i went here the summer before last as i was desperate to ski after our long stint in the Alps for the 2007/2008 season. It's late, and i feel like writing so if you can suffer to read it, this won't take long.
Basically, the "piste" is about 50 or so meters long and actually, the snow is quiet good. I would say better than the snow-cannon mush you get lower down here in the Portes du Soleil. You can even find "powder" down the sides of the run if they haven't bashed it recently.
I could spend the next week describing how much it isn't like skiing in the Alps, but then you already know that because it's in Milton Keynes! However, actually, even for, as i now consider myself, an experienced skier, i had a lot of fun in two hours. I got to practice tight turns, small jumps and bumps, and get my balance back.
For £80 for two people that's really not bad considering that it'll take the average person about 2-3 hours to get their legs back on their first day of skiing and those hours will cost you a lot more than £80 (flights, accommodation, etc). And that's also 2-3 dangerous hours. Remember i landed on my head on my first day back not so long ago. Chest still sore.
So actually, i would highly recommend going to your local snowdome before setting out on a ski holiday even if you're a regular skier. More than that, if you haven't skied before and are setting out on your first holiday i would say it should be mandatory to go. You will save so much time in learning how to don your boots and skis, ride button-lifts, and do basic turns. I predict that if you do ski indoors before your first "real" ski-trip, you'll easily be bumped up to the class above beginner on your second day of lessons because you'll be much more advanced than your peers. And consequently your entire early ski-career will get off to a much faster start.
Hmm, maybe i should consider some Google Ads for the snowdome...
Saturday, 30 January 2010
My French Education: Plus Que Jamais
So i'm learning a lot more French and my workplace is a lot more French than i thought it would be. This is great! I get free lessons from my colleagues. Today's word (phrase) is "plus que jamais". It means "more than ever". Not "more than never". That had me quiet confused for some time since i hear it all the time!
More cool phrases include "Je me suis trompé". This means "I tricked myself". Which really means: "I made a mistake". I use this a lot. Obviously.
And finally, the most important word i learned this week was "réglisse". This is liquorice, which means i can now offer some to my desk-mates. Excellent.
More cool phrases include "Je me suis trompé". This means "I tricked myself". Which really means: "I made a mistake". I use this a lot. Obviously.
And finally, the most important word i learned this week was "réglisse". This is liquorice, which means i can now offer some to my desk-mates. Excellent.
Ski Resort Review: St Anton
Sankt Anton am Arlberg is a quaint little village dotted with authentic high-alpine chalets carefully tailored by precise Austrian attention to detail. It is tastefully complemented by traditional, family-run restaurants serving a medley of traditional Austrian cuisine neatly juxtaposed with modern European fine-dining. All this is swathed in some of the best snow and skiing known to human-kind.
Oh wait, no it isn't. That's what i wanted it to be! Actually it's a heaving mass of drunken Austrian/English/German/Swiss speed-crazed lunatics stumbling from one gaudy, awful, noisy, identical pub to the next in search of the highest alcohol-to-Euro ratio.
Ok, so minus the unnecessary adjectives, St Anton is really set in a very deep U-shaped valley. It was very dark in January with our chalet getting only about 4 hours of light a day. St Anton serves no other purpose than to get skiers into completely ridiculously over-the-top lifts up to the top of the mountain so that they can get back down to those pubs as fast as possible. This is despite the innumerable billboards blotting out the landscape urging, nay, pleading with you to come back in the summer because, really, it's not all about the skiing.
It really does have fancy lifts though. The Galzig lift first takes you on a ferris-wheel ride and then hooks you on the cable which lifts you in perfect comfort up to about 2000m. Great. The Valfagehr lift from Stuben has heated seats and a snow-screen, as does the new futuristic Rendl bubble. Wonderful. You know, i'd rather spend about 20 Euros less per day and have plain old normal lifts. Moan moan moan.
