Annecy, France - Alps trip continued

Our next stop on our Alps trip was to Annecy which is a town just south of Geneva, Switzerland. Jim had been to Annecy in the summer and said it was a beautiful town located on a pristinely clear lake surrounded by mountains. Annecy was also equidistant to two cross country ski places we planned to check out.

Our first afternoon in Annecy, most of the shops were closed so we just wandered around the town and went out by the lake. It was still pretty bright out so we were able to get some decent pictures before the clouds rolled in for the rest of the trip.

While we were there, Jim was on a mission to find a café that he spent a lot of time during his last visit. Around every corner he identified a café as that being THE ONE, and then would add, “No, this is really the one”. Of course it wasn’t until our third day in Annecy that he actually found it.

For dinner that night we got recommendations from the concierge. She recommended a place called Contrasens which we had seen on our walk. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a reservation until after 9:00. We hung out in the room before going over to a bar next door to the restaurant for a glass of wine. Dinner was good, but I wasn’t able to enjoy it as I should have. For some reason, earlier in the day I started feeling sick so had a bad fever by the time we sat down to dinner. Jim thought the food was very good, but I couldn’t really taste anything.

The next day, I still had a fever but was feeling better than I had the night before so I agreed to go skiing. We decided to go to Le Saises. According to the GPS it was only about 35 km away. I’m not so sure how they determined that measurement because it was a lot farther than that. It was raining in Annecy but it didn’t take long before that rain turned to snow. We started rising in elevation and in the span of about a mile there was suddenly 3-4 feet of snow along the road. We passed a bunch of people putting chains on their tires but figured they didn’t have all wheel drive. The road was pretty sketchy. For some reason all over Europe, they just love the hairpin turns. Jim loves to bike them in the summer, but driving them on steep, narrow roads in a blizzard is something else entirely.

We finally made it to Le Saises in one piece after considering bailing on a few instances. After a visit to the tourist center, we found the cross country trails which didn’t look very groomed. Jim asked a skate skier how the trails were and she didn’t give them a very glowing review. Since it was already late in the afternoon and the snow was still really coming down, we decided it might be safest to scrape skiing and get down before all the traffic from the ski hill got on the roads.

Five hours later with no skiing under our belt, we were safely back in Annecy albeit somewhat frustrated at how the day’s events had played out. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner at L’atelier Gourmand. It was a great meal and made our earlier skiing debacle sting a bit less.I’d definitely recommend the restaurant. It was good service in a relaxed atmosphere. The restaurant chairs were big comfy leather ones that you just sunk into. I was reticent to leave after we had paid our bill.

The next day we headed back up to Le Seises and the roads were much better. It was a busy bunch of trails with a lot of skiers. I was hoping for some sun but it was completely cloudy all day. We both had a decent ski but it paled in comparison to our skiing the next day at Le Ferclaz. The trails were great there and they even had a small lodge which I’ve found is not all that common in Europe. Unfortunately, it was another cloudy, cold day but we both had a good ski on almost empty trails.

After our hard ski, we decided to pamper ourselves and got a couples massage. The hotel had a deal with the spa next door. It was Jim’s first professional massage so he was a bit uncomfortable and it was good that we did it together. It was incredibly relaxing and was a great way to end our trip.

French Alps - Samoëns

Due to a lack of planning combined with instability in the area, we decided to scrap our Egypt trip and plan a last minute trip to the Alps for some sunshine and shushing.

Our plan was to spend three days snowboarding and three days cross country skiing. After researching the areas to ski in Austria, Switzerland and France, we ended up picking the Gran Massif ski area. Our decision was based mainly on the fact that we prefer French food and because we had friends vacationing there and our trips would overlap for 2 days.

We arrived in Samoens 1600 at 9:30 pm after getting lost in Switzerland for a little while. For some reason the little English woman living in our GPS system has something against Switzerland.

We had reserved a room at a guesthouse right on the mountain called Chalet L'Aéro http://www.aero1607.com/. When we arrived, we were surprised to find the road to the Chalet completely snowed in. We made the smart decision to hike down rather than attempt to drive down to the Chalet. Since there was a bar and restaurant advertised on the website, I figured that our late arrival wouldn’t be a big deal. However, on a Wednesday night all the lights were off and the door was locked. While we were contemplating the unappealing option of sleeping in our car, we found someone on the balcony smokeing a cigarette and they alerted the owners we were there.

The family who owns the Chalet was incredibly friendly and welcoming. The husband had a snowmobile with an attached sled to help us cart our luggage and gear down to the Chalet while the wife put together a cheese plate and fruit soup for us to eat.

The next morning we rented a snowboard for me and got our lift tickets for two days. I couldn’t believe how cheap the skiing is in comparison to the cost at Colorado Ski Resorts. We paid 41euro for a full day of skiing. I think it is around $97 for a day of skiing at Vail in Colorado.

However, the French do have some interesting lifts which might contribute to the reduction of price in the lift ticket. One of the gondolas was a standing room only situation; they herded us in like cattle. Another was a two person lift that looked like those buckets used to fix power lines. And then you also have the complete chaos of the lift lines, which are less like a line and more like a heaving mass of people stepping all over each others' skis and boards.

We met up with Jim’s friends Andrew and Matz to ski. I had a bad feeling about skiing with these three adrenaline junkies who push every sport to the limit. Unfortunately, I pushed my hesitations aside and consequently had one of the worst days snowboarding. I had a bad fall on the first run and jammed my finger. It swelled up instantly, but I could bend it slightly so figured it wasn’t broken. The next run I tried to board in deep powder and ended up with a screwed up neck. I couldn’t turn my head without turning the rest of my body. Since I figured I’d be in pain no matter what I did, I kept snowboarding but took it easy.

