Le Villaret

Since we haven't been blessed with any new snow in a really long time here in Tignes, I decided to take a walk to Le Villaret, which is a hamlet near to Tignes Les Brevieres.

I was invited on this little adventure by a couple that I work with and I'm so glad I took up the opportunity because the views were gorgeous and it was great exercise!

Here are a few photos from our walk:

The lake in Les Brevieres

Me sitting next to a pretty water pump

The pretty water pump

A quirky house in Le Villaret

Some hand-painted handicrafts available for 5 euros each

The view from Le Villaret back down into Tignes Les Brevieres

A charming old door

The walk took around an hour and a half in total and was quite exerting on ascent, but much better descending the mountain on the way home.  Although there were sheets of ice and sharp thorns to avoid, it added to the adventure.

Le Villaret is a bit of an unusual little hamlet. When we arrived the village appeared to be deserted, with old buildings standing destitute, walls crumbling and wooden planks boarding them shut. However, we soon stumbled upon a sweet little table of handicrafts left unmanned outside a quirky house.

The house itself had a mannequin dangling from a rope at it's front - quite bizarre and somewhat creepy!

I did appreciate the little touches within Le Villaret though, like the hand-painted water pump and trough, which I imagine would look so gorgeous in summer, surrounded by lush grass and sunny skies. 

All in all it was a really enjoyable experience to do something other than skiing (or boarding) and I had a fabulous day, despite feeling the exercise in my legs the next day!

Australia Day and the start of snowboarding

Today is Australia day and of course we celebrated in true ski season fashion, drinking and sunbaking in the snow!

Walking in my thongs on the snow. I am so Australian.

As there are four of us Aussies working in my hotel, we all headed up to Petit Chalet around 11am, wearing our thongs - because what's more Aussie than that? - and soon started hitting the bevvies.

We listened to cliched Aussie music such as ACDC, Angus & Julia Stone, Hilltop Hoods, Pez etc and our head chef brought out his decks and DJ'd for us. It was lots and lots of fun and it was so good introducing some of my non-Aussie friends to our Australia day traditions.

Hayley, one of the Aussie chalet girls I work with, thought that it would be a brilliant idea to go out in our cossies into the snow for a quick sunbaking sesh. Yes, it was cold, but at least we can now say we've tried it. We had an amazing BBQ with prawns, ribs, wedges and salad and, after all of that, I needed a big sleep, so napped for a couple of hours, utterly exhausted.

Learning to snowboard with Janine and Paul

I am so tired because I have been learning to snowboard. It is so much fun, but absolutely knackering because I constantly fall down. It's nice to be doing something different from skiing though, and it is so thoroughly satisfying once I accomplish something new.

I can now go from heelside to toeside and back, and today I mastered the pull lift on my snowboard. I have to be honest, being on a snowboard feels so much cooler than being on skis, although I absolutely love skiing and wouldn't ever permanently swap over.

Given that we have had such poor snow it's great to be on the nursery slopes because poor snow down at the bottom doesn't really affect you, particularly given there are snow canons, whereas up the top of the mountain at the moment, the slopes are just so icy and full of snow cookies that have to be avoided at all costs.

Still having heaps of fun and I cannot believe that we are almost into February. How time flies when you're having fun!

A trip to Le Fournet

Today, on my day off, I enjoyed an amazing ski trip over to Le Fournet.

Le Fournet is the farthest point to the left on the Espace Killy piste map, meanwhile where I live is the farthest to the right.

The gondola back from Le Fournet

For the past month or so I have been desperate to make the lengthy day-trip journey across the Espace Killy and as each Wednesday day-off comes around, I put it off until next week because it seems too bigger treck! This morning however, as I looked out of my window to a clear blue sky, I knew today just had to be the day.

I don't share my day off with many other staff members and this makes finding an early morning ski buddy rather tricky. Luckily though, my friend Andy (who is the hotel's plongeur) finished work pretty early and was keen to get lots of skiing in, so a ski buddy I had found.

After conquering the infamous Face without trouble, we caught multiple chairlifts and drag lifts and found ourselves at our intended destination. Despite the freezing temperatures of -12 degrees celsius and the icy slopes, it was gorgeous weather which made the trip so very worthwhile. 