The thing is, St Anton is all very fancy-pants with its cool lifts and clearly very expensive marketing and shiny golden lined pistemaps, but it's completely ruined by the populace who are only there for the booze and the wide, flat racing pistes.
We didn't get to choose where to eat, but every single pub seemed to be blaring the same music (for people in neighbouring resorts to hear) and serving the same bland ubiquitous food. I ate at a place called the "Funky Chicken" which was like Nandos without the spice. Some random pizza joint, and then a "Mexican" place which served Tex-Mex but was decorated with US number plates and ski-jumping skis. Bizarre. Oh and i had an enchilada which they called a burrito. It was expensive.
Ok, but who cares right, because as long as you have hot food, it's all about the skiing. Ok, so, again, i didn't get to choose where to ski but was quite happy to pootle about find what off-piste i could along the way. There wasn't much powder to be found and it was mostly very shallow and dangerously hiding nasty rocks on which i ground my edges several times but the powder i did find was excellent. Dry, soft, fluffy. Brilliant.
My impression from mostly piste-skiing St Anton was that it's quite flat. The blues are green, the reds blue, and the blacks red. Their marked off-piste red-diamond runs were reddish and i didn't get to ski the "extreme" marked off-piste black-diamond runs but from what i could see from the chair, that would just be a normal black here in the Portes du Soleil.
The St Anton pistes were extremely wide, inviting the kind of skier for whom turning is just too much hassle so most of the runs consisted of insane weekender morons going as fast as they possibly can with no style whatsoever down blue runs. I saw a (probably) 8 year old child nearly get wiped out by a barely sub-sonic snow-ploughing retard on the flat section of a blue run next to a "slow-down" sign. That was fairly typical. The off-piste, when we finally got do some properly, was deserted and from our vantage point the piste looked like it was the pinch of an hourglass with multi-coloured sand rushing through it. Natalie likes this metaphor. Go me.
We did ski the Valluga. I was expecting dramatic, death-defying mogul hopping but it was incredibly tame. The most exhilarting bit was being yelled at by a mad Austrian Pisteur because, apparently, i don't know how to ride a T-Bar.
So, in summary, if you like fast slopes, fast food, fancy lifts, drinking (think Cardiff-style boozing), then please go to St Anton. i had a fun weekend, but i won't be going back any time soon.
Oh wait, no it isn't. That's what i wanted it to be! Actually it's a heaving mass of drunken Austrian/English/German/Swiss speed-crazed lunatics stumbling from one gaudy, awful, noisy, identical pub to the next in search of the highest alcohol-to-Euro ratio.
Ok, so minus the unnecessary adjectives, St Anton is really set in a very deep U-shaped valley. It was very dark in January with our chalet getting only about 4 hours of light a day. St Anton serves no other purpose than to get skiers into completely ridiculously over-the-top lifts up to the top of the mountain so that they can get back down to those pubs as fast as possible. This is despite the innumerable billboards blotting out the landscape urging, nay, pleading with you to come back in the summer because, really, it's not all about the skiing.
It really does have fancy lifts though. The Galzig lift first takes you on a ferris-wheel ride and then hooks you on the cable which lifts you in perfect comfort up to about 2000m. Great. The Valfagehr lift from Stuben has heated seats and a snow-screen, as does the new futuristic Rendl bubble. Wonderful. You know, i'd rather spend about 20 Euros less per day and have plain old normal lifts. Moan moan moan.
The thing is, St Anton is all very fancy-pants with its cool lifts and clearly very expensive marketing and shiny golden lined pistemaps, but it's completely ruined by the populace who are only there for the booze and the wide, flat racing pistes.
We didn't get to choose where to eat, but every single pub seemed to be blaring the same music (for people in neighbouring resorts to hear) and serving the same bland ubiquitous food. I ate at a place called the "Funky Chicken" which was like Nandos without the spice. Some random pizza joint, and then a "Mexican" place which served Tex-Mex but was decorated with US number plates and ski-jumping skis. Bizarre. Oh and i had an enchilada which they called a burrito. It was expensive.
