Posts

Showing posts from December, 2016

Birthday boy

Image
After four hours on the ski slope on our penultimate day, we headed up to La Bergerie Kanata for lunch, as we have every day this week. We both ordered the bacon and potato pie, and it was fabulous. Today though, is New Year's Eve and also Tony's birthday, so I suggested we order dessert of myrtille tart. I told Tony I needed the toilet, but in actual fact I went into the restaurant to ask if they had a candle for when they brought out our desserts. They fetched me a chef who spoke good English and he explained to the other staff what I had asked. After much rooting around in cupboards they found a tea light which I said was fine, thank you. I could see our order sitting on the pass and when the waiter picked it up I said to Tony: 'This is ours. It's coming.' But the candle had extinguished in the wind. 'Oh, and now it's going,' I said, as our desserts went back into the kitchen. It was obvious the candle wasn't going to stay lit but the wai

Petit Viking

Image
This morning we were up by 7.30am and ready to shower before an early ride up to the ski resort. The hot water had other ideas but neither Tony or I, in our shower attire were willing to ask what the problem was in reception. We washed the important bits and dressed for skiing. Brun Sport, the shop keeping our skis and boots for us, was quiet at just after 8.30am and we were in and out quickly. Today we decided to keep our shoes on to walk to the slope before changing into our ski boots. Ski boots are a total bastard to walk in, hurting your calf muscles and giving your legs friction burn. As we walked to the beginners slopes the snow machines were pumping out a fine mist all across the the mountain. They were still going while we started to ski, giving a chilly sprinkling of snow as we darted underneath. Being so early meant that the queue for the ski lift on the easiest slope, Petit Viking was short and we managed about ten runs, gaining more and more confidence eac

Lac du Lauvitel

Image
Last year when we stayed in Venosc we spent all of our days up in Les 2 Alpes, only discovering dozens of walks back down near to camp as the holiday drew to a close. One walk I particularly wanted to do was to Lac du Lauvitel, the pictures of which looked stunning. So, after two days of ski practice, I persuaded Tony we should do this walk. We were up out of bed as the village churches were, two minutes apart, striking eight. We'd dressed ourselves in many layers and were off on our way by 9am. Despite being a beautiful day with clear skies once again our entire walk was in the shadow of the valley. That made for a cold but atmospheric trek up to 1,500 metres. The first half of the distance was alongside the river. Once the route turned at right angles it was uphill for the rest of the way, at an unrelenting gradient. Tony doesn't do hills very well - I walk at a reasonable pace for a minute, look behind me to find Tony has covered less than half the distance

Les 2 Alpes

Image
This is our second December break in the French Alps. We're on the same campsite, in Venosc, a ten minute cable car ride away from Les 2 Alpes ski resort. After our 8.50am tunnel crossing, we arrived at 6.20pm. The site is under new ownership and, upon discovering our lack of French-language skills, the guy who came to meet us at reception asked us to come to the bar where his wife dealt with English speakers, while he was more adept at Italian. We were shown to our pitch and soon were ready to pop into the village for a drink. But it was Boxing Day and everything was closed. We walked back to the campsite and decided to have a drink in the bar. The husband served us, with better English than he had prepared us for. He gave us a menu and we chose a wheat beer. He said that was for summer, even though we're familiar with what it is and wanted to drink it. He said we should drink Christmas beer, though he would say that, being Boxing Day and obviously having it left over. W