TR: La Thuile March 2010

A snowHead

Resort: La Thuile

Country: Italy

Domain: Espace San Bernardo

Author: queen bodecia

Date: 7-14 March 2010

Our holiday: Group of 8 middle-aged adults, no kids, all competent piste skiers.

Website : www.lathuile.net/homepage.asp?l=3

Basics : In the Aosta valley region of Italy and bordering French resort of La Rosière.

Lift system : Lifts are mostly chairs, a handful of old slowish 2/3-packs in a fetching shade of green, but most are now fast 4-packs, two of which are the comfy type with hoods. Also a large stand-up gondola from the base station up to the mid station and a few button poma lifts. On the French side, there seem to be far more poma lifts including what felt like the longest two in the world to get back over to Italy.

The terrain : La Thuile is a great resort for intermediates. A huge area of undemanding and perfectly groomed red runs and only one of the black runs was too extreme for me to attempt. However, many of the blue runs and a couple of the reds had very flat or even slightly uphill sections which meant skating/poling if you didn't know where to build your speed up. There are a couple of long reds back to the resort, 6 from the top of the La Combe lift and 7 from the top of the Chaz Dura Express lift, both of which are pretty easy. The more demanding reds are shorter (10 from the top of Chaz Dura lift and 30/31/32 over by the Arnouvaz lift). Blacks 2 and 3 down to resort have some tricky sections but overall I didn't mind them, black 5 which joins on to red 6 was easier still. Blacks 23 and 25 over on the Belvedere/San Bernardo side were also a maroonish shade of black. The piste markers at the entry to each piste give a percentage rating of the steepest gradient so you more or less know what to expect. This is what led me to avoid piste 37, the new black run which proudly stated a percentage rating of 73%! Yikes! I took blue 36 down instead!

It's a very empty resort, probably one of the emptiest I've been to. Even on a very sunny Saturday with a car park full of day trippers/weekenders, I often had a whole piste to myself and never encountered a lift queue. Skiers outnumber snowboarders by at least 15 to 1, I imagine the flattish sections would be offputting for snowboarders. Also, being laid-back Italy, helmet usage is rare. It's compulsory for children, yet less than half of adult snowboarders and probably only 10-20% of adult skiers wear them and interestingly I did not see a single instructor wearing a helmet.

Getting over to the French side (La Rosière) is a lengthy process and I only went once, there was plenty of great skiing to keep me occupied on the Italian side. The route back includes a tricky narrow red and two extremely long button lifts. That's half an hour of my life I'm never going to get back! It's also considerably busier and the mountain huts are more expensive on the French side. Stick to Bella Italia!

The snow : Absolutely perfect. The season got off to a shaky start in La Thuile, but since late January the snow conditions have been very good and there was a welcome 40cm top-up the week before my arrival leading to the largest snow depths of the season so far. It was snowing heavily when I landed in Turin and still snowing lightly in resort on arrival. The first ski day was mainly sunny but a few clouds and a few light snow showers (which looked beautiful and glittery in the sun shine). The next day was very windy and freezing cold, -18ºC at the top of the mountain but with a wind chill making it feel more like -30ºC, no fun at all. My gear did the job except for my feet which were blocks of ice. I spent the evening with my feet soaking in a bidet full of warm water to try and revive them. The Wednesday was still very cold but less windy. It snowed lightly most of the day and the visibility was rubbish so we stayed low on the tree-lined runs down to resort level. The last three days were perfect, blue skys with uninterrupted sunshine but still a bit colder than I'm used to.

Piste grooming is very good in La Thuile, no rocks or moguls and only a couple of chopped-up bits at the bottom of the pistes to get to the lifts at the end of the day. Very impressed.

Off-piste : I'm strictly a piste only skier so can't comment.

The resort : It's a small but reasonably quaint village with a few smaller satellite villages. We stayed in a small family run hotel in the village centre which we all agreed was much nicer than the huge Planibel complex at the foot of the slopes. There's a river running through the centre of the village and a few shops/restaurants/hotels. In all it was very quiet except on Saturday when there seemed to be a lot more traffic. Most people seem to stay at the Planibel complex which is a 4-star hotel and a few apartment blocks with its own selection of shops and bars. However, it all felt a bit soulless compared to the village centre, more akin to a French purpose-built ski factory.

