Skiing in the Vosges, Part 2

Day two in the Vosges, and we had planned to get up at 7am and head to the nearby ski area of La Bresse - Hohneck, where there is floodlit morning skiing.  But yesterday was very long, and instead it is nearly 10am when we get to the first car park, and it is full.  Things don't look good as we drive into a second car park and there is no room for a van, we have to fight through traffic to get out again and are directed down the hill... eventually we find a space, but with so many cars here I'm envisaging massive queues for lift passes and the lifts themselves.  In fact though we get up the mountain without difficulty, to find ourselves in a proper ski area with something like seven chairs, some of them proper express lifts.  Once more the skiing is very good, Dan has found his snowboard mojo and a fine time is had... it is strange that there are no Brits here, instead the pistes are packed with French weekenders, many clearly with little idea what they are doing.

La Bresse - Hohneck.

Back into Gérardmer for the evening, we have a little wander around the town, past the lake, checking out restaurants as we go - they all seem pretty full.  We manage to reserve a table for the second service at Le Bistrot de la Perle, and after a beer at the bar next door we sit down to a really excellent meal.  I get the feeling you could stay here for a week, enjoying fine food at a different restaurant every night.  For tonight, the three course set menu is enough for me... feeling a bit more awake than last night too, so we check out the local disco.  Sadly it's a bit of a disappointment, while we hang around until midnight there are only a few people in and the 80s room is roped off.  We later hear some revellers returning to the campervan park in the early hours, so maybe we just got the timing wrong.

Toboggan!

Sunday morning, and we have time to get back to Gérardmer for a morning on the slopes.  Seems a bit small after La Bresse, but still good and surprisingly quiet.  We get lunch up on the mountain, what else in Alsace-Lorraine but Quiche Lorraine all round.  And then it is time to head back to England - two hours or so each at the wheel and we're back at the chunnel, then after some more driving and a train, I am back home by 10.30pm UK time.  Well, that all worked remarkably well... a fine two and a half days of skiing, good company and excellent food, and no messing around with airports or sitting on a coach all night.  In fact, transport and accommodation came to around £120 per person, bargain!

The Lac de Gérardmer

Photos to go with this post can be found here.

Skiing in the Vosges, Part 1

Has been a while since I posted here... well, I've been back to Tenerife, and done a fair bit of skiing, but nothing very original.  This weekend though we have a ski trip with a difference, most noticeably in terms of how much it is costing - which is, really not very much.

A weekend ski trip in a campervan you say?

Finishing work on Thursday, I get on the tube and attempt to head to St. Pancras station, sadly the tube has other ideas and I miss my intended train by a minute or two.  But there is another one thirteen minutes later, and this is a rare thing in the UK, a fast train!  After a little over half an hour I'm at Ashford station, and shortly after that my brother Dan and his wife Donna arrive in their camper van, and we all head for the channel tunnel, making our check in with some ten minutes to spare.  The plan then, is to drive all the way to a ski resort, in a vehicle with an effective top speed of 70mph - madness, surely.

Certainly got nice weather at least.

Well, maybe not entirely.  We are whisked through the tunnel, then after a little messing around looking for petrol we're on the autoroute for 9pm local time, and with three to share the driving it's easy enough to keep going 'til 1.30am, by which time we're at an 'aire de campingcar' in the vicinity of Nancy.  France is very well set up for campervans, the whole country is dotted with these little rest stops, complete with facilities for taking on water and disposing of waste - hard to imagine such a system getting off the ground in the UK.  We don't spend much time there though, 6am the next morning and Dan is out of bed and we're off again.  But it isn't too far now, as our destination is the resort of Gérardmer in the Vosges mountains, in the Alsace-Lorraine region.  Not a familiar name to English skiers, and to be honest our expectations aren't too high, I am anticipating slushy snow and long queues.

The Vosges Mountains - not terribly mountainous.

In fact, Gérardmer is a very pleasant surprise.  There is plenty of snow and the skiing is really quite good, and as long as you're willing to use the drag lifts rather than the two slow moving chairs, there is no need to spend much time queueing.  All abilities are catered for with runs ranging from greens through some pretty steep blues and reds, and even a decent black.  Scenery is rather different to the Alps, no rocky pinnacles here, but the gentler, wooded slopes of the Vosges are very pleasant in their own way.  Lovely weather too, and we enjoy a fine day on the slopes before taking the van down to Gérardmer the town, a charming little place by the side of a lake, where we enjoy a beer and a fine meal, before retiring exhausted to the van.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.