 Poster: A snowHead
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We saw similar prices at Christmas in Flaine, so we a) had lovely picnics on the slopes, b) had lovely meals in the apt. And had a nice time. And didn't worry about it. Which given I can moan for Britain was pretty good going.
Everyone else has pretty much said it all, but Markus says it best.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| easiski wrote: |
| I think people should remember, that first the supplies have to come up a mountain to get to most resorts - that's way further and more expensive that to your local supermarket... |
That's equally true in North America, but I've never been afraid to eat on the mountain with my kids over there. In Canada last year, mountain hut prices were typically CAD4-5 for a filling snack (large freshly BBQ'd hot dog, bowl of chilli, etc) and CAD2-3 for a beer to wash it down. The prices were lower down the valley, but not dramatically so - realistically, they couldn't get much cheaper. The result was that the Canadian eateries were usually full all day, but, in a separate trip to Courchevel where food and drink was probably more than twice the price of Canada, the restaurants were deserted for most of the day apart from the lunchtime spike. Serves them right!
Apart from VAT and currency movements, I suspect three cultural factors come into play that greatly increase food costs in France. First, French culture links mealtime to the clock much more closely than Anglo-Saxon culture does, and it's much easier to cut costs when you have a steady stream of customers than when they all arive at the same time. Second, restaurants tend to be family owned in France, and the families need to make a decent living; in North America, retaurants are staffed by gap-year students who are happy to work for a pittance so long as they get to ski for free. Third, French food tends to be more refined and therefore more expensive to produce: a chocolate brownie is much cheaper to make, transport and serve than an elegant French apple tart. Sweeping generalisations, I know, but also generally true.
We're off to France this year, but I'm afraid that we won't be eating in restaurants.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Markus says it best.
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Hear, hear
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| Quote: |
As oppsoed to a half board hotel option, which almost always works out cheaper than paying for evening meals individually
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Horses for courses as always - but for me self-catering gives me the option to eat what I want when I want. Not always the case with half-board and certainly not the case in catered chalets I've stayed in
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I really dislike "half board" - if I'm going to pay to eat out every night, I'd prefer to pay a little extra and have some choice and variety. But I don't pay to eat out very often. You can cook excellent meals, even with current French supermarket prices, with a good bottle of wine, for a lot less than even a bargain-basement "menu touristique". And you don't have to eat cheese, ham and potatoes the whole time. Self catering is always going to be cheapest (though it does amuse me when people post a message saying "we're going self-catering...... where are the best restaurants?" 
On a warm March or April day, little can beat a picnic on the top of a mountain (preferably with a nice wooden bench to sit on), with cold beer, baguette, cheese and apples from the backback. One day last spring we drove down into the Hauteluce valley and sat on the grass in the warm sun, with the spring flowers already pushing through and buds on the trees, but with some banks of snow in the shady spots, to keep the beer cold. Perfection. (All produce locally produced and purchased.  )
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| Quote: |
One day last spring we drove down into the Hauteluce valley and sat on the grass in the warm sun, with the spring flowers already pushing through and buds on the trees, but with some banks of snow in the shady spots, to keep the beer cold. Perfection. (All produce locally produced and purchased
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Ahhhh, the joys of la France profonde. Absolutely nothing to beat it, IMHO.
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Yes we are s/catering, but flying + booked transfer so have luggage weight restrictions and no chance to visit a supermarket en route. Therefore we can only consider taking a few essentials if they're likely to be much more expensive locally.
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Butterfly, I wouldn't bother to bring pasta as if you get the Marche U own brand stuff it's very cheap. English food is very expensive, but if you can eat the french stuff (ie no baked beans or heinz soups) for the week, then I don't think there's a huge diff. Bring proper T bags though, and maybe instant coffee which is quite expensive here.
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Butterfly, there's no point trying to carry pasta, or rice, on a plane - even in local supermarkets they're not going to break the bank. I think I'd take a few small jars of things like good quality pesto, anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, cashews (Tesco value!) that are low bulk/high cost and can make a quick meal with a bag of pasta. Definitely T-bags, some dishwasher tablets (you won't want to buy a big pack and in some s/c apartments the cleaners take everything though I don't when I do end of let cleaning ), a few stock cubes. Marmite, marmalade, if they float your boat, will either be unobtainable or silly price.
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Here in snowy Obertauern, a 0.5l beer is just under€5, soft drink about €3.50. Soup at lunch was just under€4. Not cheap, not too bad. For the first time for about 15 years we're half boarding; grub is good, wine pricey (€27 for an OK Zweigelt, probably retails for € 5 max).
