 Poster: A snowHead
|
Background
Due to Elder Little Snowplough doing SATs this year, we’d long since resigned ourselves to the Half Term skiing experience. So if Twot-face Gove is reading this, it’s not your f-ing holiday policy that forced us to abandon the low rates and empty pistes of term time skiing jollies.
Anyway, enough political comment. Govian or not, the Half Term skiing experience does impose a stark choice: Do the same as usual at twice the price, or get creative. I’m naturally tight-fisted, so Ski Esprit and Les Arcs/La Plagne/Courchevel got punted into the long grass, and were replaced by self-catering in Vars. We chose Vars as it looked like a decent ski area and was hopefully far enough south and protected by enough cols to the north to dissuade the Parisians from invading.
Logistics
We took the path of least resistance, and booked a package with Thomson/Crystal: 610am flights from Doncaster to Turin. 2 bedroom apartment in the Hameau des Rennes, which came with a TV, DVD, ski lockers near the piste and best of all, a dishwasher. We booked lift passes through the TO and ski hire on-line, as each represented the cheapest option. Total cost of all this was £3,700 for 2 adults and 2 kids. Not exactly bargain bucket, but not too bad either.
Pre-skiing necessities
Travel to the resort went as well as any day can when you have to get up at 330am. We were safely installed by 2pm, and even had time to run the dishwasher that the previous inhabitants had kindly left for us before heading to collect our skis.
The Boss and the kids were easily kitted out, but when I outlined my requirements and capabilities, the ski hire guy looked like a Sommelier asked to recommend a white wine to accompany a rare piece of steak. He disappeared to the back room and eventually re-emerged, blowing the dust off the widest pair of skis I’d ever seen. I was assured that they would enable me to turn on anything and keep up with the Boss and the kids. Who says the French have no sense of humour?
Skiing
By all accounts, Vars had just experienced the biggest dump of snow in recent memory the week before our arrival. This was easy to believe, as on the first day, the jumps on all but the biggest snowparks had completely disappeared. The pistes were all perfectly visible, though, a state of affairs enhanced by the blue skies and bright sunshine that prevailed throughout the week, other than a couple of periods where blue skies were replaced by heavily falling snow! The Skiing Gods were clearly on our side.
Our hopes relating to Parisians were borne out, as the pistes were largely empty and queus non-existent.
Our hopes relating to the ski area were also borne out. During the week I encountered gentle cruising pistes, steep cruising pistes, rough pistes, soft moguls, icy moguls, a bit of gentle off piste, a natural half-pipe, routes through the trees, numerous snowparks and even ankle high power on the piste.
I was in a different league to the Boss and the kids, but not in a good way. I was delegated to be “Tail End Charlie”, and performed this role with some aplomb, I think. Albeit unwitnessed aplomb, as by the time I’d found my rhythm on any piste, the Boss and the kids were but dots in the distance. I think elder daughter took the honours against the Boss, but never got close enough to see for sure.
My low point was when elder daughter was leading me through a very steep, snowy mogul field early in the week when I exited my bindings at the front and did a spectacular face-plant. Not so bad in itself (and it was my only fall of the week) but I was under a busy chair at the time and received a generous round of applause from above for my troubles. I did exorcise this humiliation on the last day, though, navigating the same piste, now with icy moguls, with no issues.
My high point came towards the end of the week on a day of x-rated draglifts (in which Vars specialises, it must be said) when both kids fell off their pommels (at different times) and slithered ingloriously into positions from which only Piste Patrol or Decrepit Dad could perform a rescue and Piste Patrol was nowhere to be seen. It’s nice to still have a use beyond being a mobile wallet!
There were a couple of very odd incidents towards the end of the week…
On the penultimate afternoon, I was following the kids through one of the snowparks when I was accosted by 2 hardcore snowboarders. After a few linguistic issues confused matters, it eventually became clear that we were being accused of excessively dangerous skiing on the jumps. I can see where they were coming from, as I had just “caught some air” in an unexpectedly large fashion, landing with the grace, style and sophistication of a load of coal sacks falling off a truck, but even so, they lacked the necessary “Yellow Jackets of Authority” so we ignored them!
Just before the final lift on the last afternoon, there was an unexpected rattling from the back of my skis, and a microsecond after that, a small French child smashed straight into my backside. Needless to say, the poor lad was deeply traumatised, though mercifully no more than superficially hurt. His Mum and Grandparents, who arrived a few seconds later, were in something of a state too, apologising profusely for the unwarranted violation of the “entente cordiale”. Having seen our kids career downhill seemingly out of control on previous holidays, I had every sympathy for them. It was just their luck that their lad chose my cycling-honed, rock solid rear end to pile into, as to my eye, there were plenty of softer targets in the immediate vicinity!
Lift system
Not exactly state of the art, but did the job. There were a few fast chairs, but mainly quite slow ones, which given the glorious weather (did I mention that it was sunny nearly all week?) were quite pleasant, but could have been unpleasant in colder conditions. Most of the drag lifts were evil, threatening to castrate me or re-jigger my back at launch, and containing many pitches in excess of 50%, but they were an efficient way of getting around, so long as you didn’t have to detach yourself and ski down to rescue your children!
Dining
Vars must be the cheap and cheerful dining capital of the French Alps. E10 for a large pasta dish or Tartiflette in mountain restaurants was the norm, though there wasn’t much sophistication, it must be said. Downtown Vars was slightly more upmarket but still excellent value.
We ate out for lunch every day and dined out 3 of the 7 evenings. We’d probably have dined out more, but having paid for a dishwasher, it would have been a shame not to use it!
Mars(eille) Invasion
Our last day coincided with changeover day for the rest of the resort. I stepped out of the lift near the ski lockers and was swept back in by a horde of new arrivals! My London Underground tactics proved useless and it took a few “Moari Sidesteps” to achieve a successful re-exit. To cut a long story short, it was the start of Marseille holiday week, and by the end of changeover day, Vars was full to the gunnels with partying Marseillaise. We definitely “dodged a bullet” on this front, as raiders from the south had not even registered in our planning.
Overall
Vars ticked all the boxes we hoped it would, and given the sublime weather and snow conditions, this ski holiday ranks with the best we've taken "en famille". We won't be going back any time soon, as it would almost certainly be a let-down compared to this experience, given our good fortune with the snow conditions and weather whilst we were there.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
|
|
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?
|
Nice TR - there seems to be a shortage of them this season.
Agree with the political intent at the start - I fear this TR will become a useful reference for next year's trip; I'm not willing to bankrupt myself in a chalet to comply with Gove's policy, so anticipate a SC holiday instead.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
