You Can't Get A Decent Cup Of Tea!

Day 2 of the holiday and we awoke to clear blue skies and glorious sunshine, and from an initial inspection of the mountain peaks it certainly looked as though the wind had dropped. So, it was with a small amount of trepidation that I went down to breakfast, but there was nothing to worry about. The continental breakfast was absolutely fine. The only minus point, and this is common wherever I have been skiing, except in catered chalets, is that you just cant get a decent cup of tea!

Personally I think it’s high time the E.U passed a directive that insist that all catering establishments throughout Europe use boiling water when attempting to make our national beverage. I mean, in Britain we don’t make French fries without boiling oil or try to cook pasta in tepid water, do we?

By 9.30 most people were assembled outside the front of the hotel ready for the first full days skiing, and various groups formed as people set off on their merry ways. Our little group’s plan was to get the Diable bubble and make our way to the glacier. However, on reaching the bubble we were confronted by a queue consisting of half of Christendom.

Now, we have been skiing a good few years and don’t do queues if we can help it. So our revised plan was to get the nearest drag lift and work our way across the nursery slopes and get the Jandri express gondola. This we did only to find the rest of Christendom queuing for this gondola. Damn all these French day trippers, how dare they come skiing on Sundays! Why can’t they be doing something else, like learning how to make tea properly?

Anyway, undeterred and in order to maintain the entente cordial we decided to give this queue a miss as well, as we realised that the lifts going up to the Pied Moutet on the other side of the resort were running and the slopes looked very quiet and were also bathed in sunshine.

As we made our way down to the bottom end of the resort we paused briefly to show the others the chalet Gary and I stayed in some 14 years ago! Yes we’ve been skiing together for that long; maybe it’s time to publish my skiing memoirs. On reaching the bottom we boarded the chair that takes you up towards the Pied Moutet. This lift takes you over the main road into Les Deux Alpes and also crosses over a small muddy paddock where 2 horses were grazing on a fairly substantial pile of hay. Is there any significance to this observation? Maybe or maybe not, you will just have to keep following this blog to find out.

Once we were up on the Pied Moutet we found some excellent skiing on very quiet slopes with superb snow. This is the type of skiing I like, blasting down an almost empty piste and not having to pick my way through ski schools, snowploughers and ‘Sunday Drivers’ on skis. After an hour or so of this, and following the obligatory is somewhat childish snowball fight, we decided it was time for elevenses. So we headed off for the Restaurant Kanata where it claimed to serve ‘The best hot wine of the Alps’. No, this is not a typo, that is what it said on several large banners at the restaurant. With such a bold claim we were left with no other choice than to put this to the test. So was it the best hot wine of the Alps, well who’s to say? It was all jolly pleasant and is what a skiing holiday is all about.

After our little break we skied back down to the bottom in order to start make our way up to the Glacier where hopefully we might meet up with some of the others for lunch. So, several chairlifts, a bit of walking, the cable car and not much skiing later, we found ourselves up at the Glacier restaurant. The temperature up here was much colder, in fact it was chuffin’ chilly again and something hot was the order of the day. Now I mentioned earlier that we are not really into queuing, but when food and beer is involved I do tend to make an exception, as by now the whole of Christendom had gathered in the restaurant. Following a fairly lengthy lunch break consisting of queuing, a bowl of pottage du jour, a plate of chips and, of course, a beer I felt suitable refreshed and ready for some more skiing.

We then spent most of the afternoon on the glacier, and despite the rather slow and troublesome T-bars, we had more brilliant skiing on some great snow. Eventually, we skied back down to the resort, and we actually managed to stay together this time, had another swift beer and returned to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, I shared my days experiences with several of the others in the Jacuzzi, it was just unfortunate that the sauna was out of order during our stay as that would have topped of a pretty good days skiing. A couple of hours later I was back down the bar with most of the others ready for the evening meal. Now I don’t want to harp on about what was perhaps the only significant negative point of the whole ski trip. But, at least there was plenty of salad for everyone today, the pasta was ok and the meat course was certainly an improvement on the previous night, unfortunately I don’t think I can report the same for the veggie option.

Anyway, with the evening meal out the way most people decided to go out and sample the Les Deux Alpes night life. We started at Secrets, which was fairly quiet until the bar crawl arrived! Things got decidedly livelier, and we informed by our rep that the bar crawl would be moving on to La Luma and then to Smithy’s. Following a lot of debate amongst ourselves we decided we would follow the bar crawl, but as no one really knew where La Luma was, and when we discovered that Smithy’s was literally next door to the hotel, we decided to stuff the bar crawl and went to Smithy’s.

We did have a slight bit of trouble getting into Smithy’s as when we arrived the doormen we struggling to control a bunch a French students! Damn these French people they get everywhere! Eventually we got in and as I entered the doorman greeted me by calling me sir! I normally get told “You ain’t coming in with those shoes mate! Now p**s off!” Obviously my hat gives me an air of authority, and I wasn’t going to put the deluded guy off.

After a few more drinks and with our group slowly thinning out, the die hards amongst us made our way to the dance floor which was already pretty bloody heaving. It didn’t take long before it was virtually impossible to move without standing on someone or knocking into someone’s drink, so it was time to go. “Goodnight sir” said the doorman and I swaggered off down the street in my newly found self importance.

Now Lisa and a couple of others weren’t ready for bed yet, so we made our way to La Luma after all. On entering the bar we found it occupied by about a dozen people and some god damn awful French ‘Europop’ music playing. That was enough for me and off I went to bed.