I prefer B&B myself, as I enjoy eating out, self catering at a pinch but they are usually comically small, although I suspect that Obertauern is not great for restaurants - it's mostly hotels.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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For clarity - the rice I take is Aborreo (sp?) risotto rice - as is vacumn packed takes v.little space and I have yet to find it in local shops.
Kids love risotto so will probably have twice in week - usually once with tuna and once with any left over chicken from a take away rotisserie type thing
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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yes, risotto rice can be hard to find in local shops, and a little goes quite a long way. However my OH doesn't like risottos (risotti?) and I don't make them just for me. 
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I found Euroshopper fresh ravioli in the spar at Belle Plagne. 1Euro 88 for 600g. Did dinner for 2 nights with a jar of pesto.
Maybe of questionable nutritional content?
I'll admit to bringing ground coffee,filters, weetabix and muesli this year. Our apartment in LP was fully stocked with cleaning products which made a change.
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You know it makes sense.
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They sell risotto rice carnaroli rather than aborrio in Intermarche at Le Fayet - I know cos that is what we had for tea tonight.
Butterfly, Agree with pam w, and would maybe add a teaspoon of any herbs/spices that are important to you - For me that's thyme tarragon and saffron....and at the moment I so wish I had a jar of thai curry paste, which I can't find anywhere!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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I so wish I had a jar of thai curry paste, which I can't find anywhere!
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ah yes! Good idea. I searched a number of French supermarkets for curry paste, without success. Apart from making curries, I make home made mayonnaise, and with a teaspoon of curry paste stirred in it makes an excellent dip.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I have two jars of some sort of Patak's curry paste sitting in my store cupboard in Les Gets - perhaps I will put it up for sale when I get back in two weeks! We always leave all the herbs and spices out with oil, vinegar, stock cubes, flour, sugar,coffee, tea etc etc, and all the sort of things that you might just want a spoonful or pinch of so people who rent our chalet don't have to go and buy them. In return we always end up with numerous jars of honey and that instant chocolate drink that seems to breed as fast as I can throw it out.
Perhaps I am very trusting but I also leave my freezer unlocked and just put a bin liner over the top of my food - ok I don't leave fillet steaks and lobster - and work on the basis that if someone is stuck and can't get out then they can eat our chips, ice cream and whatever and would restock. We never quite know what we will find when we get back, but it is always at least what we have left and quite often more.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Pamski, it's so hard to be sure in advance what will be there. We don't rent ours commercially, only to friends who I can trust to be sensible with the stuff. But in one place we rented years ago (in Les Gets actually, local owner) she came on the last day (to check and give us deposit back) and took absolutely every last thing that we had left for the next renters. That included such things as half a box of Kleenex, some left over toilet rolls, half a bag of sugar, some olive oil, the soap in the bathroom, the washing up liquid, the stock cubes, the lot. We had left one-third of a bottle of brandy, too, but when my mother saw the old witch sweeping round with her black polythene bag she dashed back into the kitchen, grabbed it, said "silly me, how could I have forgotten this?" and thrust it into her handbag.
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| pam w wrote: |
| (though it does amuse me when people post a message saying "we're going self-catering...... where are the best restaurants?" ) |
This is a valid question for people who do not want to be tied into the 'limited options of catered', have done their research, realised it's gonna be pricey, and have saved enough of their hard-earned pennies to be able to not give a monkeys about money, eat-out every night and read a menu left-to-right as it should be...?! When else can you do this apart from your one-week-of-the-year for the majority?
This comes from someone who goes catered chalets in a group (usually 10-15) and loves it, as it works out by far the cheapest, and as long as you go top-end the food is normally excellent, and enough wine to put a good enough base down to go out to town with thirty euros in your pocket and know you'll be a-ok!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Boris, I bought risotto rice in Super U B-St-M in Jan. Cant remember how much I paid for it though.
Pamski, We leave all sorts of herbs & spices , jam, marmite, & general basics like washing powder, dishwasher tablets etc. The people who use our apartment just replace what they use & add their own bits & peices too. As you say, its always interesting looking in the cupboards when we arrive to see what we have been left - in Jan, we acquired a large Green & Blacks hot chocolate - yum 
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we've always been fortunate enough to go half board in really decent hotels. Our next holiday, Courchevel, was luckily paid for in December. Now our finances have taken a turn for the worse. I've always liked going half board as I don't like to cook while on holiday, thats what I do for the rest of the year. However, for next season, hopefully we will still be able to go skiing but probably selfcatering so I will be seeking loads of advice on here. Think I might end up divorcing OH if we drove accross! I understand that the season is short and commodities have to be transported up the mountain and that the pound is weak as nats pizz at the moment BUT I still think that the French are in danger of pricing themselves out of the market soon.
