Ski weekend in the Alps

Our weekend in Alps started with an overnight train ride to Chamonix. We left Paris Thursday night around 10:30pm and arrived Friday morning 10:00am. We purchased two seats/beds in a sleeper car or couchette. Matt thought the beds and the tightness of the compartment reminded him of the submarine. Each compartment has 4 beds so we shared our space with two random guys. I didn't sleep well and felt motion sick for most of the ride. When we woke the next morning, we could see the mountains and snow all around us. We changed trains in St Gervais (as the big trains can't get up into the mountains) and were in Chamonix 45 minutes later right on time.

Chamonix is probably one of the most famous ski resorts in Europe. The first winter Olympics were held there in 1924. The highest mountain in Europe, Mt Blanc, dominates the landscape as it rises 12,000 feet from the base of Chamonix to the top. The ski resort is really made up of 5 different ski areas that are linked together by a bus system. The town sits in a narrow valley between two ranges of mountains and has skiing on both sides. The lower side is called Brevent and has plenty of wide open space and intermediate/expert trails. The Mt Blanc range is on the other side of town and stands at 6,000 feet higher! There are no real trails on the Mt Blanc side facing town because it is so steep. You can, however, take a lift almost all the way up to Mt Blanc to a pointy rock outcropping called Aiguille du Midi and ski down the back side of the glacier. Matt didn't attempt it because 1)it's dangerous 2)you need a guide and 3)it's 13 miles long and takes at least a half day to get down!

Since we got to town early in the day, we dropped our bags at the hotel and headed out to explore. Matt rented some skis and headed towards the mountains and I went shopping in town. I have skied before but didn't want to stress myself out on the much more difficult slopes in the Alps so was content to let Matt go and spend time relaxing in town. Chamonix is a cute town with a bunch of traditional Alpine looking buildings. There are quite a few shops with clothing, shoes, purses, jewelry, and ski equipment. The center of the town is closed to traffic so it's actually quite nice to walk around and check things out. I didn't buy anything on Friday, but scoped some things out for later. Friday night we went to a great Italian restaurant. Since Chamonix is really the intersection of France, Italy and Switzerland the food was pretty authentic. In Paris, we have gotten use to having a "quiet" dinner alongside other French people. But it was deafening in the Italian restaurant as everyone seemed loud and the kids next to us were tossing their food. It didn't take long to figure out that it was the Brits in the place who were driving the volume levels up.

Saturday I spent the day shopping and checking out restaurants for Valentine's Day. We had a nice breakfast buffet at a brasserie and then Matt left to ski in a different area from Friday. The weather on Saturday was cloudy with some light snow. I went back to some of the same stores and ended up buying a new purse. It is a red Longchamps bag and will be perfect for carrying around Paris as I always need extra room for an umbrella, guide book, wallet and my chocolate purchases! Skiing was Matt's present for the weekend, so the bag was part of my present. I also found some boots I really liked, but they didn't have the right size so I'll have to wait to find something in Paris.

When Matt got back from skiing on Saturday he was both excited and sore. Apparently the skiing was amazing and he took over 75 photos. We had a 9pm dinner reservation so we jumped in the hottub in our hotel for an hour to relax. We were hoping that there wouldn't be any weird folks lounging in the hot tub. Luckily the two other folks in the hot tub were pretty normal. We had reservations for a fondue restaurant that night. Fondue is big in the Alps region so we decided to give it a shot. We ordered the specialty meat dish which included a hot stone to cook the beef, turkey and duck. Instead of dipping the meat into hot oil (like in the US), we cooked the meat over the hot stone. The meat also had little sauces like curry and mustard to season it. It was interesting and tasty.

Sunday morning we got up early and took a gondola ride to Aiguille du Midi - more than a vertical mile and a half from town! I'm pretty freaked out by heights, so I needed some convincing to get on the gondola. Matt's job was to talk to me and make sure I didn't look out the windows. At some points during the ride up the mountain, the gondola is well over 1000ft above the ground suspended by a single cable. It didn't help that they jammed the gondola full with 30 people with skis and poles. Luckily the gondola ride was smooth and I couldn't see anything out of the windows. Once we landed at the top, it was like we were on another planet. Aiguille du Midi is literally a pointed rock that sits high above everything except Mt Blanc. The French dug tunnels through it and created some observation decks at the top. This, of course, is why we went to the trouble and expense of getting there. Most of the folks on our gondola were planning on skiing down the glacier from up there. The first thing anyone skiing down from Aiguille has to do is traverse down the spine of a steep ridge line while carrying their skis to get to the glacier. Matt thought this was probably expert only skiing and the sight of climbing harnesses and ropes on all the skiers made us wonder just what they were planning on doing once they got on the glacier.

We felt the effects from the higher altitude including fatigue, dizziness and shortness of breath immediately. There are a lot of stairs to climb up and down to the different observation decks and we were huffing a bit. It was also really cold and windy at the top. Standing on an icy observation deck with strong winds, temperatures below zero and drops of hundreds of feet made us pretty cautious while we posed for photos. I admit that the view was incredible and the day was perfect for going to the top, but I was relieved when we got back down to town after spending an hour up on top.

After returning from the top, I spent some more time exploring the town and Matt caught a few more hours on the slopes before we had to catch our train around 4pm. We took the high speed TGV train on the way back and were home in just over 5 hours. Unfortunately it was dark outside so we couldn't fully appreciate how fast we were going.

It was a great trip to Chamonix and we are really glad that we managed to break away from Paris for the weekend. This is probably the only ski trip we take this year, but think we might make it back in the summer to do some hiking. It really was beautiful and we managed to capture some of it in our photos.

Posted Chamonix