Skiing in the Alps

We have chosen for my first ski expedition abroad one of the best ski areas in Europe: Aosta valley and Chamonix. As we can`t compare our seashore with those of other countries the same is valid in the case of ski slopes. After these 4 days I don't think I will go skiing again in our pitiful slopes crowded by hundreds of skiers, waiting 40 minutes for a ski lift to take you up for a descent of 5 to 10 minutes.
So back to our expedition ... Courmayeur is a very nice village having around 100 km of ski slopes on the mountain just in front. The max altitude is Arp at around 3000 meters but we were skiing only from Youla (~2700 m) since the Arp was an off track slope and we did not dare to take it. Maybe next time.....

In Chamonix we went the second day to ski in Brevent-Flegere. Although the peak of Brevent lies at only ~ 2500 m the slope down is quite challenging. Actually the red and black categories don't have anything to do in Italy and France. A red in France is actually a black in Italy. So the black in France is more difficult than a black one in Italy. We have crossed the domain of Brevent-Flegere from one side to the other and back ....that is a lot since there are actually two ski domains linked together. The view form Brevent peak is magnificent and the slope down the same.

The third day we went to La Thuile (like 15-20 km from Courmayeur) to ski in France and Italy in the same day. There area like 150 km of slopes but most of them are in Italy. It was very nice and in spite of the week end we didn't feel the slopes were crowded. There are just too many slopes, ski lifts and thus options....Last day we went back skiing in Corumayeur to relax a little after the two previous days.

So the expedition was great and we are glad we made it although was a little bit expensive for our budget :).

Ski trip

Tomorrow we are going to the Alps to ski in Chamonix Mont-Blanc and Courmayeur.Some of the best places in Europe hi hi hi......
So we will add some picture next week when we'll come back.

Andorra shopping day

Saturday we went to Andorra to finish our ski-shopping spree. Since Cristina`s (the Romanian one) car did not want to go more than Pas de la Case we stopped there and went buying. Although the village is very small we spent around 5 hours to look for the best option. At the end I have managed to decide for a jacket and we bought some other things too. So for those who are looking for sport material (especially ski) Olympia i the answer. They have like 4 shops in Pas de la Case and each one has different thing to sell. You should visit each and then decide what you liked more. There area also other sport material shops and they have rather good stuff but as usually they are smaller you have less choices.
We were looking also for some electronics but unfortunately the offer was limited in Pas de la Case. A friend told me that in Andorra la Ville there is a mall all with electronic stuff.
Now about the ski tracks.... What I have seen on around Pas de la Case didn't look to impressive as ski resort. There were 3 or 4 ski tracks rather straight and not very long, maybe around 1.5-2km. All of them were on the same mountain face and almost parallel. I really hope they have better tracks next to the old city.

Lastly about the turning back adventure.....the car had a problem (we will see today what exactly) with the cooling system so we had to drive back to Toulouse with about 40 km/h ....that means around 4 hour of driving for the 180 km. It was exhausting ....:)

I will add some photos later ....as soon get them out of the mobile :)

Happy 2008 for all !

Back to Bucharest for winter holidays. Although we didn't have snow I have enjoyed the days spent with the family and my cousins. Just 2 days before leaving a snow storm arrived and remind us of the good old days when Bucharest was having much more snowing days. Like always the snow 'surprised' everybody so the airports where closed for a few hours and delays up to 2 days were announced for some flights. As result our flight (2 days after the storm) left Bucharest 45 minutes late and so our luggage got lost in Milan for one night.



Now we went back to Toulouse to start working a little until 23 of January when we will meet in Courmayeur (Italy) for a couple of ski days.