A Skiing-filled Christmas

What my last post failed to mention, was that Les Deux Alpes was the first of two skiing trips within a 3 week period! It just so happened that I was able to go skiing with my dad and boyfriend for a further few 6 days, this time to Cervinia in Italy. I'd never skied anywhere but France before, and didn't know much about the Italian side of the mountains, so I was definitely intrigued. I had heard several criticisms about Italian ski resorts, but they could have been farther from reality. The resort itself of Cervinia is one of the best I have been to. With a small church, narrow streets, boutique shops and rustic, typical chalet-style buildings, it had a cosy, christmassy feel to it that was impossible to ignore. The restaurants were all unique and amazingly decorated - and you most certainly paid good money for it. It is a well known fact that ski holidays are not the cheapest, but some of the restaurants in the resort were extortionately priced. Nonetheless, when the prices were high, so was the quality of food. You get what you pay for I suppose, I'm just glad it wasn't my (serious lack of) euros being hacked into!

The skiing: contrary to previous criticism, Cervinia is my new favourite resort! The runs were long, wide and plentiful, the snow was incredible ("so much fresh powder man") and the chairlifts were short and sweet. I have also now added 'ski instructor' to my list of previous responsibilities (one for the CV perhaps?) seeing as my boyfriend, who had never skied before, and my dad, who was as stiff as a plank of wood, was in need of my expertise. It's safe to say, I shan't be becoming an instructor anytime soon. Apparently "you just turn left, then right" is not helpful advice to a novice whose first ski experience is attempting to survive a steep, icy hill. After a while, however, my students were well taught and experienced, and my boyfriend was bombing it down red runs after just 2 days. I would like to think that my teaching skills were behind his new found prowess as a skier, but I remain doubtful.

On the languages side of things, I know absolutely no Italian except prego - a word that I still don't fully understand, as it seems to be used for absolutely everything. "Can I have a menu?" - prego. "Bye" - prego. "Hi" - prego. "Why do you say prego?" - prego. Maybe I'll just have to learn the language to find out...

All in all, I had a brilliant week, and was lucky to have 3 out of 4 skiing days with perfect conditions - aside from the day of tornado-style winds and snowstorms that was actually really fun! My final year university work did suffer, however, and I am now feeling the consequences of spending 2 out of 4 weeks holidaying in the mountains. But, how can I complain? It's not that hard a life...

Skiing in Les Deux Alpes, France

Since spending 7 months of my year abroad skiing every week (I still can't believe that was part of my degree!), I have felt myself to be quite the ski resort connoisseur. As for the sport itself - I definitely still need more time on the slopes in order to claim mastery. Nevertheless, by October I was having withdrawal from the white stuff, so paid to join Nottingham University's Snow Sport Society and join their Christmas trip. So, on the 13th December we embarked on a 22 hour coach journey from Nottingham to Les Deux Alpes, France. A journey so long and so boring that not even Fast and Furious 6 and all its guns and shouting could keep me awake. If you asked me what the scenery was like when wandering through the quaint French towns, approaching the beautiful mountains, I couldn't possibly tell you. I'm sure it was great though...

Pano Bar, L2A

Being only an hour and a half from Grenoble (and the cheapest to reach), I spent a lot of time in Les Deux Alpes last season, so I thought I knew exactly how the week was going to pan out. Oh, how wrong I was. It turned out, my sense of direction and memory skills are even worst when it comes to guiding myself around pistes that I should have known like the back of my hand. It was like a completely new resort, and with the addition of après at Pano Bar, I still don't quite remember how to get back down that mountain. Either way, I've always loved the resort - there are a huge variety of runs for all levels, with an abundance of blues (my favourites). Even better than the skiing - the après and nightlife is amazing. There are quite a few bars/clubs/holes spread around the resort - if my memory serves correctly, Avalanche and Brasilia were personal favourites - along with a plethora of podiums and stages that us students seem to love (my friend and I a little too much - I ended up falling off and dragging her with me, proceeding to cause a bloody, head injury to said friend, awkward...)

Back to the skiing... If I had one criticism of the resort, it would be that the gondola and chair lifts seem to last forever! When you're not feeling your best at 10am having had 5-6 hours sleep, and you're forced to sway up a mountain practically in a vertical manner for 20 minutes, you can't help but dislike 'the whole skiing thing'. However, once you've reached half way and proceeded to jump on a more open, stable chairlift, there are so many runs to choose from, you're spoilt for choice. Or if you can't decide just yet, there are some amazing views that I couldn't stop taking pictures of (NB: a lot of mountains look the same, no matter where they are in the Alpes; resort-named folders would be helpful in the future).

Besides the skiing, I was hoping to maybe brush up on my French a little, but I completely forgot that a) about 90% of ski resort workers in bars, restaurants or otherwise are English, and b) the remaining 10% that are in fact French, love to speak English. Oh well, I did manage to successfully order a baguette and a pain au raisin (or two), so I'm really pleased that my £3,300 yearly tuition is being put to good practice.

Standard 'picture-on-skis-with-mountain-background' picture