France - St Martin de Belleville

14/03/15

Was a bit of adventure driving from Briançon to St Martin de Belleville. Started snowing just as we left , was 11C. Had very little visibility when we reached the Frejus Tunnel (Italian Side), it was 0C, but on the other side, France, we were in 14C and perfect visibility - quite strange.
Pretty awesome driving into the French Alps - amazing scenery. Villages doted in the most unusual and dramatic terrains. In the distance I could see steep zig-zag roads in the snow that seemed to zig-zag forever to reach what looked like only one or two houses at the top. We spotted a fox in the snow, it seemed to spot us too. Found St Martin de Belleville to be very much a beautiful town. We meet 'Gaston', the owner of the apartment who invited us all into his house ( the level below the apartment we are in) for drinks and a chat(in French). I don't think he could quite understand why I would be here and not ski? We unpacked into a lovely apartment - very French mountain décor. It was spotlessly clean and very well equipped and very French. Lots of red, white and brown fabrics with deer, snow-flakes, and hearts on them. Lots of Xmas decorations which I notice the whole town still had on display(I wonder if they ever get taken down). Lovely old wooden furniture, wooden ceiling and beams.


Jarvis at the window.

Apartment  View

 

15/03/15

Caught the free Navette(little bus) up to the start of the chair lifts nice and early this morning. Got Lachlan started on his first ski-school lesson. I was a little worried watching him go off with about 8 other children, all French-speaking(I think). But off he went and so did the big boys(up on the very impressive looking gondolas).

Brave Lachlan - ski school bib on.

I made tracks to the information centre to see what a non-skier could do in these parts. Actually quite a lot. Lots of walks, lots of walks with raquettes(snow shoes) in the snow, pedestrian ski lift passes to get to the other towns and admire all the views, free bus services to some of the other towns.
Here is were I really miss not having a non-ski buddy, we could bake bread in the local ovens or do silk painting ( I can see certain people shudder at the thought).




'Les 3 Vallées' comprise the resorts of Courchevel, La Tania, Méribel, Brides-les-Bains, Les Menuires , Saint Martin, Val Thorens and Orelle.
It is the world's largest ski area, linked together by ski runs and ski lifts, claiming to have 600 kms of interconnected slopes and 183 ski lifts which can transport 260,000 skiers per hour ( myself being the only person going downhill in a ski lift!). In addition, there are 120 km for cross-country skiing. Employees in the area include 424 ski patrollers and 1,500 ski instructors

Chris rang from the slopes and was literally speechless. He said he couldn't even begin to describe how amazing it was. It is huge with ski lifts as far as you could see.

Enjoyed talking to a few locals, lovely people with a huge amount of tolerance trying to decipher me.
One French man told me the story about Captain Cook naming the Southern Alps of NZ based on their similarity with the French Alps - I was embarrassed not to have known this.
I picked up Lachlan at midday, he had good reviews from his teacher. I was very proud.



16/03/15


Waiting for a lift to the ski field - rental on the right.

Ski lifted over the mountain to Méribel today. It took a surprisingly long time - about an hour on lifts. Pretty stunning scenery.

Arriving into Méribel, it was pretty interesting to see the scale of the skiing. There were ski lifts and skiers going in every direction as far as you could see.
In fact there are 46 ski lifts in Méribel which are a combination of button tow/drag, chair, télécabine(gondola) and téléphérique(cable car).
It was good to also see the setup for the 2015 Alpine Skiing World Cup starting in  Meribel in 2 days time.Supposedly you could watch the competitors training, but I didn't spot any.




Méribel race track


I had a good explore around the town while I waited to meet Chris and the boys for lunch. The town itself is much flatter and bigger than St Martin de Belleville. Not as pretty, but with a lot more facilities and accommodation.


They start them young in Méribel








Race track from the hills, Chris and the boys skied alongside
 it and through a tunnel underneath it.



Lunch at Meribel.

Finally Chris and the boys made it. Chris was drenched in sweat. In true form he had been overly optimistic about his ski plan. He was to pick up Lachlan from Ski school and chairlift up and then ski down into Méribel with all the boys. He was optimistic that Lachlan(with his two mornings of ski school) could manage the blue run. The blue run turned out to be not really blue(way too steep). So he ended up skiing down with Lachlan on his shoulders - well as Chris says, that's what adventures are made of.