Chris, Melle, Homer and Roxy on Tour

It's been another great week here in the Haute-Savoie region.  We took the opportunity to have a few days on the southern shore of Lake Geneva (or Lac Leman as it's called locally) and visited the lovely and very interesting Chateau Ripaille .   I've posted a couple of photo's below. But mainly I thought I'd tell you about the times I've fallen over whilst skiing on this adventure.  Not something we talk about often but it happens to us all.  Sorry no photo's though!!! 😉 The first times I fell over were one afternoon early on when I went skiing on my own for an hour or two (Melle was teaching that afternoon).  I tried a new route to get to the top of the Samoen mountain (I've since found out that it's called Tete de Saix - altitude 2118m) and skied down the Aouia blue run to the Coulouvrier chair lift.  Normally most people ski to the Chariande Express as it's quicker to get to the top.  But I wanted to explore a bit and noticed that no-one seem...

We are sad to say goodbye to Samoens and leaving  the mountains has felt a strange thing to do, it's not necessarily what we thought we'd do on this trip.  But when friends from home say they're coming to Geneva to visit you, you pack up the skis and go! It has ta ken us about 90 minutes to drive here and it surprised us to still see the mountains as we arrive on the outskirts of Geneva at our new stop for a few nights. After a happy meet-up, we've spent the early evening taking in the lakeside on Maison Royale, marvelling at the magnificent Jet d'Eau, walking past the the designer shops in the beautiful evening light.   As well as the commercial centre, we're also really enjoying walking around the Old Town, with it's cobbled streets, tall and slim buildings and abundant history and architecture. Place du Bourg-de-Four St.Pierre Cathedral Who knew that Geneva played such a fundamental role in the reformation of the Christian church and that back in the mid...

So we're coming to the end of the first part of our Alpine adventure as we prepare to pack up and go to meet our friends Helen and Felix for a weekend city break in Geneva over the coming weekend.  It's nearly three weeks since we set off from home in Shrewsbury and when we come back to the Alps we are planning to move to a different village as February is a very busy month with the French (and British) school holidays increasing the population in Samoens ten fold from 2,500 to about 25,000.  So we plan to find somewhere a bit smaller and quieter but more of that later. Coming to the Grand Massif ski area we were aware that there are a number of villages we could stay in but we planned to stay somewhere, in the first place, that gently introduced us to Alpine living.  We settled on Le Giffre Campsite in Samoens because alongside electric hook up and the basic water filling and emptying it offered hot shower blocks, laundry facilities and a store for boots and skis. ...

 So here we are two weeks into our adventure to the Alps and we haven't really started talking about skiing yet.  What's going on, we know there is loads of snow and we've seen Melle's Instagram and Facebook posts so why haven't we had a blog about the skiing.  Well here it is folks so strap yourself in. Of course, you'll remember when we arrived there was virtually no snow in the campsite or in Samoens town.  The following morning we got kitted out in our skiwear and made it to the ski / boot store at the entrance to the campsite but it started raining so hard that we gave up on making the journey across the road to the Grand Massif Express which is the main ski lift to the mountain.  It rained hard all day and other than doing some shopping we did little other than look out on an increasingly flooded campsite.  But critically it had started to change and from sleet it gradually became snow.  I'll be honest, I never thought it would stick and become a...

I'm not gonna' lie , the first fortnight has not been a bed of roses and has been a baptism of fire! Firstly the weather.  Upon arrival it was very wet, then we had mountains of snow, which was very welcome, and then some very, very cold weather indeed! This presented several problems including a cold engine that refused to start after being left idle for a week.  The local specialist was called in and €125 later Homer spluttered to life.   The mechanic was great actually and gave us several tips on how to prevent this happening again.  Eh voila!                                              On the mountain, whilst skiing we have experienced temperatures of -14*C with a biting easterly wind as well as heavy snow fall.  No amount of layers could keep us warm in this and at times I thought what the hell am I doing!! I don't think I could imagine ...