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pam w, I understand your sentiments about half board and it must be awful if you get a hotel with rubbish food. I've been lucky so far although I do tend to find chalet food is a bit nicer than hotel food. But for a single traveller on a budget, half board is a necessity and I just have to rely on internet reviews to try and pick accommodation with half decent food reviews...
I definitely wouldn't want to do any cooking on holiday, I struggle to find the motivation to do it at home and practically live on jacket spuds. Also I remember the shoebox self-catering apartments from Uni ski trip days only having two hot plates and no oven! Hopefully this sort of thing has improved a bit these days...
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French are in danger of pricing themselves out of the market soon.
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It's an interesting thought, the UK ski market is around 10% of the total skiers in La Plagne, if that 10% was to reduce what would the La Plagne marketing department do?
Increase it's French marketing, I would guess, as the UK is a lost cause?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Thanks for the advice, decent T-bags are the one thing I am def bringing. queen bodecia, the oven situation seems to have been solved by most places putting in microwave combi ovens - but not always with instructions so it can be a bit pot luck!
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Butterfly, that sounds like a step in the right direction. I guess these things hadn't been invented in the 80s. All I remember eating on our Uni trips was crisps, we were too impoverished to eat out and two hot plates to cook a meal for 7 was beyond our teenage capabilities... 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Boredsurfing,
That 10% make up a 1/3rd of the restaurant and bar clientelle....and in those worlds even a 3% in takings drop can be a disater
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Although bookings from the UK have not been a total disaster, I have had a lot more bookings from the French for my apartment this winter, and I am concentrating my marketing and advertising on that for the summer and next season. However, I've got third timers and fourth timers, and three of four more customers from the UK too, one group normally stay in a local hotel, but from the glowing reviews they have given me, I suspect the hotels loss is my gain. Like genepi we leave a supply of basics (including proper tea bags )in the apartment. We've got an oven too, although I was disappointed that it is a small one.
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Prib Star, it's perfectly legit for people to say "we're renting an apartment, where are the best restaurants". It's just a laugh when they call that self-catering! I have stayed in chalets from cheap to more expensive-but-last-minute-booking and always found the food fine. But I really can't stand living and eating in "institutions". I suppose if it was a really nice, small, hotel, it would be OK. But I've stayed in a lot of big (and often quite expensive) hotels in my working life and I practically never ate in them - only if I was on my own and in a really, really, rough part of town where I didn't want to venture out into the surroundings. I could never have enjoyed life in a hall of residence at university - living in one would have been bad enough; eating in one (as people did in my day) intolerable. The one chalet holiday which turned out to be a gastronomic disaster was in Alpbach, when because of a problem with the chalet kitchen we ate in the hotel next door. I hated trooping into our designated table in the corner of the restaurant and awaiting the arrival of grim food, truly grim, though with a big happy party and a lovely chalet boy who ate with us (and brought and liberally distributed the chalet's free plonk) it was still a great holiday. Despite the poor snow which was, according to a woman in our ski class, who had been going for 20 years, typical!.
I do think it's hard to motivate yourself to cook just for yourself, but with friends/family the preparing of a meal, with a glass of wine to hand, is part of the evening. Our apartment has a full size oven and four ring hob, and I have equipment such as good knives and chopping boards, hand blender and mixer, and good casserole dishes etc which makes it easier and more enjoyable. When we've gone with groups of friends in the past, and each couple takes it in turns to produce an evening meal, eating out on other nights, it's been quite a highlight of the week, sampling each other's (mostly simple rather than competitive) cooking. Our three local (walking distance) restaurants are charming and friendly and good for my French. But I wouldn't eat there every night even for a week, even if it was free. All those raclettes, diots, fondues, crozets and the like. Once a fortnight is more than enough! I would also find it extremely irksome, in a hotel, to have to dress decently and go to a bar just to have a cup of tea of a beer, rather than sitting in my thermals with my feet up. I know some people like it, and also like cruises, but for me - and for the same kind of reason - a "luxury cruise" would be purgatory. Now my own bareboat yacht - with a very simple galley - and maybe a crew member who can catch fresh mackerel. That's another kettle of fish.
