 Poster: A snowHead
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My in-laws have a house in Fitou, so we're dropping the young one off there and going to the mountains for the weekend. It will be mid Feb. As I've never been to any of them before, I'd appreciate it if any of you could offer some opinions. We're both good skiers and qould like a lively resort as well with a good hotel.
Any ideas?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Jumping Jack Flash, I've been to Font Romeu which is easily accessed from Perpignan. Not tremendously challenging and only about 50Km or so of slopes. Hardly lively in the evenings either. Andorra is only a few miles further on though if you want somehere bigger and livelier. Getting weekend only accommodation then is likely to be an issue.
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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 would say that Les Angles is a better small resort than Font Romeu, it has more of an overall altitude difference (from about 2400 to 1650) and a better linked lift system with some snowmaking and quite a few interesting runs for its size. Again it may not be the liveliest of resorts though and not sure about accommodation in French half-term- one option may be to stay in Mont-Louis where you have at least 4 resorts within a 30 min drive. Formigueres is another which I haven't been to but is featured in the Pyrenees snow report thread.
Les Angles and Font Romeu are about 1 hr 30 min from Perpignan, driving another 45 mins though gets you to Pas de la Casa which is part of the huge Grandvalira and is lively with lots of accommodation. Not sure about weekend only availability though in high season.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
it has more of an overall altitude difference
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AKA vertical drop Dr. Will  Interesting post, was contemplating a Pyrenees w/end myself.......
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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've been trying to get weekend accommodation but none seem to be offering it yet. I guess I'll have to try nearer the time. I was hoping that there would be more feedback on the different resorts around there but it looks like it isn't that popular with the brits. Someone has told me that it is very popular with the french and spanish though. I'm not too bothered about being the only Englishman in the village but it would be nice to go to the best place possible as I'd quite like to go somewhere nearby that is less popular to ease the congestion problem. If anyone has any furthjer opinions I'd be grateful.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Both Font Romeu/Pyrenees 2000 and Les Angles are,as mentioned, your best bets on the French side and accessible from Fitou for day trips. Both certainly offer good intermediate skiing, but I can't as yet answer for advanced as the times I have been to them the snow cover wasn't good enough to roam. I can't comment on liveliness either as my apres-ski tends to be a bath with G&T to hand, dinner with some wine, a nightcap and then bed.  Pas de La Case is well within distance for a few days although I wouldn't reckon on it for a day trip. For the future, there is a small French resort on the road to Andorra called Porte-Puymorens which promises a link to the Pas de La Case area, but the village is tiny.
WHy not visit our Pyrenees-Orientales website www.anglophone-direct.com for info on a variety of matters and a forum where you can get more info from others who ski in the area?
Bon ski!
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| ccl wrote: |
Both Font Romeu/Pyrenees 2000 and Les Angles are,as mentioned, your best bets on the French side and accessible from Fitou for day trips. Both certainly offer good intermediate skiing, but I can't as yet answer for advanced as the times I have been to them the snow cover wasn't good enough to roam....
Bon ski! |
Both Les Angles and Font Romeu have one decent and fairly long black run each but they both require decent snow to cover. As far as I remember Les Angles has more and longer red runs than Font Romeu, including one running non-stop from virtually the highest point to the resort. Other resorts may have more black runs.
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Jumping Jack Flash, Hotel de la Poste in Font Romeu were taking bookings for less than a week in February 2005 when I went. Pretty basic 2* but clean and OK, ideal for the gondola, might be worth trying them. The village was absolutely crammed and the weekend was even busier when loads of Spanish day trippers arrived too. There was also an English owned hotel a few miles out on the road to Andorra. I managed to get a lift on their mini bus from the station into town when I arrived. Can't remember the name I'm afraid.
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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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This has information on all the French Pyrenees resorts (in French only).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Actually this website is probably the most useful of the lot- the Mont Louis website- Mont Louis is the highest town in France at 1600m! At http://mont-louis.net/stations.htm you get a great overview of the different ski stations nearby and there's probably a fair amount of accommodation around- you could do worse than use it as a base and ski in 4-5 different resorts in 2 days, since the majority are within 25 k of Mon-Louis, I guess the possibility of traffic is the only issue though the majority should be on the access road to Mont Louis rather than the roads to the resorts.
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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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Mont Louis would indeed be a good central base. I agree that Les Angles is a better intermediate resort than Font Romeu and I rememember enjoying the long run from top to bottom. Font Romeu impressed me as a great place for families and beginners. I posted a description : http://forum.anglophone-direct.com/ftopic2589.php
I was able ski one of the black runs in Font Romeu despite lack of snow: it was a rather unpleasant lumpy porridge , but although that was giving some of the skiers problems, it didn't strike me as being particularly difficult compared with some of the horrors in the Alps. Blackish rather than black.
I've been Googling away trying to find a ski club in Perpignan - hoping there would be something similar to Scottish clubs which organise day trips to the hills - but without success. Anyone know of one?
