Ice skating

Megève has an outdoor ice skating rink in the centre of town that has been on our ‘fun things to do’ list for quite a while now. The other day, conditions were perfect (as in, it was sunny and we had a bit of free time on our hands) so we paid our 15 or so euro each (see blog title to guess which person had some trouble handing over the money and which one did so with glee) and headed out onto the ice. The appropriate clothing (aka Elvis glasses we found at the chalet) was also required…

Being the beginning of springtime there was a decent series of puddles on the ice and some quite gnarly cracks that made disconcerting creaking noises as you skated over them, but luckily our lardy croissant packed bodies weren’t so bad as to actually fall through the ice. Adrian (as to be expected with all winter sports) picked it up incredibly quickly and started showing off doing fancy stops and going backwards etc. – I reckon he’d make a great figure skater – imagine the costumes!

I (Amelia) on the other hand made somewhat tentative progress, aided by my new best friend, Jan (a 5 year old French girl in Megève on holiday who told me several times this was her 3rd time ice skating and she could already go forward, turn, and stop). It was probably about my 3rd time too so I was pleased I got up to about her level by the end of the session…

Once we got a bit of practice in I got a bit cocky and challenged Adrian to a race down the length of the rink and back. Unfortunately, my lead which was unchallenged until ¾ of the way through the race, came to an abrupt end when I tripped up, fell backwards, and cracked my head on the ice…yet again proof that I am not naturally blessed with either balance or sporting ability… The people watching gave a collective ‘oooh’ that even I heard in my semi-concussed state, so I’m pleased that I at least managed to give them some entertainment! I took it grandma-slow for the rest of the evening I can tell you… Click here for some more photos.

Tobogganing!

When the idea of throwing yourself down steep, snow covered hillsides on skis or snowboards becomes a bit passé, what else is there to do but throw yourself down less steep, snow covered hillsides on uncontrollable pieces of plastic. Yep, that’s right, it was time for some tobogganing. We couldn’t find the ‘uber’ toboggan (the one that actually has brakes and is adult-sized) so made do with what is stylishly known as ‘bum boards’ and a baby-sized toboggan.

The snow was a bit thin on the ground which meant runs had to be picked carefully, but we generally fell off before we’d made it too long anyway!

For anyone who hasn’t done it, tobogganing is o for oarsome – particularly the bit when you completely fall off and roll around in the mud (see classic example below - hopefully you don't get as sore a neck watching it as I got actually doing it!).


A bit of hiking is involved, although any and all cardio is a good thing these days considering the amount of croissant-related energy that needs to be burnt off on a daily basis…

Two styles of tobogganing were also in evidence – the planned approach and the ‘let’s just get down here whichever way possible’. As you can see by these two stills from the videos both get you to exactly the same place!

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.