It's good that we don't all like the same things, isn't it? 
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You know it makes sense.
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With you on the cruise thing Pam W - not many notches up from the cheap ferry crossings to Fance... My idea of a cruise is the many sedate summer evenings we spend on the Kennet and Avon Canal on the old folk's narrow boat. Mackerel are rare, but the barbel are excellent sport ...!
But we digress!
Prices would have to quadruple before I ever thought about ditching the montains for a 'distant shores' vacation, many of life's luxuries would be forfeited first! 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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sedate summer evenings we spend on the Kennet and Avon Canal on the old folk's narrow boat.
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sounds perfick!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Personally, I think we're seeing two effects here.
Prices in Morzine have definitely gone up, but not massively. A good 12 euro plat du jour last year is now around 14 euros. You can hardly call that increase a rip-off given what happened to food and energy prices last year - much of the latter of which will have hit last year's profits.
It's just that when you lay that 2 euro price increase against the exchange rate movement then it means that that plat du jour was £8 last year and now it's £14. That is painful.
But you can still easily eat for under 10 euros a head on the hill.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| FlyingStantoni wrote: |
Personally, I think we're seeing two effects here.
Prices in Morzine have definitely gone up, but not massively. A good 12 euro plat du jour last year is now around 14 euros. You can hardly call that increase a rip-off given what happened to food and energy prices last year - much of the latter of which will have hit last year's profits.
It's just that when you lay that 2 euro price increase against the exchange rate movement then it means that that plat du jour was £8 last year and now it's £14. That is painful.
But you can still easily eat for under 10 euros a head on the hill. |
That is still an 8.5% rise (in Euros).
I don't know what inflation has been like in France, but it never reached half that here (even with steep increases in energy prices).
Although as you say, the exchange rate then makes it a 75% rise for us in Sterling
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I found the catered chalet option cheaper than half board this year but i think that depends on the quality of your hotel staff or chalet .The chalet staff were more understanding of some fussy eaters in our group and we had the option of the "free" wine with dinner which kept prices down.
Last year my daughter struggled with the menu in a french run hotel as she doesnt eat cheese and there were no options . Thats not an anti-french comment since i know many british hotels etc that operate the same way .
It would be a shame to lose the mountain restaurants as that feeling of sitting out in the mountains and the altitude cant be beaten but i fear they may well be pricing themselves out certainly short term
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we went to Tignes last week, but went to Alpe D'Huez at xmas - both were the same, it wasn't like that before
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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innerspaceservices, it wasn't like what before? Leaving aside the ghastly exchange rate, what else had changed so much?
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HH,
| Quote: |
Think I might end up divorcing OH if we drove accross
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Oh give it a go - our kids love the drive. Have an overnight stay each way and a decent meal and makes a longer holiday.
The kids can also take more toys so they're happy
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Apropos of the costs in mountain restos I asked a guy I know who runs one today. Of every €10 spent the costs of the food and transport for same is €6. The €4 profit from that also has to pay the staff and the liftpasses etc, so it's hardly a rip off. His is not the most expensive resto on the mountain, but neither is it the cheapest. Drinks €3.50 on the whole. In addition he told me that it costs €40,000 to empty the septic tank after every winter!  Of course we here are, on the whole less expensive than the Haute Savoie etc, and the 'trendy' places, but it's still expensive to eat up the mountain.
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easiski,
Everything there sounds plausible but for €40,000 that is either a very, very big tank or the saying "where theres muck theres brass" must exist in French as well, only in bold capitals and underlined ! For €40,000 I would consider sending a truck over from here, there are plenty of farmers round here that would be grateful for the gift !
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Out chalet were offering sandwiches this year, so I eat for £5 per day.
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Helen Beaumont,
I would agree with that, we have gone from 10% French customers last year to 20% this year but in money terms, because they have taken the "crazy February" weeks, the French customers are nearer 30%. I could try and show off and say it's because my communication in French is getting much better, but in fact I think it is because many French people have realised there is a large pool of British appartment owners who are desperate for euros ! (Well very keen on them anyway, much more useful than those pound thingys for paying bills.)
Oh, and the thought of driving a 30,000 litre tanker across France with, "contents :- English S***" written on the side is amusing, well it is to me anyway. (See the post above).
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FAQ
A french whiskey measure is approx twice as large as a british measure 
