Chamonix

Well...I'm back from an oh too short holiday, but it was great fun!

Being out in the mountains was exactly what the doctor ordered and bombing down the ski runs of the Chamonix valley was soooo good.

We spent the week at Les Grands Montets a little bus ride from town as that had the most interesting and varied ski area...lots of nice pistes and lots of off piste powder for the crazy snowboarders including "The Italian Bowl" so named because of the Italians who died there in an avalanche a few years ago!

Unfortunately we didn't get the best weather, most of the day it snowed...a lot...which was good in some ways but meant the views were well hidden by the clouds, the sun came out on Tueday afternoon and then Friday morning as we were leaving but the rest of the time it snowed, there was low cloud and poor visability. Fair play to the woman in the lift pass booth though who asked us if we'd seen the weather report as there was going to be awful visability for the week. Like the hardy Brits we are we bought them anyway (what else were we going to do?!).

The conditions did get me angry a fair bit...unfortunately my ski goggles wre SERIOUSLY misbehaving to such an extent that the double glazing got water sloshing around in between and steaming up the whole time. NOT FUN, BAD GOGGLES. I had to use them because of the conidtions but they were a real pain!

The other annoying thing was coming close to losing one of my new skis. I was coming down an unpisted black run (thankfully on Tuesday in the nice weather!) when I unceremoniously fell over leaving a ski behind in the thigh deep snow. I dug around for 20 minutes and was beginning to give up all hope when I found it! Phew!

We had some good evenings out having dinner. I don't normally get chance to go out for dinner when skiing as I usual go package but it was good fun checking out various restaurants. One in particular was very posh, the waiters even wore green waistcoats and they had a fish tank full of fresh lobsters by the door! The people on the next table had a massive seafood platter with a huge lobster on it...must have been expensive. The favourite restaurant ended up being a little Italian place, Matt loved the "Popeye Pizza", it was a spinach pizza!

Great holiday...last skiing of the season for me though. Boo hoo.

Ok, Ok, pretty pictures time...

More flippin' photo problems! Grrr...hopefully more later!