Ok, but who cares right, because as long as you have hot food, it's all about the skiing. Ok, so, again, i didn't get to choose where to ski but was quite happy to pootle about find what off-piste i could along the way. There wasn't much powder to be found and it was mostly very shallow and dangerously hiding nasty rocks on which i ground my edges several times but the powder i did find was excellent. Dry, soft, fluffy. Brilliant.
My impression from mostly piste-skiing St Anton was that it's quite flat. The blues are green, the reds blue, and the blacks red. Their marked off-piste red-diamond runs were reddish and i didn't get to ski the "extreme" marked off-piste black-diamond runs but from what i could see from the chair, that would just be a normal black here in the Portes du Soleil.
The St Anton pistes were extremely wide, inviting the kind of skier for whom turning is just too much hassle so most of the runs consisted of insane weekender morons going as fast as they possibly can with no style whatsoever down blue runs. I saw a (probably) 8 year old child nearly get wiped out by a barely sub-sonic snow-ploughing retard on the flat section of a blue run next to a "slow-down" sign. That was fairly typical. The off-piste, when we finally got do some properly, was deserted and from our vantage point the piste looked like it was the pinch of an hourglass with multi-coloured sand rushing through it. Natalie likes this metaphor. Go me.
We did ski the Valluga. I was expecting dramatic, death-defying mogul hopping but it was incredibly tame. The most exhilarting bit was being yelled at by a mad Austrian Pisteur because, apparently, i don't know how to ride a T-Bar.
So, in summary, if you like fast slopes, fast food, fancy lifts, drinking (think Cardiff-style boozing), then please go to St Anton. i had a fun weekend, but i won't be going back any time soon.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
It is snowy in the Alps
Yip, lots of snow. Absolutely terrifying trip home this evening. I'm convinced that the recession has led to there being fewer snow-ploughs about so it was very exciting getting home. I've decided to go via Thonon-les-Bains on snow-days because the mountain road is less windy and steep than going via the motorway. It'll take longer but then I won't, hopefully feel like I need a lie down after the trip.
I realise I haven't said very much about the acual skiing here. Herewith, a Portes-du-Soleil January summary: there's oodles of snow, there's more snow every few days. Every time we've been out we've found some off-piste that's pretty decent, good bumps, not too icy, and patches of truly epically good snow - feels like you're sliding down warm, lightly sweetened butter. I think not skiing as often, but regularly is helping me improve. i've got a lot more energy for moguls on legs that haven't skied for 5 days.
Every weekend so far we've skied both days, and on the Sunday we go racquetting after the ski which Scarlett, Natalie, and I really love. It's 27 Euros to rent randonee skis for a day so we'll probably try that in early February. I'm personally extremely keen to ski the Col de Coux.
On Friday we're driving out to Sankt Anton am Arlberg in Austria (that's that place where they throw boom-er-angs and wear hats with corks in them i think - Tony may know better as he is from there) so i'm sure you're thrilled about reading my upcoming resort review.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
How not to do many things
Ok, so I was going to write some small, individual pieces on:
How not to ski: On day one of my 2009/2010 skiing on the first run of the season I took a sharp steep bend at speed, embedded my skis in some icy slush and landed on my head. Great. Now i've had a sore chest and back from the whiplash for two weeks. Panic not parental ones, i'm fine, just stupid. And i've learnt my lesson. Until next time.
How not to live-in-Geneva: Geneva traffic is worse than London. I kid you not. On my first day it took me 4 hours to get to work and 2 back. I've since found a better route and I'm averaging 1.5 hours each way now. I suspect that once the enormous amount of snow has gone, the traffic will become less insane. However, it might have been slightly easier to not live 70km away from work. However-even-more, our chalet is awesome and it's rather nice living in a ski resort. Boast boast, the snow is awesome yada yada.
