 Poster: A snowHead
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Resort: La Thuile
Country: Italy, with a bit of France for good measure
Domain: Espace St Bernado, aka La Thuile, La Rosiere and the bit in between
Author: The Flying Snowplough, although might need to re-register as Lumbering Stem-Turn given viewing of video footage captured one afternoon...
Date: 21st Feb for half term week
Our holiday: 2nd family foray of the season.  First self-catering affair, after five Esprit/Ski Famille ventures. Wanted to test our theory that crowds and damaged wallet can be achieved during half term. Our daughters are 8 and 7, with 3 and 2 French stars each. No lessons, as we were experimenting with the "ski all day with the kids" concept.
Website: Too technical for me.
Basics: Aosta Valley - 4am departure from Doncaster to Turin. Too early, but when we booked the departure time was 6am, but the b*stard travel agents changed it. I guess Thompson can't be expected to know their own airline's schedules. Lengthy walk to coach park, 2hrs on coach for lunchtime arrival in resort.
Lift system: Gondola out of La Thuile, o/wise chairs and a few drags. Roughly 50/50 split fast and sluggish chairs. Other than the infamous drags from France to Italy, it seems pretty slick. No queues other than one day when we went out late at hit the ski school rush.
The terrain: 160k, although if you add up what the French and Italians separately claim, there's nearer 200km. Mainly wide reds, with a few blues and blacks. Also very wide. Very flattering gradings. I can link turns on some of the blacks, so they're pretty easy in the main. Odd in that the runs to resort are amongst the hardest, so not ideal for wobbly intermediates if it's windy up top, as the tree-lined runs are quite tough. Favourite run would have to be Franco Berthod, or Black 3. We did it "en famille" one morning in fresh snow and it was sublime, if a little scary at 73% for a short stretch. Black 37 back into resort was also good, as it gave the option to wipe out and slide ingloriously to the bottom watched by everyone in the resort bars/cafes. Plenty took this option, though we didn't. In "Ask The Family" style, Mother and Elder Daughter did the run, whilst Father and Younger Daughter did the Snowpark.
The snow: Very good, if a little wind-blown every so often. Slushy at the bottom in both resorts at the end of the week. Nice to hear the skis squeak rather than grind on ice as they had during our prior trip to the 3V.
Off-piste : Numerous, judged by the number of people observed in strange places and tracks through trees. We restricted ourselves to the soft-stuff alongside pistes. The two blue runs to La Ros and Les Eucherts were fantastic in this respect. The kids had a great time whizzing here, there and everywhere, whilst I wallowed around pretending I could ski moguls.
The resort: Laid back, friendly, functional and cheap.
Food : All the mountain restaurants seemed good value, although having only skied in big French resorts for the last two years, my expectations may be somewhat off beam. Circa E10 for a huge spag bol. E3 for vin chaud. E3.5 for hot choccie and cream. Takeaway in town and the Dahu pizzeria also v good value. The former supplied enough fodder for an evening meal and one and a half lunches for E45, whilst the latter did pizzas, drink and puddings for E59. Most places did 5% or 10% discount with a Crystal discount card purchasable for a modest E5.
Accommodation : The infamous Planibel apartments. Very impressed as it happened. Ideal location, clean, warm, well-ish equipped in the kitchen and spacious. (We had one of the bigger places, with two bedrooms.) Dining table too small, though. Amusingly, having read Snowhead advice re taking large pans with us, the two pans in the kitchen were the size of dustbins!
Costs: £2,400 for flights, accommodation and airport parking. £330 lift passes. Both kids got a freebie. Elder Daughter was born right on the cut-off date, and we'd budgeted on the verdict going the other way. £230 ski hire online with Berthod Sports. Approx £400 for food, drinks etc. whilst there. Very pleased with this for half term, as it's miles cheaper than Esprit even in low season.
Conclusion: A great holiday. Skiing all day with the kids worked really well, as did self-catering. Our diet was not very varied, but the kids like what they like and ski better on a full stomach! Not having to rush out for lessons was very pleasant, as was not having to get back at the end of lessons for the pick up. I was very pleased to note how quickly I lost my shame in simply pointing and holding up my fingers to counter lack of linguistic skills in the supermarket. This opens up a whole continent, instead of being restricted to France, where at least I can get by linguistically.
The only thing I didn't like was headwind heading over to France. Younger Daughter is very light and has a low terminal velocity. She poled for miles and I pushed more than was good for me in our two trips over the border! She did manage the drag lifts with aplomb on our return, though, unlike some. I wonder if they ever got back 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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The Flying Snowplough, sounds fun.  Great when you can all ski together.
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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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| pam w wrote: |
| Great when you can all ski together. |
Well it would be. I can barely keep up any more! Still, someone needs to volunteer to be Tail End Charlie down the blacks.
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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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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The Flying Snowplough, nice report
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