We decided to stop for some lunch, each ordering un assiette de frites si vous plait and we both enjoyed them in the warmth of the Le Fournet restaurant. 

Inside the restaurant at Le Fournet

Andy and his frites

Once we were truly full from our hot chips, we thought we ought to start heading home. The 2-hour each way trip meant that we didn't have much time to explore the area, but it was a fabulous ski nonetheless.

Lunchtime!

In fact, upon arrival at home afterwards, we were met with questions of "did you go to the glacier just above Le Fournet?"... Unfortunately I wasn't aware there was a glacier nearby and so I may just have to make another trip back in the near future to check it out.

Just gondola-ing

Andy in the gondola

Here is the picturesque view as we skied back from Le Fournet to Val D'Isere, the clouds and blue sky nicely framing the mountains and village below.

On the way back into Val D'Isere from Le Fournet

This week our guests are really lovely and, despite a slight faux pas on my account, our week is going very well. One of my male guests was telling me that his heater wasn't really working too well. I asked him whether he had "had a fiddle with the knob in his room" which, of course, was met with hysterics. Yes, I will be more careful with word choices from now on!

Last week's guests were really fun! We were even lucky enough to be given a bottle of Moet & Chandon as a thank-you and, to be given recognition for hard work just makes it so worthwhile!

Into the Hidden Valley

Me, just before I left to go skiing this morning

On my day off today I was fortunate enough to catch up with some friends from back home in Sydney who are staying in Val D'Isere. The group was rather huge - 20 of them - and despite having only been here a few days, they were able to show me an absolutely amazing off-piste run called The Hidden Valley. This run is definitely not for the faint hearted. It requires the taking off and putting back on of skis many times, the skiing over of mini bridges, the abseiling through rock holes and the climbing through crevasses. But it is most certainly worth it as you ski through a beautiful little hidden area that seems barely touched, apart from the ropes left by predecessors enabling you to climb more easily.

Having accomplished this amazing adventure, we stopped for lunch before splitting off into smaller groups to do our own skiing. Nick - who is a friend from back home - and I both went off and did lots of fun off-piste powder skiing in knee-deep powder. Unfortunately I fell more than a couple of times, but it was definitely a huge amount of fun creating our own tracks and was a memorable afternoon!

On another note, earlier this week I was skiing with our chef, Robbie, and his 2 male mates and encountered another type of skiing adventure, but one that didn't end up as successfully! Robbie (who is probably going to read this so I should be careful of what I say) decided I had the capability to do a 15 foot rock jump. As the others did the jump I started to feel a bit uncomfortable about the idea of doing it myself. I wasn't the only one looking on though. The chairlift right next to the jump meant that all the passers by felt the need to add their own encouragement and yells of "you can do it", "go on, what are you waiting for" to my own internal voice that was most clearly yelling a "that's probably not the best idea". So of course I crumpled under peer pressure and did the jump. I stacked magnificently, with both skis coming off in different directions and me face planting into the snow! After about 20 minutes of climbing up the thick powder to retrieve my skis, I made it to the bottom of the snow dome and, after skiing back to the ski lift, I left the guys and shakingly skied home. Not going to do that again too soon. To be fair though, Robbie does take me to lots of fun jumps and, while I might not enjoy the 15 foot ones, I do have heaps of fun skiing with him and the other staff I work with!

Just about to head out now for some quiet drinks because it is my night off. I was a good girl last night - in bed before 10pm - so I suppose it's not too bad to head out tonight.

Feeling as though I am not being too successful in my attempts to keep in touch with everyone back home, but know that I am sending lots of love!

Another day off in Tignes

La Folie Douce where we enjoyed some apres ski!

Today was my day off (yes, it's Wednesday AGAIN) and I spent it having lots of fun skiing from 8.45 am until 5.45 pm.

I had made friends with a nice New Zealander guy - who is one of our guests - and so my friend Sam (who is also my workmate) and I decided to go skiing with him and some of his friends.

Fortunately during my day off I had absolutely beautiful weather! The sun shone brightly and, although it was cold, it wasn't unbearably so.

