Ski-ing in the Portes du Soleil

Well first off I can safely say that it was a great time that I had there, well worth the 12 or so hour journey to get there. I had to get up at about 4am on 16-2-2008 so we could catch the 8am Seacat no less from Dover to Boulogne in France. I wasn't too bad as I caught some sleep on the way over and I discovered that we were heading off from where the Top Gear crew launched their attempts at getting across the channel in the amphibious cars they made. Not too shabby methinks.

The crossing itself wasn't too bad but you could definitely notice the bobbing up and down on the sea which meant many people were finding it difficult to walk across the decks, some even tried getting drinks across. Surpisingly they managed to make it across the bows to their tables so embarassing moments avoided eh?

I spent most of the trip out on the deck looking around the channel, the sea was much bluer out there and it had gotten much smoother outside of the docks, it was calming just watching the sea go by, leaving old blighty behind and sailing for newer lands but I knew it wasn't going to be the same without my friends in the crew. But I was nonetheless determined to enjoy my holiday rather than wallow in any feelings I have and let them become the theme of my trip.

Anyway when I arrived in France I was rather bemused by all the random structures I found scattered across the ever so boring flatness of the French countryside, also France is a very industrial country, wherever there's a town there's either a hypermarket or an industrial estate pumping out some gas into the atmosphere. The only vaguely interesting things I saw all trip were this:

And this:

The wind farms were and impressive sight although my Dad was asleep when we drove past them, but it was good to see them in real life and they are HUGE, you never know how big until you drive right past them. Also when we were driving beyond Dijon we came across a sunset seeing as it was a very long journey so I thought I might share this with you aswell:

Anyway we arrived into mountains at the end of the trip and despite it being rather dark I was sure that I could see the rolling mountains and the valleys with the rivers flowing in the gaps, it was one of those situations where even if you couldn't see it visually you could trace the contours with your mind. Unfortunately things got a little less peaceful afterwards as we found it much harder to locate our chalet than we thought and the guy who was going to take us there wasn't answering his phone. Luckily though we stopped outside a church which as it turned out was a mere couple of minutes from where our chalet was, and what a chalet it was. Three floors, bedrooms on the top and bottom (4 of them were double bed and en suite) and living space was in the middle floor where there was a kitchen, balcony over the river and a living room with Sky (which had an expired card so we hardly got any channels) and wireless internet (but I had no laptop to take advantage of it).

Here's the little guided tour I did of my room...enjoy?

The video is pretty self explanatory except it didn't point out later flaws in the room, one being that the curtains weren't long enough and that there was obviously no sound proofing because I could hear EVERY car that drove past and some dogs pretty much every night when I tried to get to sleep.

Anyway, onto the ski-ing (sighs of relief not necessary). We went to the ski shop to rent our skis fairly early in the day, it was predicted that we would be able to get some ski-ing done more in the morning where there were less people crowding up the lifts/slopes. I can honestly say that it was indeed an interesting experience trying to walk around in ski boots, as grippy as they are on snow it feels like you're on stilts when walking on asphalt so icy patches were always going to be a concern.

You got some pretty good valley views when being lifted up (the resort we were at was called St Jean D'Aulps) and it provided an interesting view to see normal trees, then a band of snowy trees but then the higher it went up the trees went normal again but of course all the snow was on the ground.

But anyway I can't seem to be bothered to finish this lengthy tale because none of you seem to be interested in it, however if you have questions about my trip feel free to ask and I shall elaborate more in this blog.

See you when I see you.