Skiing the French Alps

No Monday Minute this week, but I promise it's for good reason! :)  We were skiing in the French Alps with Nick's co-workers.  Isn't it beautiful?

We left early on Saturday morning on the TGV train (high speed).  It was my first time on a high speed train, and I have to say it's a pretty easy way to travel!  You don't have to worry about getting there early for security or packing those ridiculous 3 oz. size travel lotions, etc.

After arriving at the train station in Aime, we took about a 30 min. taxi ride up to our little village in the mountains called Belle Plagne and were greeted by these glorious views.

Skiing in the U.S. (Colorado) is definitely different than skiing in the Alps.  For one, in Colorado, the village is typically at the base of the mountain and all the runs (les pistes) start at the top and end up at the village.  Here, the villages are scattered all over the mountain side (ours was near the tree line) and the runs go right next to the buildings/restaurants/etc.

Saturday was spent just settling in, renting skis, and enjoying the beautiful scenery (with some beer, of course).

We ate dinner at a restaurant serving traditional Alps food--fondue and raclette to name a few!  We had so much fun cooking our own meat, melting our own cheese, and stuffing ourselves with way too many rich foods!  But, hey, when in the Alps, do as the locals do, right?

That's some cheesy fondue!

Melting and scraping the cheese to put over charcuterie and potatoes....mmmmm!!!!

The whole gang at dinner--including our waiter, ha!

Remember how I said the village was scattered along the ski runs....so the grocery store and restaurant were higher on the mountain than our flat, so we had bought bacon for the next day's breakfast before dinner but didn't have enough time (were too lazy) to bring it back to our flat before dinner.  So what's a person to do? Use the snow of course!

It was still there after dinner!

The next day we finally got out on the mountains for some skiing!  Even the novice skier in our group (me) was able to mostly keep up with the guys.  Green courses are pretty much non-existent here, but the order of colors here is: green-blue-red-black (no black diamonds...black's as hard as it gets).  I stuck to mostly blues, but they were everywhere, even at the top of the mountains.  I even attempted some reds, but after skiing one of those in whiteout conditions Monday, that was enough for me!



Probably the coolest thing about skiing here is that you ski so much of the mountain--front, back, sides--and then you can take a gondola to another mountain for more skiing, which we did one day.  Second coolest thing?  Skiing through a tunnel in the mountain.

Gondola ride to Les Arcs

Skiing back to the gondola station

Tunnel skiing!

We spent all day Sunday and most of Monday skiing, and even in whiteout conditions Monday, it was a blast!  This picture is taken on top of the mountain....but it sure doesn't look like it!  I was just glad I didn't plow into anyone appearing out of the fog on my way down the runs!









Of course, we ate lots of good food the rest of our time there too--more traditional food and the signature digestive of the alps: Genepi.  Which is good if you're into the whole "tastes like fingernail polish remover" thing.

Tartiflette

Beef, turkey, and duck...cook you own! Mmm!

Cheers!

We will definitely be back to the French Alps--hopefully to ski again, and maybe in the summer to hike too!  If you ever get a chance to ski in the Alps, I'd highly recommend it (and make sure you stuff yourself with that Alps food while you're at it too!)  Be sure to check out the rest of our pictures here, but I'll leave you with just a few more here.