Back to the slopes

You'll remember that my first time skiing was last year; you'll also remember that I had a really good time (see here, here, here and here) and that I invested in a few lessons while I was there. But, for some reason, this year, I didn't enjoy the skiing as much as I had anticipated. It could have been due to the absolutely freezing conditions; yes I know it's meant to be cold, but we were buying additional items of thermal ski wear on a daily basis (my purchases included this very handy ear-muff/head band thing). It could have been due to me spending a lot of time worrying about what was going on back in England with the new house purchase.

However, I suspect it was largely due to the fact that my skiing just wasn't up to scratch. I spent such a lot of time on my bottom or taking my skis off and walking down the mountain! And of course there was the day I thought my number was up...

Waterworld

We spent a day at a watersport centre, trying our hand at various activities.

The centre is situated down at Taba Heights resort, a short taxi drive from where we were staying.

My SO and I went out on a catamaran, my sister and my brave little JB went parasailing and the others went out on the banana. Whilst the other activities were fairly short, we were out on the catamaran for two hours. It was an amazing experience and I even managed to sail it! From where we were, we had an excellent view of the coastline of Jordan. Our skipper, Mahmoud, explained that it was about 15km across to Aqaba, 5km of which was international waters; if we crossed this part we'd have been in trouble!

They said it was an experience, but both JB and my sister said they'd never go parasailing again!

The others began their ride, all waves and smiles, but after about 6 minutes they were thrown quite violently into the sea. They were OK; although watching everything from the shore was really nerve wracking. They all decided that they'd had enough of watersports for the day and cancelled the waterskiing lessons they had booked for later on in the afternoon!

I'd love to do the PADI Scuba Diving course to take, but didn't think it was fair to spend 4-5 days of this family holiday doing it. Definitely on my list of things to do; this would be such a lovely place to go back to and do the course.

Here's to next year!

We skied ('til we couldn't anymore), we ate (not always what we wanted), we drank (an awful lot), we laughed ('til are abs hurt), we broke bones (not me), we cried (well, very nearly), we refused to move whilst halfway up a mountain (OK, that was me), we got sunburn (some more than others), we missed the cable car down the mountain (it was very, very close)
But most of all we had a fantastic time.
So to
OP, Haze,The HoF, Hale, HRH, The Doc, TimTom and Robz
Thank You all - I had a ball!

Jeremy et Moi

We decided that it was probably a good idea to have lessons - something about trying to teach yourself to ski at the top of a mountain really didn't appeal to me anymore. Last Tuesday several more people we knew arrived in the town and one of them was also a beginner. He, OP and I booked the services of Jeremy for a few sessions. We were able to use our new found skills on the nearby slopes at Villeneuve and Chantermerle; which had much better snow on the 'easy' slopes.

Is it too late to turn back?

Briancon is the highest town in Europe and as a result of the mild weather the snow on the lower slopes was disappearing fast. Having finally settled into our apartment with the proprietor compensating us for the cost of the hotel rooms; we hired our ski equipment and headed up the mountain. We took the long cable car journey up to the first station; the more experienced skiers amongst us decided that the snow there wasn't good, so we got back in and continued up for a further ten minutes. Now it's important to remember at this time that neither OP or I had ever skied before and I had no concept of the colour coding of ski runs, but we were heading for blue. To cut a long and at times very funny story short, I spent an awful lot of my time on the floor, I removed my skis several times and uttered words not becoming of a lady. When OP and I had had more then enough we took our skis off, walked back up the mountain, got the cable car back to the first station and had a very large hot chocolate with lots of cream.

Oh, for a straightforward journey...

We arrived in Turin, Italy late last Sunday night; although we were skiing in France, this was actually the closest airport. Having travelled across the Alps in what can only be described as 'horror movie' fog, we arrived in the town of Briancon in the very early hours. It was at this point we realised that we didn't know where the apartment we were staying in was, yes you have read correctly - WE DIDN'T KNOW WHERE WE WERE GOING! Now, this town was beautiful but hardly the party capital of the world; so at this time of night it was totally deserted. And so we did what most sensible people wouldn't do and drove around hoping to find our residence. After close to an hour, intelligence set in and we realised that this was perhaps not one of our better ideas; we stumbled upon a well known brand of hotel and the receptionist came to our aid by obtaining the address and directions from the internet. On arrival at the apartment block we let ourselves in with code provided by the proprietor; we then used the second code to get into the safe where the key to the abode was being left for us - to find NO KEY! So we made our way back to the aforementioned hotel and much to the amusement of the person on reception booked ourselves some rooms. It was, ooh let's see, about 5:30am by the time we got to bed; and so began my first skiing holiday...

To the slopes...

I am going away today!
I will be off skiing for the first time and have been growing both excited and nervous as the date has drawn nearer. I look forward to sharing my pictures and stories when I get back...

The Hills are Alive...

Our host kindly offered to take us on a scenic walk and not wanting to be left behind, I opted to go. We caught a tram from Innsbruck and we were going up a mountain 10 minutes later - very clever vehicle; it also ran on train tracks. We had great views over the city of Innsbruck as we made our way up.









It wasn't long before we got of the tram/train to begin our leisurely stroll.





Oh the sunshine, the views; this was great - why did I pack all of those jumpers?



The walk became steeper and steeper and steeper and if I wasn't mistaken someone had turned the sun down...




SNOW! We had been told several times since arriving that Innsbruck is usually knee deep in snow at this time of year. Not this time though, the city was a snow free zone. So of course we all got very excited and had a snowball fight.



We ploughed on through the snow to a lovely little place where we stopped for a rest and a bite to eat. None of us were prepared for the dramatic change in climate when we came out, so we were pleased when told we'd be taking the quick way down (note to self - quick way is not always the safest).


I hadn't really expected to hiking up mountains on this trip and must admit that my footwear was not entirely appropriate. I guess my concern started to grow when the third person in a row fell over, the trouble is there isn't really anything to hold onto in the mountains.



By the time we got to this point I decided there was only one thing to do. I sat down on the ice and made like a human toboggan - OOOHHH I had so much fun! Our host was stunned, I can still picture him at the bottom of the slope with his mouth wide open. Everyone else burst into fits of laughter, hence the reason I have no photo! Not sure that I'd do it again (my jeans are ruined!), but I figured that it was better than falling down the hill.