How not to "something-witty-about-work (editor: don't post until you've thought of something)": Yeah so work is ok. It's very early days. My manager has disappeared with the BA off to the States this week so i'm trying to figure things out on my own. Awesome. In a nutshell, it's ok. You might want to e-mail me for a more complete answer. I'm working on a new-client risk analysis and compliance system. I'll give you a more thorough answer when i've got one.
The people are very nice and welcoming. Everyone is extremely polite. I apparently work in the Tower of Babel as I regularly hear English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, etc. And it is very French, which is great for my vocabulary.
Is the grass greener? I couldn't possibly say. Yet. It's definitely whiter.
So yeah. I'm going skiing on Saturday and Sunday and possibly a spot of Raquetting too. Next weekend we're off to Sankt Anton am Arlberg in Austria to meet Sam for a spot of skiing and some light family reunion and dog walking.
Anyway, more important than any of this. Why haven't you booked your ski holiday with us yet? Come on the Winter won't last forever. I hope.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
How not to drive
When you're entering a roundabout, particularly one that is egg-shaped and covered in snow and ice, what you don't want to do is leave the roundabout at speed, narrowly miss (or indeed scrape) a lamp post, and then head face-first down a 3m deep ditch and then smash into a 1m drainage trench at the bottom of the ditch. You don't want to do this because your wife will then spend half an hour on the phone to the RAC while you try and figure out what full diff-lock actually does and then try and fit snow chains to the front tyres that are buried in snow and mud.
Unfortunately, no one gave me this advice before we set off for my parents' house last Wednesday so of course, this is exactly what I did. So it turns out that the Touareg is not as invincible as I thought. About five minutes from my parents' house at about midnight on the 23rd while we were going round the point of the egg-shaped roundabout I put the front-left tyre on the snow that was gathering at the edge of the lane that everyone else had been following and from that point on I was a dumbfounded passenger. Somehow I avoided hitting the lamp post head-on but as a result of this, ended up pointing straight down the ditch and then thumping into a trench at the bottom of that ditch.
The good news is that we are ok. Scarlett barely even woke up and actually, if you're going to have a crash, I can highly recommend the VW Touareg to have one in - very comfortable. The car is not ok and is still in England as I sit here typing this from our new chalet in Essert Romand in the Portes du Soleil. My dad has very kindly volunteered to drive it out to France for us when it's fixed.
At this point I would like to thank the anonymous saviour in his Freelander I that saved us from the ditch! After thirty minutes the RAC had not even picked up the phone yet and we were seriously looking at abandoning our heavily laden Touareg in said ditch. Extremely luckily for us, this amazingly kind gentleman had the right car, the right tow-rope and the right attitude to haul our 3-ton behemoth our of the mud. Thank you sir! You wouldn't leave us your name and number but we remain extremely grateful that you helped us!
So actually, given that we were rescued, unhurt and then Natalie and I then got to drive out to France together (rather than in convoy), and my parents now have a very good excuse to come and visit us, things haven't worked out too badly really.
Anyway, so we're here. We're safe. The Phils, Sally and Simon and their entourage have arrived and we're looking forward to an excellent new year here in France!
Monday, 21 December 2009
Chapitre Deux!
Google Readers all over the world have just lit up in amazement at the new posting on possibly the finest blog known at this URL.
Yes indeed. Natalie and I are returning to les Alpes Francais (in the next couple of days) and I thought it was high time to fire up the old blog and watch my addicted fanbase flock back to their favourite morning read.
The world 'delusional' comes to mind.
Anyway, so, in a nutshell, or actually, more accurately, a paragraph, we are returning to the Alps on the 27th and 28th of December 2009 and we'll be living in Essert Romand, which is quite possibly the nicest village in the whole of the Portes du Soleil. I've got a contract in Geneva which starts in January and we've rented a spectacularly awesome chalet for the year.
More on this later. Right now we have a house to pack!
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