Val Thorens

This has been a long time to get up, but I have finally got round to typing up my experience in Val Thorens with Tom ins February: my first time IN the Alps end of, let alone skiing in them!
Val Thorens is one of, if not the, highest ski resorts in the Alps, at 2300m, with some of the slopes around the resort giving you the option to go just over 3000m. It has been a few weeks since I have got back, but I will try my best to give you as much information as I possibly can!

Starting with how we got there - it took over 12 hours of travelling, including a 4.30 wake up, a nice half hour walk to the train station, two trains to Stanstead, a flight standing still on the runway for over an hour

because it missed its time slot and finally 2 buses, before FINALLY arriving! Then we realised that to pick up our keys, we had to go to one end of the resort, and our chalet was at the other end! By the time we finally got there, we were obviously VERY hungry, and ran to a nice-looking pizza place we had passed earlier. And though it was a little wait to get seated, once we were, we were served so quickly, and had a delicious and very-well-deserved 3 course meal!

On to the skkiing itself, there are a number of green and easy blue slopes at Val Thorens which are

great for beginners, as I was. Most of the greens being just next to Place Caron, though there are is another one if you us the 2 Lacs chairlift, while there are many blues scattered around the resort, as there is with red and blacks for those, like Tom, with a higher ability. For anyone wishing to do more than just the Val Thorens resort, you can get the 3 Valley pass for just 50 euros more per person, but there is plenty to do in the resort itself.

I made sure I got lessons, as though I had done a tiny bit at the Chill Factor dry slope in Manchester, like I said, this was my first time on snow, and there definitely is a difference - for one thing, there is less friction, so it is harder to stop; and secondly, believe me when I say that the first time you go to mountains like that, they do seem really daunting. With my lessons, we started on the greens and then went onto more and more blues. I was so glad I had done some lessons before going as when I managed to find my group after being crazy lost, they were already doing snowplough turns, so one piece I can give you is that when you book lessons, make sure you are in the right level for you.

Funnily enough, I had originally asked to be in a French group for my lessons, but it turned out that the other members in my group were British and my instructor was Italian.... My brain was a little bit in meltdown hearing all 3 languages at once, espeically as my French and Italian were pretty rusty. To be honest, I was amazed that, though I may not have been able to reply back perfectly at first, I at least was able to follow my instructor!

Another tip for you is to make sure you hire ski boots which fit properly, and know how they are supposed to feel - tight without putting any pressure on your feet. If they give you really bad pins and needles every time you take them off, like mine did before I had them changed half way through the week, that's wrong, and they don't fit your feet properly. There are plenty of places in the area where you can hire boots and equipment, and the staff at the shop we went to were extremely helpful.

As you can tell, we did have a couple of days where the sun was out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky - but that was only on the first and last days. Everything in between was a lot more overcast and
it would NOT STOP SNOWING (as you can see the picture on the right)!! It did make it a lot harder skiing and was very grateful that my ski instructor had a bright orange jacket, because if it wasn't for that, I would have gone right past him a couple of times. Sometimes, when you got off the chairlift at the top of a mountain, you could not see a thing!

Moving on from skiing, I should mention the other activities you can do in the resort. I never got round to do bowling, but I heard that it's really good and worth doing. What we did manage to do though was to go swimming in the pool, which is situated right in the middle of the resort next to the station and does include a couple of jacuzzis. There are also plenty of bars dotted around, the best one was a rum bar which Tom had been to before (... oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this was not his first time to Val Thorens). We happened to find it purely by chance on our 3rd night and what a place! It makes its own rum, all kinds of flavours, from raspberry to caramel to fig, and you can get a glass of this gorgeous stuff for 6 euros each. It's not the cheapest, but you do get a lot of straight rum for you money!

And I should finally mention the food here. It's expensive to eat out every night,
so we decided to only go on the first and last nights. I already we chose pizza on the first, and there are many many pizza places to choose from. For our last night, we chose a little place close to Place Caron, which served traditional Alpine dishes such as cheese fondue and cheese raclette! We chose a raclette, which is normally a mixture of local meats, salad and potatoes, served with slices of melted special raclette cheese! I have had one before in Lyon, but I still had to ask the table next to us how to use the heater to get the HUMONGOUS slice of cheese to melt (the picture on the left is the before picture, while the one on the right is the after - I think we did pretty well). In simple terms, a heater melts the cheese, which is on a sort-of spinning spit, and when one side has melted enough, you turn the cheese around so that the other hand can start melting, slide

whatever HAS melted off with the spatula you're provided with, and pop it on your plate! It was
pretty pricey, but you get a lot, and for the one night, it was worth it!
There are also a few places on top of the slopes (we tried one of them on our last day), as well as many more dotted around the resort, and there is always a supermarket which is close by for the days when you would prefer to stay in.

Would I go back skiing at some point? That's a question I have asked a LOT since I have come back, because I didn't have a lot of confidence on the slopes, and having very uncomfortable ski boots didn't help either (ohm and I was ill twice...); but I think that one day, I will probably end up going again, and I probably wouldn't mind either. It was lovely being in the mountains themselves, and you felt better being in scenery like that doing plenty of exercise.

I don't know whether it will be to Val Thorens again, or maybe another part of the Alps, or maybe somewhere else entirely, but I'm pretty sure that one day, I will be more than happy to give it another go; and I know for definite that I will be coming back to the Alps quite a lot in the summer, so who knows...