Do you know the way to St Gervais?

I’ve been away so long! Ah, enough with the singing already! (I know you’ve got that tune stuck in your head now). Lauren and I had an afternoon jaunt to St Gervais, one of the towns on the other side of the mountains. We took a series of telecabines up, over and down which was much preferable to paying the 10 euro bus fare! It wasn’t too bad a day and was luckily quiet on the slopes so we didn’t get taken out by some out of control skier!

St Gervais is much more of a traditional French town compared to Megève which is a fairy tale resort type of place. We did the obligatory check out of the local church which had some wicked paintings on the outside but was less ornate than the Sallanches or Megève churches on the inside. I particularly liked this carving on one of the side altars though.

After we finished with the touristy stuff we did a bit of shopping in the only shop that was open (we’d forgotten about the whole closed between 12-3pm thing…). I was sorely tempted to get one of these incredibly beautiful, sophisticated, and not at all tacky fake marmots but in the end decided to save my hard earned pennies ;-)

It was a pretty cold day which worked out for the guy doing ice sculptures in the town centre, and meant I could rock one of my myriad of scarves which have been languishing at the back of the wardrobe for a while.

We had a delicious hot chocolate and cake before we left the main town centre and stopped in at this fantastic boulangerie (bakery) on the way back to pick up some goodies for later. I got this thing called a ‘boule de neige’ (snowball) for Adrian which was a 10cm diameter white chocolate/coconut/meringue concoction that took us about a week to eat it was so massive!

On the way back to the telecabine we saw heaps of people milling about outside this deli which was in the process of reopening after lunch. They were putting out basket upon baskets of saucissons (salamis) which ranged from donkey flavoured to genepi flavoured (a local spirit which is like Chartreuse). We ventured inside and spent ages looking at all the great food – fortunately we were quite full so weren’t too tempted to buy much! It was clearly a local legend, everyone was queued up to buy their saucissons, bread and cheese for dinner, along with a couple of bottles of wine. Check out here for some more photos of the day.

Geneva

I had some time between a drop at the airport and the next arrival so popped into Geneva for a bit of a look around. There isn’t much there to be honest but a lake, the UN, and some sculptures. Here are some photos I took.

Ice hockey

As we were leaving the chalet on our night off last Monday one of the guests asked us if we were going to the ice hockey down at the sports centre – and so instead of $$, that became the tip from that guest! We headed down and got our 9 euro tickets (which came with a 30 euro voucher for dinner at the restaurant at the casino – score!) for the ‘friendly’ between Megève and Mt Blanc. It was a pretty low key and small crowd (only half the bleachers were open) so it took us until the end of the first third to realise that we were sitting with the Mt Blanc supporters instead of the Megève supporters!

In the beginning we weren’t sure what the deal was with the two teams (as in, were they normally playing at the same competition level etc) because Mt Blanc seemed to be a) younger and b) better than Megève. The first third score was pretty pitiful too, with Megève trailing by a couple of points. I (Amelia) decided that more support was in order so got myself an ‘Allez Megève’ (Go Megève) scarf and we also got some crazy cheap (and terrible) drinks at the bar. Here's a video of some of the action (we're is in the green/blue strip scoring the goal and Mt Blanc is in the blue).

The second third was much more like it – Megève scored a couple of goals (see the video below) and things were looking up for the home team. However, it was really the final third when things got interesting. As any sane person knows, even though it might have been a friendly, what everyone was out for was a fight, and they didn’t disappoint!

Number 86 (one of our favourites, he’d already been sin-binned a couple of times already) (Adrian = whatever! He spent more time in the sin bin than on the field!) was in the thick of it, as was the other favourite, Number 5 (see below ladies…). No idea who came out victor, but some good punches were thrown by both sides, it was a game of two halves, and ice hockey was the winner on the day.

Well, actually Megève triumphed to be the winner (8-6) and we went home happy and victorious – ALLEZ MEGÈVE! Check out more photos here.

Cross-country skiing

The Ecole de Ski Français here in Megève (French Ski School) has been putting on a demonstration of cross-country skiing every Monday night for the last couple of weeks. The other Monday I was working but Adrian had the night off so he gave it a go and thought it was so much fun that I should have a try the following week. It was a bit iffy in terms of how much snow was left (it was in the middle of town and we haven’t had snow in aaaaages), but luckily they were foolhardy enough to put it on so we headed on down. We conned Ed, our new Ski Royale recruit and fellow driver/chambermaid, to come with us and try his hand as well – he’s a fellow snowboarder so I didn’t feel too bad about embarrassing myself in front of someone else who can’t ski to save themselves!

Swapped over the shoes for some random soft bootie-like things with hard clips on the edge and headed over to get fitted for some skis. They’re about as tall as you are, but only about 5cm across which makes it pretty hard to get your balance! I had a French instructor helping me out and we palmed Ed off on the poor English speaking instructor who had had to deal with Adrian the previous week as well… (I hope she gets paid well!)

When you’re on the flat it’s kind of like walking (because you’re in the grooves that have already been made by other skiers), but uphill you have to use your poles a lot more and then downhill was a bit interesting! I got to grips with snow ploughing in the end though!


Couldn’t really handle the whole ‘skating’ across on the flat (when you ski without the pre-made grooves) but on the whole it was heaps of fun and a big shout out to those ever patient instructors!



As well as the skiing they had a place where you could try shooting (so, trying the entire winter biathlon competition where they cross-country ski and then shoot at targets at different points along the course). I hadn’t shot an air rifle before and was totally up for it! It was pretty easy lying down when you could steady yourself (I got 5/5 of my targets!) but standing up it was a different story completely…(I think only 2/5 there).

I could definitely consider doing the rifle range again, but I think I’ll stick with the snowboard thanks! Check out all the photos here.

New skis

After a hard season tree planting, my skis had seen better days. The edges are rounded, blown and depressed. If you could see the state of my bases you would be depressed also. The shock absorbers were leaking their fluids and my bindings are starting to strip their screws.

My skis had had a good life, but it was time for them to retire. I had been enquiring around the shops about prices for the type of skis I wanted and in general putting off the outlay of a large wad of money (those who know me will know I don’t like that much either). Then I stumbled across the perfect buy. They are ex-rental touring skis which come with skins. Being touring skis they weren’t rented out much so are in good nic. All for only 300 euro, super! (Would be 1000 euro new) Now if only I could get out of the hotel onto them…