Last Day of Skiing and the trip back

The sun was out spectacularly again on our last day. We skied from Courchevel over to Meribel, the next resort over. Over the three days that we were in the 3 Valleys, we were only able to ski two of the resorts.








It was a great day of skiing, but we knew we couldn't travel too far from our hotel, as we would need to stop at 1 to check out and head to the bus stop to start on the trip home.







We did manage to get in one last cup of Hot Chocolate from perhaps the most spectacular location I could imagine. It is called the Panorama Chalet.










It was certainly one of the most expensive cups of Hot Chocolate I've ever had - the whipped cream alone cost 2 Euro. But it was well worth it to enjoy the amazing view.






It felt wonderful to sit in the warm sun on top of the world and look out over the snow covered valleys below.











All too soon unfortunately, it was time to start back to the hotel to catch the bus to catch the train back to Grenoble.

If I learned anything about packaged trips is to be sure the travel company's itinerary actually works. Sadly, this one didn't quite work. The package included one more night in Courchevel, but if we had stayed, there would be no way to get from the resort back to Grenoble in time to catch our flight the following morning at 9:40am. This meant that we had to get back to Grenoble and buy an additional night in a Hotel there. We've complained to Alti-Ski about it, but they couldn't put us on a later flight. They were willing to arrange a car to pick us up at the resort and drive us to the airport for an additional cost of 400 GBP. Lesson learned. . .

The train ride back to Grenoble was easy, and we made it in time to have dinner there. We found a lovely restaurant called Le Petite Idee. It was a French restaurant just a couple blocks from our hotel, which was just a couple blocks from the train station and across the river from the Bastille (fort) in Grenoble. I'd love to come back and see the Bastille some day.






I had their prix fix dinner which included homemade Foix Gras and Tournedos de Beouf and Potatoes Dauphinois. The entire meal was delicious and kind of made up for having to leave the resort a night early.



The following morning, we got up early, ate a quick breakfast at the hotel, and made our way to the bus station to catch the early shuttle to the airport to catch our flight back to London. It was a dark and rainy morning, but we looked forward to seeing the puppies and relaxing after another crazy day of travel.

2012 Ski Trip to Courchevel

Tony and I hadn't gone skiing for 2 years, so when we decided to go this year, I asked two of my coworkers, Stuart and Steven, where they would recommend. They were both in agreement - Courchevel, France.

We booked our flight and hotel package through Flexi-ski, with whom I have some issues but we'll talk more about that later. We decided on a Half-Board Hotel in Courchevel. This meant that we would have our breakfasts and dinners provided at the hotel, but would be free to get lunch wherever we would like on the slopes.




We woke at 3:30 in the morning to be ready for our ride to Gatwick Airport, which is about 1.5 hours away. In order to simplify our journey to the airport, we hired a car as opposed to riding the bus to the train station to get the train to the airport. It was definitely worthwhile given that we had all of our ski equipment, and that there are so few buses and trains this early in the morning.




We arrived at the airport at 5:30 in the morning for our 7:30 flight to Grenoble. It may sound strange, but we've almost gotten used to this sort of crazy travel day schedule. Upon our arrival in Grenoble, we had to take an hour bus ride into town to the train station to catch our 2 hour train ride from Grenoble to Moutiers. From Moutiers, we would catch another bus for the final 1 hour bus ride up to the resort in Courchevel. It was an exhausting 12 hours of travel.




We had lunch in Grenoble at the Quick hamburger stand where they had Star Wars themed burgers. There was also a poster hanging for John Carter with my apes pictured on it. It is always fun to see posters for films that I've worked on, on display in foreign languages.



The train ride from Grenoble to Moutiers was pretty as we passed through vineyards with castles perched above. It would be fun to come back here and do some wine tasting.






By the time we arrived in Moutiers after having very little sleep the night before, we were both beginning to feel tired and frosty.



And by the time we reached Courchevel, we were exhausted. We had to walk about 3 blocks uphill from the bus station, and it felt like a long way.

Our hotel, St. Louis, was comfortable, but not as fabulous as we had hoped. But they served great food, and the bed was soft. I think we ate, and then fell immediately asleep.








The nice bottle of French wine we had with dinner didn't hurt either. . .