Residences Des Coches La Plagne

... the week but on Saturday we leave for St Anton - apparently it's an 8 hour drive so up at 6AM.... when we get there we get to go to our permanent accommodation - we're living with the other couple and apparently our appartment has en suite bathrooms and a washing machine so sounds pretty good to us!

attached a couple of pics showing the view from our window when we arrived and the view now...

speak to you all soon!

Gemma and Dave

... a glimpse of a massive glacier on our way to the mountain and later got a great view from a peak further down the ridge. I saw a glacier this summer in Montana's Glacier Nat'l Park but I have to say that despite the parks breathtaking views, its glaciers were hardly impressive compared to Chamonix. This was a legit, man eating, climber scaling, cavernous abyss kind of glacier. We were able to take a gondola that ascended the peak parallel to the glacier some 12,000 feet. After nearly ...

... seen no TVs at the Sports Bistro, I
was intrigued when about 8:30 the barkeep unfurled a screen on a side
wall, not unlike in old school days, then turned on a projector and
turned on the French equivalent of ESPN and the bar watched an
Australian rules football match between two French rivals. Good
fun!!!



Back to the room, had some
left over Pringles and off to bed for the next part of the journey,
Annecy in the morning.

... hotel and pick up the car for my first excursion
into the countryside. I decided to head over the mountains and back
into Switzerland near Martigny, a place I have been a couple of times
as that is where I have caught the cog train to come into Chamonix
the two other times I have visited. There was a cursory border check
and then I turned around and headed back into France and to Chamonix.
The roads were somewhat scary in spots, with many switchbacks and
Chamonix, Rhône-Alpes, France nedk

... top of the range :)
So we get to Zurich later than we planned..around 2pm, we decide not to stop and that also means that we don't have to get any Swiss Francs again. The motorways in Switzerland and definetly not as good as the Austrian/German ones and the driving levels have dropped as well. We got stalled for half an hour with an accident on the motorway..so the best radio stations in Austraia/Germany are Hits and Anntenne..its wierd trying to find them if you are flicking ...

... and that if he fails, he will have to spend the night in jail. Awesome... So I wait with the car for about 20 min thinking crazy thoughts in my head.... Jon finally comes back and had only blown 0.007. The cops finally admit that the balloon is never accurate and yes, the construction is blocking the sign, so they didn’t even give us a ticket and told us we were lucky they liked Canadians! Still, it wasn't a fun ...

... from 1250 to 2360 meters in the morning, and then walked all the way back down to Chamonix. Wonderful views, but we were shattered in the evening, so we treated ourselves to a fondue savoyarde, mmmhhh!!

The next day was slightly shorter, but we still walked for 5 hours. We even did a bit of 'trail running' when we realised we were half way up the mountain and had a train to catch to get back to Geneva!!

... sorry for myself and there was definitely no way I was going to let the others have fun and me not being there (to some extent at least). I must say though that despite not having a qualified snowboarding instructor to show me the "slopes", I was surrounded by people with a bit more experience than myself who were patient enough to give me hints and tips, and to help me with my first efforts on the mountain. Brendon had previously been a snowboard ...

... decided Ian would stay in the room while I walked back down the slope to the reception area and got them to deal with it. It turned out the door has a particular locking mechanism involving lifting the door handle while turning the lock, which of course no one had told us about. I also complained to the guy I summoned that we'd tried to call reception. He looked at me incredulously and said 'but 9 isn't the reception number, it's 5900!' I wanted to throttle him ...

... of the last word) but it is pronounced meadie, then when u get to the top ur guide will find you and will take you on a 150 ish metre walk along a norrow part of the peak to a place where you will be able to put ur skis on and get on down the hill.
this run's length depends on how much snow they get. but it took my group about half the day.
I loved it. I stayed in a very confortable motel as well. everything was great.
Definately do it.