As it was a 10-15 minute walk up to the lift base station from the village centre, we hired equipment lockers, a much better idea than carting all the gear back and forth. There is a regular shuttle bus service as an alternative, but I prefer to take a leisurely walk back browsing the shops and bars. The walk up the hill in the morning was a nice warm-up for skiing too.

Not many bars, but Cuc de Mar in the village centre was quite lively and served great cocktails (cheaper than wine!) and La Cage Aux Folles at the Planibel complex was good to go to straight from the slopes with free nibbles and warming vin brulé. The quiz night was at the Kings Pub also at the Planibel complex, probably the biggest bar in the resort and it got quite lively that night.

Food : Food in the hotel was excellent local Italian cuisine and easily catered for my veggie tastes. There were some lovely mountain huts too. Maison Carrel for traditional Italian fare, Off Shore (piste red 18 ) is like a crazy hippy shack with a 'Beatles' room and Le Foyer near the top of Chalet Express lift for yummy Bombardinos and paninis. Also worth a mention is Le Rascard which is a bit of a walk from a little cut-through at the bottom of piste 7, but worth it for delicious pizza.

Accommodation : We stayed in Hotel Piccolo San Bernardo, a small, family-run 2-star hotel on the main road in the village centre opposite the river. It's a quaint and quirky building with 3 rooms in an annexe building at the rear. It really deserves more than 2 stars, the rooms were huge, clean and comfortable, the food outstanding and the genial host Maurizio was great fun and very accommodating. I guess the rating is held back by the lack of views from the windows, no separate bar (just a lounge area where we were fine to drink our own drinks) and no lift. However, I was much happier to stay here rather than the huge Planibel hotel and the great bonus was no supplement for sole use of a very large twin room!

Sadly, this is the current management's last season at the Piccolo and they have really turned the place around (some of the trip advisor reviews from 5 or so years back are not very good). Crystal is not offering this hotel for next season with the uncertainty regarding the change of management. Hopefully they have negotiated some other alternatives to the Planibel.

Costs: Not extortionate but not cheap either, not helped at all by the exchange rate. Staying in a half board hotel I can only really comment on prices of food/drinks on the mountain and drinks in bars. Food on the mountain ranged from 3-4€ for chips or a panini, to 5-7€ for soup or a pasta dish, to 8-12€ for a main meat dish. Pizzas at Le Rascard were a reasonable 5-10€ each depending on toppings and were huge. Drinks were 1-2€ for a coffee/tea, 3-4€ for a beer, vin brulé, hot choc with cream or bombardino and 5-6€ for a large glass of wine or a cocktail.

Conclusion: Once again, Italy doesn't disappoint. I love the laid back Italian feel and La Thuile is a big and friendly ski area for all abilities. I'm not sure I'd go back again, it does feel a bit of a one hit wonder kind of resort, but I'd definitely recommend it to others. The wide empty slopes are ideal for cautious skiers and there's plenty to entertain the more adventurous. I'd say the only downsides to the ski area are the number of flat sections. The village itself is definitely not for the party brigade but the few bars there are friendly and lively.

I travelled with Crystal again and was not disappointed. The only travel delays related to airport incompetence. On the way out Birmingham airport ground staff managed to destroy my boot bag (which was brought onto the aircraft by hand to be identified!) and the wait for baggage reclaim at Turin was well over an hour (with the usual Turin debacle of luggage coming out on random carousels, not necessarily as directed). However, baggage reclaim at Birmingham yesterday was hardly any better. No waits at all for transfer buses and the reps were probably the best I've ever had. Very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable and excellent ski guides. We only came third in the quiz this year, quite a disappointing result for us!

I'm only sad it's all over and I've got to wait a whole year for the next one. Looking like it's going to be Austria next year. Bring it on!

P.S. Will post some pics once I've sorted out the best ones.

A snowHead

Sounds like you had a good time, quiz result notwithstanding!

We're off to LT for half term next year, so the pizza prices you quote are very encouraging, as we're doing self-catering. We're staying at the Planbel ghetto, and I have no greater expectations than your comments thereon suggest.

