The hills are alive with the sound of skiing

Here it is – our very first blog entry for the ‘Festival of my 50^th birthday’ holiday.  We are in a winter wonderland at Alpe d’Huez.

But first - Vale Vera Mitchell

As many of you know, Dale left Melbourne on Monday 15^th February, a few days earlier than we had planned.  Sadly, we had received news a few days earlier that Dale’s great-aunty Vera had died at the age of 93.  As we were already due to arrive in Highcliffe (UK) to see her and uncle John on the 19^th, Dale decided to go ahead to see if he could be of any help to uncle John (age 95). 

Uncle John was very happy to see Dale, and he put Dale to work helping with final arrangements for the funeral and seeing to other administrative necessities. 

I arrived on Friday 19^th as planned.  It was great to see how much support uncle John was getting from family, friends and neighbours.

We had a wonderful time with Uncle John looking at many fantastic photos of the greater Mitchell/Bradbury/Wright family.

Uncle John and Aunty Vera liked going to the Toby for Lunch, in nearby Hinton, so we went there for lunch before heading off to London on Sunday.

We like Christchurch and made sure that we had breakfast there on Sunday and had a short walk around this very picturesque town.

We then had one night in London and met friends Andrew and Reece for dinner in Soho.

On Monday morning we met up with Anthony and Dennis at St Pancras station for the Eurostar journey to Paris.  They had spent the night at the luxurious St Pancras Renaissance Hotel and whereas we had to schlep our luggage across to the station from the Premier Inn across the road, they had a valet bring all their luggage down on a trolley.  The valet then put all their luggage through security, assisted them to clear customs and finally put all the luggage onto the train.  It was a very impressive advertisement for staying at 5 star hotels.

We parted company with Anthony and Dennis in Paris, but will be seeing them again on the 12^th of March in Buis-les-Baronnies (Buis from now on).  We continued on by train to Lyon and Grenoble, and then bus to Alpe d’Huez (11 hours travel in all).

Alpe d’Huez

Dale decided to try skiing at Alpe d’Huez because it is relatively close to Buis and because we know of it through the spectacular stage finishes in the Tour de France.  It is one of the older French ski resorts but is still very much a resort town.  After ascending the zig zag road you arrive at the town at 1860m.  We stayed in a charming hotel that is now being run by the 5^th generation.

Being an old resort, there is an astounding array of ski lifts from old to modern.  The most intriguing one was this thing nicked named the ‘lobster pots’, which transported people from the lower to the upper part of the village.

From there the ski fields go up and up

The village from a nearby ski run

to an ultimate height of 3330m at Pic Blanc (by comparison Mt Hotham maxes out at 1922m)

From Pic Blanc, the village can be seen as a tiny patch in the centre of the photo

There are quite a lot of English speaking people here and there are large numbers of 20 something males roaming about.  There don’t seem to be as many 20 something females.  Having said that there is a mix of ages and quite a lot of French families.

It has snowed quite a bit since we arrived and Dale has skied extensively each day.

The evidential selfie

I love how any building is dwarfed by the mountains

From Pic Blanc the Alpes seem endless

I have done some hiking in the snow.

On Thursday I spent the day shopping and sight-seeing down in Grenoble.

There is an awesome fort that overlooks the town and from which you can enjoy spectacular views of Grenoble and the surrounding Alps.  I was interested to read that you can work out the boundaries of the old town, by where the red rooves stop.

The old town is very beautiful.  It has an extensive tram network that snakes its way through the centre of the old town. I also particularly liked the organic iron work on the balconies, which is so reminiscent of Paris, Barcelona and Buenos Aires. 

We have had a great meal at a restaurant called La Cremaillere.  It specialises in local ‘Savoyarde’ fare.  Picture us sharing raclette complete with a massive block of cheese and raclette grill at our table.  We’ve booked go back on Friday night.  We also sampled a prune liqueur and, more intriguingly, a verveine one.  Lovers of The Vampire Diaries will know why we found the verveine so intriguing.