When I finally decided I had enough, I realized that we had skied so far from our original starting point that we’d have to do another 3 runs and another 3 lifts. So after another hour of skiing in pain and negotiating the chaotic French lift "lines", I had myself a little mini breakdown. Skipping lunch might have been a contributing factor to the breakdown.

That night we had dinner with our friends from Paris at a traditional Savoie restaurant. I had read a lot about Tartiflette which is a traditional Savoyarde dish so was excited to try it. You had to place your order ahead of time so we ordered while still on the mountain. Jim ordered the Tartiflette while I went for the Raclette Fondue. The Tartiflette was disappointing. It ended up being very similar to ham and scalloped potatoes and was quite bland. The fondue however was delish. Although, how can you screw up melted cheese and bread?

The next day after not sleeping much the night before, I decided against snowboarding and watched a movie in the room while Jim snowboarded. Nothing is better than a few muscle relaxers and the Sound of Music. I thought being in the Alps that would be a fitting movie.

It was a beautiful day without a cloud in the ski so I couldn’t stay in the room very long and ventured out to walk around the resort in search of lunch. I ran into Jim just as I was about to sit down at a restaurant so we had lunch outside in the sun on the side of the mountain. The food was crap but the view was spectacular.

We went snowshoeing after lunch on a pretty short loop on the mountain. It wasn’t a great place to snowshoe but I needed to get some exercise and wanted to be outside so it worked.

Although my first trip to the Alps was a bit disappointing, it was a beautiful place and the ski resorts of the Alps are definitely more scenic than the Colorado Rockies. However, it did make me miss our life in Colorado.

Skiing (or more appropriately not skiing) in Sauerland

I am finally back from my escapades State side, and it is so nice to be back in my own home. While I had a great trip visiting friends and family, living out of a suitcase for three weeks starts to get a bit old.

I was lucky enough to come home to 3 sunny days right in a row, which really made the transition from sunny Denver, Colorado to Bonn, Germany a little easier. I also came home to snow on the ground which is unusual for Bonn. According to Jim's coworkers, this has been the coldest winter Europe has seen in a very long time.

Since we didn't know when we'd see snow again, we decided on Sunday to investigate some cross country skiing areas in Sauerland about 2 hours west of Bonn. Of course, to get me to agree to go, Jim told me it was only an hour from here (a bit sneaky of him).

The drive to the ski area in the morning was absolutely beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sun made the snow covered trees and hills sparkle. The drive took us through some small towns which made it much more pleasant than driving up I-70 in Colorado.

We arrived in Schmallenberg around 12:00, and it looked like a perfect day to ski. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that the ski pass was only 5 euro. Unfortunately, it didn't take too long to find out why it was so cheap. The skate skiing area was a 2k track, crowded with inexperienced skiers. All of the other trails were for classic cross country skiing only. After about 4 times around the track, Jim and I were both ready to find a different place to ski. Jim had done some research on Nordic skiing in the area and thought there was another place not too far.

So we loaded up the car and continued on our quest to find a good skate skiing spot. We decided to go to Willigen. We didn't have an address to plug into the GPS for the ski area, but we figured that once we got to the town, we would see some signs. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. We finally decided to go to the tourist area to see if there was an address there. As it was Sunday, the tourist office was of course closed, but we were able to pick up some maps of the ski trails.

Even with the maps of the trails it wasn't very clear where the ski center was. We saw a sign for a Craft (skiing and cycling clothing brand) shop so decided to stop there and ask someone where the ski area was. After driving up a narrow, residential road, we found the shop which was part of some one's house. The door was wide open so we walked in but there was no one there. I'm not sure why the door was open especially because the shop had an open door right into their home so anyone could have walked in and walked off with a lot of expensive clothing and gear.

Back in the car again, we put the ski jump address into the GPS since one of the starting points looked like it was in that vicinity. After parking the car and hiking up a hill for 30 minutes, we were able to find the ski jump and what looked like some groomed trails, with hikers on them but no skiers. From the top of the hill at the ski jump we saw some skiers below on the trails so decided to get back in the car to drive around in that area.

Finally, after about 3 hours since the last ski area, we found the entrance to the ski trails. There was no center and apparently no cost to get on the trails. By this point, it was 4:00 and I had given up on skiing. I wanted to get on the road because we had heard traffic would be bad, and I was also concerned about the fact that it would be dark soon. My experience in Germany with hiking trails is that they aren't marked so figured the same would be true of skiing trails. Jim, however, was not dissuaded and wanted to check out the trails to see if it made sense to come back here.

The plan was to meet back at the car in 45 minutes. I decided that hanging out in the cold car wasn't appealing so went for a hike on some of the trails which weren't groomed for skiing. When I got back to the car 45 minutes later, Jim wasn't there. After about 40 more minutes, I started to get quite worried as it was getting dark and much colder. I figured that Jim's aversion to back tracking had caused him to get lost. When Jim finally arrived at the car, he was pretty shaken up. He had gotten lost and somehow had found the ski jump. He figured his only option was to take off his skis and walk down the jump. That proved to be more difficult than he anticipated in his ski boots on an icy, slick staircase. After falling about 100 feet down the jump, and possibly ruining his skis, he finally got back to the car. At that point, he was more than ready to hang up his skies for the season. We'll see how long that lasts. I'm not convinced.