most of his life in England. The Albert in question was the head of the House of Savoy--which later produced the king of Italy--in 1836, when the communities of Hopital and Conflans merged into a single town. His name was King Charles-Albert. The place could as well have been Charlestown.