Looking forward to the 73% black run. Anything shallower than 60% doesn't seem worth getting out of bed for... Smile

We did La Rosiere two years ago, and in my darker moments I can still recall the drag lifts from France to Italy! We'll be with the kids all the time next year, so will stick to the delights of Italy.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Great report and has brought back nice memories of our trip to la Rosiere incl la thuile last year.

Is the red from la ros to the drag lifts to la thuile difficult? Maybe my skiing isn't as bad as I thought it was as I didn't find it too bad. Agree the drag lifts seem very slow and no fun if its cloudy.

The bit I didn't like was coming from the top of san bernando/la thuile to go back to la rosiere - belvedere area ..there is a short black stretch somewhere which we ended up on by accident. As soon as I saw the black piste marker my legs turned to jelly and I fell at the first turn! Trying to stand back up again made me wobble even more! Probably would have been fine if I hadn't noticed the colour of the piste markers! I know there are easier red/blue routes back to la rosiere - we made a mistake that time.

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The Flying Snowplough, Planibel is definitely not a ghetto and very convenient for the lifts. It's just a bit soulless for my liking and I'm definitely not a self-catering sort. You'll have a great time and I don't think it even gets that busy during half term so a very good choice if you're tied to that week.

snowymum, the short red down from Col de la Traversette wasn't especially steep but it was narrow and hard, I don't think it gets much sun. I know the short black bit you mean from the top of Fourclaz chair lift, it's only very short but it's steep and narrow. The rest of black piste 25 isn't so bad except for the very bottom bit back to the Fourclaz lift.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

queen bodecia, it gets better and better! Thanks for the info. We're not normally SC types when skiing, but it's a means to going at HT without breaking the bank. Besides, SC may end up being a lot of takeaway pizzas - depends on teh exchange rate at the time. Smile

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I had a day trip there on 5th March from Courmayeur and thought it was a great little resort. Well stacked with snow and conditions were as good as I have ever experienced. We had a fantastic lunch in a small hut on piste 18(can't remember the name but it's the only one around there). Lots of off piste close to hand too if you like that. When we got back to our hotel in Courmayeur the manager quoted LT as the coldest place in the valley, we reckon it was at least 10 degrees cooler than Courmayeur on the same day so take your thermals!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

northantsred, it was certainly colder than anywhere I've ever experienced in March. Luckily I did take themals, hat and mittens with me. My feet were blocks of ice though.

After all it is free

Thanks to queen bodecia for the excellently detailed review. I went to La Thuille about 5 years ago and although minimal snow I agree with your findings. There is something very nice about La Thuile that I just cannot put my finger on. I look forward to returning one year - hopefully when sterling is stronger.

Great report, thanks for taking the trouble.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Excellent report.

It's ~10 years since we last went to LT but I'm always hankering to go back.

We've stayed in Planibel appts a couple of times. I reckon they're better (inc slightly bigger) than the French equivalent but they are what they are. It was in the time before children so I'd often be a bit delicate in the mornings. My normal routine was to call in at the cafe for a double espresso and something cakey, then get the chair up rather than the gondola. By the time I got off the chair the sugar, caffeine and mountain air meant I was good to go!

We ate at the Hotel Picollo San Bernardo once but never stayed there. Looked a nice enough place.

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snowymum, I know exactly which short black you are talking about Embarassed

Caught me on the hop!

queen bodecia, great report. Interesting to read about it from the La Thuile aspect, as we stayed in La Ros last year. I guess the long drag towards Italy feels longer at the end of the day!

snow reports

Thanks folks. I'm a bit of a novice at this trip report game but I couldn't seem to find a detailed report for La Thuile so thought I should remedy the situation.

Higs, by Queen B's account, the pistes are so empty that we might be the only people there for HT next year. Smile

Only joking, Queen B! It was an excellent and most helpful review, which addresses a definite gap in the range of resorts reviewed.

You know it makes sense.

For such a large ski area, there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of accommodation. Other than the Planibel complex there are only about 15 hotels, most of which are fairly small. So even during a full occupancy week, I can't see it ever being really busy. Our hotel was full last week and the Planibel was around 80% full and the pistes/lifts were pretty empty. No queues, collisions or any other bother associated with a busy resort. I would think it to be a great choice for people limited to school holiday weeks.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Last day of work the morra before heading down to Edinburgh to catch the sat. morn flight. Thanx for the most comprehensive report feel like i have been there already, cannae wait. The only area I might be able to fill in is the restaurants, as we are self catering in the Planibel appts. (that should really read not catering in the Planibel appts. but using the travel kettle for coffee in the morning and maybe stretching to warming bread for breakfast) woo-hoo bring it on!

