AspiringNomad

It has been precisely 393 days since Arron and I embarked on our Ski trip to the French Alps in the February of 2023. I seem to remember promising myself that having my older brother give me unwanted skiing advice for a whole week just wasn’t worth doing it again.
However, here I am, Arron in tow, en route to the French Alps again for a second year in a row. I guess the peacefulness of the chair lifts, the crisp, cold weather, the food, laughter, and experience of us skiing down a mountain together, bickering or not was enough to lure me back in.

It was a rude 4:00am start to our Tuesday morning. We exchanged a text or two to make sure we were both awake and sure enough, Arron was at mine for 4:30am.
It was a smooth journey to Barton Mills for a traditional pre-holiday Mc Donald’s stop. The rest of the journey consisted of us deciding whether an airport beer was a good idea or not and discussing whether Arron’s confidence in skiing ability got the better of him when booking his ski hire for expert level skier!

Once we arrived in Geneva we made our way swiftly through baggage claim and headed to Enterprise to collect our car. To our surprise, we had been upgraded (neither of us are entirely sure why) but we weren’t complaining when we were shown our Honda CR-V 2024 plate SUV in a shiny white/grey.
Fit with every mod-con you could imagine, I thought the car might drive itself and us to France! I had previously persuaded Arron to let me drive from Geneva to Les Menuires after my brief experience in South America. After reluctantly agreeing to this, he seemed unreasonably tense in the passenger seat. Meanwhile, I was having a great time driving, music on and enjoying the scenery. Aside from almost running a pedestrian over in a little village outside Annecy we arrived unscathed. We had time to spare to stop in at a Super U en route to stock up on the essentials; Camembert, ham, baguettes, yoghurt, biscuits, sweets, alcohol and water amongst other things.

We arrived at Les Menuires at about 4pm. Following the rather confusing instructions from the Airbnb host, we made it to our apartment. Floor 6, room 603. We first made it to level 7 after getting in the lift dedicated to odd numbers only, we then had to descend down a concrete spiral staircase, with 23kg of luggage each, the grocery shopping and our back packs. Personally I think this little escapade was way more dangerous than my driving, nevertheless, we got here in one piece and are both very happy with our apartment.

When booking this place last August, we opted for the cheapest accommodation we could find in a good location. Although it’s a little on the small side and we are sleeping in bunk beds, we have a little kitchen, a bathroom with an actual bath, a dining table and a balcony that looks out across the slopes and the mountains. It’s perfect for what we need and will keep us cosy and warm for the next 6 nights.

Once we settled in, we headed out to Intersport to collected our skis and boots. Whilst arron admired the ski selection, I was busy admiring the guys working in the shop! We decided it must be part of the job application to be really cool to have to work there. The main village of Les Menuires is about 5mins uphill from our apartment block. We walked up and into a little bar just on the side of the slope and headed downstairs. To Arrons dismay and my delight, the downstairs was more like a club. We bought a beer and sat in there for a while, whilst listening to Jimmy Sax on the speakers (our new favourite artist, who we will probably overplay on this trip).

We then walked through the village and around a few shops before walking back to make some tortellini and veg for our food. Both exhausted we decided that an early night was probably a good idea, to prepare us for our full day of skiing on Wednesday.

We woke this morning at 8am. Arron, much more lively than I to get going, made me a coffee to perk me up! Before long we headed out the doors of the apartment block and straight onto the snow of the slope. We had planned to get a lot of skiing done today, so we headed straight up to one of the highest points in the three Valleys, Mont Vallon. It was beautiful, as always in this part of the world, the mountains were covered in snow, the sky was blue and for miles, all you could see were mountains.
Feeling brave, I agreed to head down on a red route into Meribel Mottaret. The snow was great, the sun was shining and we were having a blast. After an hour or so we stopped for a coffee and a Vin Chaud (hot wine). I was trying my best to speak French to the waiters and we cooled off outside on the restaurant’s deck chairs.

6 hours soon passed! We had made it all the way to Courchevel and back and our legs were starting to feel tired. Neither of us had fallen over and no broken bones. Just two very happy skiers heading back to Les Menuires via one of our favourite routes, 3 marches (so much so, we went down it twice). A few vin chauds deep, purse feeling a bit lighter, cold toes and the sun dropping behind the mountains. Our first day on the snow was complete and it was a very successful one at that!

After relaxing for an hour or so, we spontaneously decided to grab the sledges from the apartment and go onto the nursery slope just outside. With not much expectation, we hopped on and absolutely flew down the slope. Without any means of stopping, we ended up on the main ski slope! Laughing hysterically and not causing too much havoc for the skiers we gave it another few goes before heading back inside, into the warm!

We are now getting ready to head out to a pizzeria, we haven’t located one yet, but what is a ski resort without an overpriced pizza place!? More than likely, it will be an early start tomorrow, so a long night sleep is on the cards. We’re both feeling very happy after todays antics and can’t wait to do it all over again tomorrow.