Day 2 (Sunday) and the weather is absolutely amazing. It’s bright, strong sunshine and very warm in the sun, as high as 15 deg C, according to the forecast and I can believe it.
After a decent night’s sleep, we were all ready to get cracking. I had a ski lesson planned for the afternoon, but needed to go up to Arc 1600 to book my lessons for the week. We drove down to the funicular for a fairly early start and it was like the Victoria Line. That’s Paris holiday week for you!
Your ski pass is a little like an Oyster card, as you approach the funicular gates, they open to let you through and it’s the same for the chair lifts. Last year, I’d skied in the morning before my lesson and managed to hurt my leg quite badly, so this year I decided I’d play it safe and have no skiing until my lesson which was arranged 2-5pm for the next six days.
That done, I popped back down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice to collect my skis and then had a wander around town for a couple of hours, doing some window shopping and getting my bearings. Bourg isn’t a large town, but it is a proper town rather than a ski resort, so there are a decent range of shops and bars which cater for French residents rather than tourists. Lots of people who are skiing stay in the town, of course, but it’s a nice mix.
St Maurice was a Roman soldier, commander of the Christian Theban legion before Christianity was the official religion of the empire. They were ordered from Egypt to Gaul to help the emperor Maximian to defeat and uprising and were to clear what is now the Little St Bernard pass, which is a route from Italy to France. The Legion was ordered to take some reprisals against Christians in the area, but refused and Maximian ordered the legion to be decimated (every 10th soldier was killed). They still refused to carry out the order, so Maximian ordered another decimation and when they still refused, he had the whole legion, including Maurice, executed - a total of 6,500 men. You don't mess with the Romans.
After a light lunch, it was time for ski school, back up the funicular, this time wearing heavy ski boots and lugging my newly refurbished skis. A small group of us was gathered in the ‘improvers’ section and they were mainly French. There was one English girl called Meg, who was there with her husband. He was a good skier and she was having lessons twice a day so she could improve and keep up with him. She seemed just a little too competitive for my liking (perhaps Mr Meg quite liked a little Meg-free time, but his time was clearly going to be limited).
Also in the group was Colin and Tom from Suffolk. Colin was about 55 and Tom (his dad) was 83. Apparently Tom had been an accomplished skier in his day, but he hadn’t skied for 13 years - since he was 70 - and he looked as if he should be holding a walking frame, not a pair of ski poles. Age had given him a permanently bent back, so that he was always in a racing crouch.
Colin told me that he had arranged to come skiing with his son, but his son had to drop out due to work commitments, so his wife (who had been worried about him coming on his own) had persuaded Tom to come in place of his grandson. I wondered if this was Mrs Colin's evil plan to cash in on her inheritance, but I have to say, I admired Tom's pluck and he’d come into the learner group to see how he got along after not skiing for 13 years.
Our instructor Jo took one look at Tom and got on his radio. It’s very rare the French let health and safety get in the way of a good time, but Jo could spot a lame duck and he arranged for Tom to go in the beginners’ group. That was a bit of a shame because it’s quite hard work for beginners at Arc 1600 - there’s no lift and only a small nursery slope, so they have to toil up and down this little space in front of the ski lift (side-stepping up and snow-ploughing down).
We headed up the small chairlift and down a bit of green and blue so Jo could see how we got on. He asked me how long my skis were and, of course, I had no idea.
“Size isn’t everything, Jo,” I told him, but he didn’t understand smutty English humour and told me my skis were too long, I should have no more than 150cm skis, otherwise it would be hard for me to learn. That’s just what I needed to boost my confidence.
It was a good afternoon, we did lots of blues and some steep sections where we could practise Jo’s favourite activity - side-slipping. My legs, especially my left leg, were taking a pounding and as I got tired I fell over more and more. I must have fallen half a dozen times and I was absolutely exhausted by the time we were finished.
It was good to be done and I said to Jo at the end of the lesson that I might be better in a lower group. There were a couple of other fallers in his section, but I think the overall standard was a little high for me, so that I was struggling to keep up.
It had been a perfect day for skiing with brilliant warm sun, clear views across the alps with Mont Blanc standing high in the north. It was good to enjoy a beer in the last of the evening sun and nice to see the collie dog who last year I’d christened Meribel. She came for a fuss, but there was no sign of her partner from 2012, Maurice. She stayed until we got tired of stroking her, she’s skin and bone and has big mats of fur behind her ears, but her teeth are brilliant white. This was the only time that we saw Meribel, perhaps there had been complaints about them running loose, or perhaps they were busy on the farm?