A snowHead

dode, have a fab time. The snow still looks really good.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Randomsabreur, admittedly I don't like steep blacks and generally tend to avoid them, but that bit was so short, 4 turns and it was over. Not only that, you need to build up a bit of speed there because where it joins red piste 7 it flattens out and you'd need to pole to rejoin the rest of black 25, unless you get on Belvedere chairlift.

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Now I'd enjoy it, then it was terrifying - but in hindsight it was a good choice for a first black! Although it would have been even better if less busy!

I did it in one turn and a LOT of sideslipping - but I didn't fall so it gave me more confidence for next year, when I did 2 blacks...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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Until this year, it was a battle to be listened to even if I did look at the map! Something about men, and not being willing to admit to being lost... The situation was: R "Please can we stop so I/we can look at the map - I'm sure there was a black round here somewhere." N: "No, it's definitely this way, no time to look at maps, we might miss last lift and then it will cost a LOT" (La Thuile to La Rosiere in winter would be a LONG taxi ride).

I trusted him as (a) I was too busy being scared of chairlifts and heights and edges and other silly things;
(b) he'd been to La Thuile and back about 4 times already that week, while I'd been in lessons so should have known the way; and
(c) I had no reason not to trust his sense of direction and map reading.

Of course, it's quite possible he had scouted out the route in advance, and it was all a very sneaky plan to make sure I had "done" a black in that first week so I didn't get "black piste marker phobia". Springing it on me meant that I wasn't worried until I saw the piste markers, rather than all day until it happened! In hindsight, this is appearing quite possible, given how careful he was in Tignes and this year not to overface me with nasty black pistes.

Hopefully I will now be put in charge of mapreading/route planning, at least in French resorts as I find it easier to retain the piste and lift names, so we don't have to stop at every single intersection - and managed to navigate quite well in the 3 Valleys - hopefully that will mean that I am now permitted to be in charge of routefinding, at least for resorts he's not been to before!

If I pick the route, I can't yell at him when I don't like my own choice - certainly when both options are visible and go to the same place, he always lets me pick, although I'm very predictable - if one is steep but wide, and the other is narrow but flatter, I invariably pick the steep wide option...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Randomsabreur, in fairness I ended up on that little bit of black entirely by mistake and I'm usually a dab hand at piste map navigation. It's easy to miss the entrance to piste 7 red along the ridge down from Chaz Dura Express lift as it's semi-hidden behind the top of the Fourclaz lift. If you continue down the ridge you've only got a choice of the short black back to Belvedere to get back to La Ros or a blue which takes you back down the La Thuile side. It's easily done.

After all it is free

P.S. The blacks in La Thuile are nothing at all like the blacks in Tignes/Val D'Isère.

queen bodecia, - very informative report 10 out of 10 Toofy Grin

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Been back a week now and agree with queen b in that this is a very quiet resort. Often we found we had the piste to ourselves. In fact, one morning after it had been dumping snow all night and we woke to find 10-12” of new powder on a well groomed base, it was possible to lay new tracks on certain pistes at 10:30am! I don’t necessarily agree that the grooming itself is very good, the piste-bashers went out soon after the hill had cleared. I couldn’t hear or see them later on at night, and never saw them out during the day. Instead I think that due to the lack of punters the pistes hold up really well for the day.
We stayed at the Monte Bianco Apartments in the Planibel complex. Now let’s set things straight… quaint it ain’t… but! But that is my only criticism of them. We found the apartment ideal it was clean, spacious and convenient. There was a double bed, sofa-bed, dinner table, walk-in cupboard with safe-box, kitchenette, bathroom with w.c. and basin, bath with overhead shower, and a bidet. The TV had live webcam feed from various stations on the mountain. Our balcony was only 30ft from the Bosco Express chair and was big enough to dry our gear at one end as we took in the last rays and riders of the day at the other with a glass of vini rosso.
We were that close that in the morning we were sat in the chairlift two minutes after shutting the apartment door.
The only problems that may arise are if you decide to try and cook as there are only two hot-plates (pasta and sauce Smile