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Jumping Jack Flash, there're a lot of small resorts in the area (font-romeu/pyrenees2000, les angles, formigueres, puyvalador, puigmal, eyne-cambre d'aze and porte puymorens), grandvalira (by pas de la casa) not fara away, and also La Molina-La masella in the catalan side.
All this resorts have different "character" and the choosing is depending on your expectations, level, etc..... For example, IMO Font-Romeu is FLAT, Puigmal have the worst lift system but IMO the best off-piste and the highest lifts (2750m), les Angles is the biggest and the best for intermediates and the most "versatile"....Porte-puymorens is nice for begginers-easy intermediates and for experts (nice and steep couloirs and off-piste) but not nice for strong intermediates.......
And also, the snow precipitation is different in each one, so the snow depth can change between resorts....
Another thing to have in mind is that mid-feb are french holidays, so all the resorts will be VERY crowded!!! And, except les angles, font romeu, and Grandvalira, the rest don't have a lift system capable to absorbe much people.....
If someone asks me without all this inputs from him, I always will answer that for a february weekend the best is Grandvalira, biggest area, best lift system, more snow reliable, possibility of off-piste (not much, but you can found it), but more expensive. In February if you ski from Pas de la Casa, start in this sector early and before 11h go to soldeu, because Grau-roig is a bottleneck, and you can wait there 1/2h (or more) for some lifts (specially for the lifts that interconnect the areas), and in soldeu no more than 4-5minutes (or less!!  )
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You know it makes sense.
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Thanks for all the information everyone. I can now have an informed look at the resorts. This is appreciated as I wasn't getting much joy from my own investigations.
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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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Les Angles is your best bet - decent varierty and reasonable altitude. We stayed in a little hotel a 10 minute drive from the slope in a village called La Lagonne. Very pretty and an easy drive from Perpignan
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Poster: A snowHead
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Having decided that Les Angles was the place, my attention turned to booking a flight.
£240!!! That's from Manchester with no stops.
This is ridiculous. No wonder the resorts don't get many customers.
Does anyone know of cheaper options?
BMIbaby don't start flights until April, which seems stupid.
Again, any help gratefully received.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Jumping Jack Flash, Ryanair from Stansted is about your only other option.
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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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or some of their other destinations: Carcasonne (not sure if they just fly their in Summer), some of the North Eastern Spanish airports or Toulouse.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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The flights are a lot cheaper from Stansted- usually between £48 and £80. Obviously not the easiest 4 hour drive +
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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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Ryanair, Liverpool to Carcasonne looks a good option.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Ryanair from Stansted to Perpignan and you are about an hour and a half from Les Angles. Car hire available from the airport. Ryanair is the airline that we all seem to want to hate, but I use that flight regularly and have had no complaints.
Ryanair also fly from Stansted , Brmingham and other UK airports to Girona which is about an hour and a quarter from Perpignan giving you nearly 3 hours drive to Les Angles. If you are looking up the Girona flights, Ryanair labels it Barcelona (Girona).
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I think the Liverpool to Carcassone flights are summer only, however the Girona flights from Liverpool are all season and on Wed-Friday-Sat-Sun-Mon. The prices seem not too bad at present for that flight.
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Jumping Jack Flash, Girona is about 2rs from Font Romeu and might be a better bet for a cheap flight. Perpignan and Carcasonne flights are always expensive at half term times as a huge numer of Brits have houses in Languedoc region.
Font Romeu will be heaving in Feb due to its size and French holidays. Plus a huge number of Spanish come up for the weekend. There are 9 resorts in the area linked under the name Neige Catalan, of which Les Angles is the biggest and most overtly alpine. Puigmal is the one I enjoy most, as it's pretty wild and untamed.
I would be inclined to try and head for Andorra if Feb is the only time you can do it and you don't want to deal with crowds - the GrandValira resorts are not that much further and are much more capable of absorbing large numbers of skiers. But if you don't want to head that far I'd back up what others have said. Stay in somewhere like Mont Louis and drive somewhere different each day.
If you've only skied in big Nothern europe resorts, these places can seem a little quaint and old-fsahioned, but I love the area.
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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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| rainman wrote: |
| Jumping Jack Flash, Girona is about 2rs from Font Romeu |
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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ccl, legal walking speed, perhaps. 
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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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You know it makes sense.
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Hmm...a bit flattering to call it knowledge - just a matter of pressing the right keys and letting Google and Mappy do the business. It would be a bit more impressive if they came up with the same answers. 
Bon voyage et bonne glisse.
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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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Right, have now moved the dates to reflect the busy periods. We are going on Tuesday 11th March and returning the following Monday (so now nearly a week) and flying from Blackpool to Girona. This is about £500 cheaper than Manchester and £100 cheaper than Liverpool.
Looks like Blackpool might be the way forward for the future and the flight times are circa lunchtime instead of stupid o'clock in the morning!
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Poster: A snowHead
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FAQ