After a decent night’s sleep, we were all ready to get cracking. I had a ski lesson planned for the afternoon, but needed to go up to Arc 1600 to book my lessons for the week. We drove down to the funicular for a fairly early start and it was like the Victoria Line. That’s Paris holiday week for you!
Your ski pass is a little like an Oyster card, as you approach the funicular gates, they open to let you through and it’s the same for the chair lifts. Last year, I’d skied in the morning before my lesson and managed to hurt my leg quite badly, so this year I decided I’d play it safe and have no skiing until my lesson which was arranged 2-5pm for the next six days.
That done, I popped back down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice to collect my skis and then had a wander around town for a couple of hours, doing some window shopping and getting my bearings. Bourg isn’t a large town, but it is a proper town rather than a ski resort, so there are a decent range of shops and bars which cater for French residents rather than tourists. Lots of people who are skiing stay in the town, of course, but it’s a nice mix.
St Maurice was a Roman soldier, commander of the Christian Theban legion before Christianity was the official religion of the empire. They were ordered from Egypt to Gaul to help the emperor Maximian to defeat and uprising and were to clear what is now the Little St Bernard pass, which is a route from Italy to France. The Legion was ordered to take some reprisals against Christians in the area, but refused and Maximian ordered the legion to be decimated (every 10th soldier was killed). They still refused to carry out the order, so Maximian ordered another decimation and when they still refused, he had the whole legion, including Maurice, executed - a total of 6,500 men. You don't mess with the Romans.
After a light lunch, it was time for ski school, back up the funicular, this time wearing heavy ski boots and lugging my newly refurbished skis. A small group of us was gathered in the ‘improvers’ section and they were mainly French. There was one English girl called Meg, who was there with her husband. He was a good skier and she was having lessons twice a day so she could improve and keep up with him. She seemed just a little too competitive for my liking (perhaps Mr Meg quite liked a little Meg-free time, but his time was clearly going to be limited).
Also in the group was Colin and Tom from Suffolk. Colin was about 55 and Tom (his dad) was 83. Apparently Tom had been an accomplished skier in his day, but he hadn’t skied for 13 years - since he was 70 - and he looked as if he should be holding a walking frame, not a pair of ski poles. Age had given him a permanently bent back, so that he was always in a racing crouch.
Colin told me that he had arranged to come skiing with his son, but his son had to drop out due to work commitments, so his wife (who had been worried about him coming on his own) had persuaded Tom to come in place of his grandson. I wondered if this was Mrs Colin's evil plan to cash in on her inheritance, but I have to say, I admired Tom's pluck and he’d come into the learner group to see how he got along after not skiing for 13 years.
Our instructor Jo took one look at Tom and got on his radio. It’s very rare the French let health and safety get in the way of a good time, but Jo could spot a lame duck and he arranged for Tom to go in the beginners’ group. That was a bit of a shame because it’s quite hard work for beginners at Arc 1600 - there’s no lift and only a small nursery slope, so they have to toil up and down this little space in front of the ski lift (side-stepping up and snow-ploughing down).
We headed up the small chairlift and down a bit of green and blue so Jo could see how we got on. He asked me how long my skis were and, of course, I had no idea.
“Size isn’t everything, Jo,” I told him, but he didn’t understand smutty English humour and told me my skis were too long, I should have no more than 150cm skis, otherwise it would be hard for me to learn. That’s just what I needed to boost my confidence.
It was a good afternoon, we did lots of blues and some steep sections where we could practise Jo’s favourite activity - side-slipping. My legs, especially my left leg, were taking a pounding and as I got tired I fell over more and more. I must have fallen half a dozen times and I was absolutely exhausted by the time we were finished.
It was good to be done and I said to Jo at the end of the lesson that I might be better in a lower group. There were a couple of other fallers in his section, but I think the overall standard was a little high for me, so that I was struggling to keep up.
It had been a perfect day for skiing with brilliant warm sun, clear views across the alps with Mont Blanc standing high in the north. It was good to enjoy a beer in the last of the evening sun and nice to see the collie dog who last year I’d christened Meribel. She came for a fuss, but there was no sign of her partner from 2012, Maurice. She stayed until we got tired of stroking her, she’s skin and bone and has big mats of fur behind her ears, but her teeth are brilliant white. This was the only time that we saw Meribel, perhaps there had been complaints about them running loose, or perhaps they were busy on the farm?
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