) a small draining board and sink. Although there are plenty pots, pans, cutlery etc. We never tried to cook in the apartment as we saved over £500 compared to half-board in the hotel Planibel. This saving more than made up for our restaurant bills. We prefer holiday this way as the apartments are larger than hotel rooms, you have freedom to bring in your own food and drink if you want and you sample much more of the local fare.
All the restaurants we ate in were excellent, with a two course meal for two with wine coming to 30-60euro. Our favourite was La Lisse were the tourist menu gave you a first course of pasta, a meat second course, dessert and wine all for 15euro per head, great value. It’s worth mentioning that, in almost all of the places we went to, you have to pre-order if you want fondue. We travelled with Ingham’s and were offered a card for 5euro which gave 10-20% off selected restaurants and was valid for the week, it proved a very wise investment for us. The food on the hill was of a good standard with two main courses and a wee carafe of wine costing 25-30euro. Our favourites were the strawberry risotto at Lo Chalet de Cantamont, and the rabbit casserole in Le Foyer. Lo Riondet, on piste 7, is also worth a mention just for it’s setting. The wine in the supermarket was about 4-5euro a bottle, although we did see a 5 litre demijohn for under 8euro!
Overall I really enjoyed La Thuile and the only thing that would stop me returning is the number of other resorts I have yet to visit. The snow was fantastic and you could really get in the groove as you hit an uninterrupted rhythm on the deserted slopes. My partner, who describes herself as a timid intermediate, was skiing blacks with a smile on her face by Wednesday. Unfortunately black 37 was closed all week during our holiday. I read somewhere that at 72 degrees it was the steepest piste in Italy and woulda been a fine feather for the cap. However black 35 was open and at 71 degrees hopefully I have bagged the second steepest Very Happy

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Just back from La Thuile (yesterday) after a brilliant week.

We stayed in the Planibel apartments, and despite them not having the traditional alpine charm they served our needs perfectly for the week. As had been said by Dode, the location of the Planibel is perfect. We were in the Monte Rosa section of the building which was only a 2 minute walk to the Bosco Express or main gondola. Our (huge) balcony overlooked the slopes and caught the afternoon sun so was the perfect site for a few afternoon beers as the sun came down.

We travelled as a party of 8 (plus 1 infant) and the front room of the apartments were just big enough for us all to sit around the table at for dinner, so ideal really. Only having two hot plates for cooking was a bit of a mission, an oven would have made things much easier, but we ate in for all but 1 night and can't say we faced too many problems. The supermarket on site is adequate if perhaps a bit limited, but the butchers was a very welcome find, both quite reasonable in price given the mountain location.

We travelled with Crystal, and the only complaint we had with them was that there was absolutely no childcare in resort for children under 4 years old. We knew this before travelling (a bit of a cock-up by us for not checking) but with Crystal's reputation for child care facilities in so many resorts we were a bit surprised that no creche facilities were on offer, either by Crystal or anywhere else in resort; particularly given that La Thuile is such a family-oriented resort. Other than that we were very happy with the accommodation, transfers etc.

The week was one of the quietest I've ever seen in the Alps, especially so since it was the first week of Easter. Our first day was Easter Monday, which was quite busy with locals, but after that the slopes were almost empty. As the snow conditions were so good (we had a huge dump of fresh snow in the days before arriving, with bluebird skies on all but one day for skiing) the empty pistes meant that in the early part of the week many of the slopes were still in superb shape throughout the whole of the afternoon. Later in the week as the temperatures rose the lower slopes started to slush out a bit, but I guess that's to be expected in Spring. We’d read a lot about the potential for high winds, on our first day we certainly got them and it felt very cold despite the sun blazing down. But after that the winds died down completely and it was very pleasant.

As for on the slopes, I think Queen Bodecia caught most of it very well in the OP. The Bellevedere black was probably my favourite, kind of in between a black and a red but lovely and wide and perfect for getting some pace and getting the carving turns working. On one morning we had “Black Friday” where we hit all blacks in resort and with the good snow and quiet slopes I can recommend them all. My favourite red would probably be 7b, really wide and not very steep at all but lovely for cruising along. The blues were mostly quite short and flat, we had three boarders with us and while they didn’t have too many problems with the flats we stayed more to reds and blacks.

