Skiing holiday - snow, low cloud and sore leg

Wednesday was a great day, but I had clearly overdone it. In the evening my leg was very swollen and sore and next morning it was little better. The fact that there was low cloud, some snow and freezing temperatures was some consolation for not skiing.


Sam and Lucy were in no hurry and we decided to spend the morning in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, doing some shopping and having a look around. After lunch, they'd go up the mountain and, hopefully, find some better weather. 


We went to Super U to get more supplies. Sam loves French supermarkets and I must say that I agree - they are much more interesting than UK ones. We got a number of provisions, including some ingredients for a tartiflette that evening. Lucy wanted to have a look in Intersport next door so we walked across there to look at ski gear. There was a dog tied up outside the next door shop and I was wondering whether to go an give him a pat when this chap in front of us decided to try to be friendly and almost had his hand bitten off. Later, as we were heading back, the grumpy dog gave a young child a gnashing and made him cry. What a mean dog! Maurice and Meribel would never be so bad mannered.


Bourg is a proper town, unlike most ski resorts, which are just a collection of budget-build apartments, hotels, bars and shops. It stands at an elbow in the Isere valley and would have been an important market town and crossroads in years gone by. The Col de Petit St Bernard rises from its edges and crosses the Alps into Italy at 2188 metres. It was still closed due to snow. After Bourg, if you carry on up the Isere valley you come to Val d'Isere (one of the more upmarket ski resorts) and another high pass into Italy.


Hannibal crossed the Little St Bernard pass with his elephants to attack Rome during the Punic wars and countless pilgrims would have taken that route from southern France and Spain on the way not to burn Rome, but to avoid burning in hell. The Little St Bernard doesn't have any dogs or a community of benevolent monks - that's the Great St Bernard - although the monks have sold most of their monastery to a hotel developer and a few years back they announced they were getting rid of the dogs. There was, of course, an outcry and a rich businessman set up a trust to care for them. One of the conditions was that a smaller number were to be kept on the pass to maintain the tradition. Napolean crossed the Great St Bernard pass to attack the Austrian army that was occupying Italy and he defeated them at the battle of Marengo after taking them by surprise in the rear.


Bourg maintains an old-town charm in the centre, although much of the town is now devoted to the skiing industry, including the funicular and large SNCF terminus. We called in at the World Famous Cheese Shop to see if we could buy some Beaufort cheese. I'd read there were three types - summer, winter and farmhouse. Beaufort is a town high in the mountains above Bourg and the summer cheese is said to have a scent of meadows and high Alpine pasture. The place was absolutely rammed with a long queue to buy cheese, so we decided to give it a miss, but it was interesting to see the massive cheeses, like thick millstones, waiting to be cut.


I had a crepe in a little cafe on the main street and also bought Margaret a couple of presents - a pair of sheepskin slippers and a silly ornament for the Christmas tree - a fluffy white bird with a hat and scarf.


Sam and Lucy went skiing in the afternoon, but were not out for long as it had been very icy and quite difficult to stay upright. That prompted Sam to get his and Lucy's skis sharpened and polished at Polaire Star, the ski hire place and workshop at the bottom of the funicular. It's run by a British family - a Scot, his wife and their grown-up son. Poor Sam got a telling off for letting his skis get in such a state. Lucy said he was told that he didn't deserve nice things, but I think she was having a laugh at Sam's expense.


We were chuckling about it all night and I think Sam was expecting another lecture the next day. In the evening, we enjoyed our tariflette, which was very nice and had the advantage of requiring a glass of white wine, which meant Sam and I could polish off the rest of the bottle while Lucy had a snooze. The apartment has a woodburning stove in the lounge/kitchen/diner and I'd lit it earlier in the day. It's very efficient at heating the place up and you soon have to shut it down or it's like a sauna.

Sam and Lucy on the terrace - that's Meribel snoozing

Me and Meribel on the terrace