We skied all the way up to the Grande Motte in Tignes - which is an all-year skiing area and glacier - before skiing back down into Val D'Isere and doing several runs. Sam likes to ski pretty fast so it was a challenge trying to keep up, but lots of fun also.

La Grande Motte

We enjoyed lunch at the top of the Aeroski - I had something simple (hot chips) because it was all quite expensive and I wasn't too hungry - and then did some more skiing in the afternoon on some of my favourite pistes. Sam had to go home to get ready for work, so I continued to hang out with my friend and his mates.

Unfortunately one of his friends did a jump over at Grand Pre, which is a fun ski area I had taken the group to,  and while trying to accomplish a 360 jump, he fell and his ski brake snapped off his ski. Without a brake, his ski ran with increasing speed down the side of the mountain. Luckily we were able to retrieve the ski and, although the friend was forced to ski one-legged down the piste for a while, all was well.

After some more skiing it was decided that it was most certainly time for some apres ski and the place for that apres ski was most definitely La Folie Douce.

La Folie Douce is the most hectic apres ski bar I have ever come across. There are huge magnums of Moet et Chandon all over the place and massive bean bags in a special VIP area. You can even order a champagne bottle worth 4500 euros. Everyone dances in their ski/ snowboarding boots on the tables and there is an amazing DJ and trumpeter who play for the crowd, along with two brilliant singers. Here is the link to their website to give you a better idea of how cool it is.

Despite the temperatures, which were hovering at around -5, some of the guys had taken off their shirts and others were crowd surfing. Interestingly though, at 4.25pm every afternoon the bar becomes instantly deserted as everyone rushes to catch the final ski lift for the day.

After we caught our lift back to Tignes, we were too late to catch the Chaudannes chairlift over to Tignes Les Brevieres, so the guest I had been skiing with and I both caught a couple of buses and then skied home in the dark, taking in the beautiful twinkling lights of my new little town from above.

I was hoping to go skiing again tomorrow with the guest I was hanging out with today, but unfortunately tomorrow is my 'day in' which means that I don't get a break between my morning and evening duties. I have to lay out and wash up staff lunch as well as cleaning the staff bathrooms and doing any other chores that need to be done. Not so fun, but has to be done!

Having lots of fun and loving meeting so many new people although I can't quite believe just how fast time goes by!

Happy New Year and welcome to 2011

Fancy dress for NYE

Just a quick note to wish you all a very happy new year.

I spent my New Year's at the Underground bar below my chalet, drinking with guests and workmates.

It was open fancy dress so I decided to go as a cat with whiskers and tail to boot.

Our guests insisted on pouring me wine glass after wine glass and, unsurprisingly, when it came to finishing work I was feeling a bit drunk. A splash of foundation and a glass of water and I was good to go again.

We all danced on tables and drank festively until the countdown to New Years.

The cat costume

When it came to the countdown, all of the staff ran around and kissed each other and it was so lovely sharing the occasion with my newfound friends.

I don't think I bought a drink the entire night - I just kept being given drinks - but this morning I was feeling awful.

I woke up with 15 minutes to spare before work and, when I entered our chalet, I could not believe my eyes. There was food EVERYWHERE! There was cheese all over the counter and empty wine bottles strewn across the tables - and I had only half an hour to get the place ready for breakfast service while feeling delicate to say the least. To make matters worse, my colleagues weren't up and after ten minutes of going solo I had to wake them to help me. To be fair though, if being hungover is the greatest of my concerns life obviously isn't so hard.

Fortunately after lots of manic picking-up I managed to get everything ship-shape with my workmates' help and all was fine.

I felt a bit too sick to ski today but, having skied the past few days, I wasn't too phased to be missing out.

I might add that yesterday afternoon Sarah (my roommate), some of the longstays and myself all went to the supermarket and bought these amazing drinks called Desperados (which are beer and tequila) and skied to the top of the mountain. The five of us all sat and enjoyed looking out over the slopes, particularly because it was warm enough to take off our ski jackets and just sit there with our hoodies on. Bliss.

Enjoying some chilled bevvies on NYE afternoon