We only got over to La Rosiere one day to head to the snow park, but weren’t all that fussed with going back once we’d been. Plus points were the runs were very nice, particularly the reds down from the La Thuile access chair; the boarder cross course was great fun; and the snow park was good. But the whole resort was a lot busier than La Thuile, snow conditions were nowhere near as good (much softer and slushier) and the lift system just much slower. We took what seemed to be the slowest and longest chair in the world to get out of La Rosiere, then the boarders in our party were faced with the two huge button lifts to get back to La Thuile, so not ideal.

Apres ski is a pretty quiet affair around the Planibel; we regularly headed to La Cage au Folles straight after the slopes, which was quiet but nice, especially the free nibbles given out. We also stayed up on the mountain for a beer a couple of times (until one of the lifties came over and ordered us to “Go home”). We visited the Kings Pub once, which was pretty huge but it had the feel of a northern working men’s club so we didn’t bother returning.

All in all, it was a great week of skiing. The only downsides were the complete lack of child care facilities for children under 4, and also that La Thuile’s snow park was closed for the entire duration of the week (although it looked rather limited anyway, so a decent park would be a good addition). And considering we booked well in advance the price was, in our view, very reasonable for what we got in terms of size, quality and location of the accommodation.

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This has reminded me. I still haven't posted any pics. Will remedy this later. Very Happy

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

It didn't seem at all family-orientated when I was there, but I guess this was because it wasn't during any school holidays. Even then I'm used to seeing local kids on ski school lessons, but hardly any of those in La Thuile. There's also a children's 'snow garden' area at the bottom next to the Maison Blanche chair lift and that didn't ever seem to be used. It didn't strike me as the sort of resort that would have enough of a market to warrant a resort creche. Just too small generally.

A snowHead

Dav, we once stayed for a few days in a small Italian family hotel near Cortina. We were the only English people there and I think just about every other party in the hotel was a three-generational Italian family!

For the majority of years, conditions in early April are more enjoyable than Christmas/New Year - but Easter is a lot later next year. Sad

It's about time British schools settled on a spring holiday, last week of March, first week of April. Be great for skiing teachers (of which we have two in our immediate family). Are we the only country in Europe which does this daft business of arranging a major school holiday around Easter? Some other (much more "religious") countries seem to have worked it out better.

Do any of the parties have it in their election manifesto? Or, more basically, a rupture of Church and State. I'd vote for that, and not only because of ski holiday convenience. wink

A snowHead

queen bodecia, must have been the time then. There were loads of the little fellas running around when we were there, and the children's play area was always full. And, considering how quiet the slopes were, there were plenty of local ski schools; in fact we ended up skiing down and rescuing a small Italian boy's ski pole after he dropped it from the chairlift after being too pre-occupied by talking to us and eating his sweets. Although fair play, he could only have been 8 and was perfectly conversational in both English and French.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Finally posted a few pics. Only a month late!

http://www.snowmediazone.com/the_zone/u1228-queen-bodecia-page2.html

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Struggling to see where you fit the ski-rack on that Fireblade Smile

Looks like your group had a fine time. I take it you took a trip to Courmayeur, how did that compare?

If I can suss out this pic posting mullarky I'll try to give it a go.

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dode, we went to Courmayeur last season. It's a much smaller ski area than La Thuile but without the flat sections and is generally very varied. So I'd probably give the La Thuile ski area 6/10 as it is large and generally good, just let down by the many flat sections and lots of similar runs. Courmayeur ski area would probably get 8/10 for quality but only 4/10 for quantity.

The towns are very different animals. Where La Thuile is quiet and unspoilt with a handful of small hotels, Courmayeur is large and fashionable with lots of hotels. So Courmayeur wins for shopping and nightlife but La Thuile has more of a getting away from it all feel and is generally friendlier. Hardly any of the accommodation in Courmayeur is handy for the lifts, so there's usually a bus and cable car journey to get you going in the morning, whereas in La Thuile nowhere is more than a 20 minute walk away.

And no, I can't carry skis on the bike. It's enough of a struggle getting them in the car! Very Happy

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TR: La Thuile March 2010

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