Today I am taking the child and Brother Number 4 (who is staying over the Christmas period) to visit Brother Number 3, who is staying in Meribel with his family - the child will be off testing out the snow (or lack of) on the Meribel pistes, while we struggle to a restaurant to have lunch. My little four-legged friend will probably come too, as left at home for the day, he does tend to think he is on a seek and destroy mission.
The road from Verbier down to Martigny is not my most favourite but from Martigny going up to the frontier and over into Chamonix the scenery is gorgeous - better with loads of snow but often impracticable if it does snow. Verbier to Meribel is only 170km but will probably take two and a half hours plus stops for photos, coffees, a couple of sniffs for Angus - so soon I shall have to courageously wake the sleepers.
I am interested to discover whether Swiss ski resorts are in fact more expensive than those in France - I have my doubts. As far as restaurants are concerned, we have had some pretty grim experiences in French resorts, served by surly, overworked staff and pretty crap food - here in Verbier I can honestly say I have never had a bad meal and even at the end of the season the staff are polite and smiling, but maybe this is because they are paid two or three times more than their French counterparts.
I shall rely on the child for the snow conditions. After the heavy fall of snow about a fortnight ago, we have had no fresh falls - fortunately the temperature at night is between -5 and -8 so the snow cannons are working flat out. But every day is warm and sunny so the snow is melting fast. Pierre's new skis are totally wrecked already as he spends his time skiing over stones so he is now waiting for the 'real' snow to arrive to have them totally overhauled. Accidents on the slopes are rife at the moment as skiing on stones does tend to stop you dead in your tracks! The village is full of people with their knees bound up and hobbling around on crutches. In his 'gang' one chum broke his pelvis the other day and had to be airlifted to hospital, another has pulled the ligaments in his knee so can't ski for the rest of the holidays and a third has whiplash. Apart from messing up his skis, mine has escaped lightly (touch wood) with bashed knees and elbows and a small rip in his ski pants, but with conditions as they are currently I admit to trembling when the 'phone rings, fearing its a call from the helicopter crew telling me to get to the hospital fast...
However, snow is forecast from the 30th December for a whole week, so hopefully my visitors arriving for New Year will have perfect snow conditions.
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I'm a great fan of swiss ski resorts; I stopped going to French one's when my children were at school. I couldn't stand the queues and trafic jams. Switzerland is probably slightly more expensive than France but worth it to avoid the school holidays.Food on the slopes is better in Switzerland than in France but more expensive. As always you can eat better in France than anywhere in the world (including Switzerland)But to think that every French restaurant is good is of course rubbish. It's a free country, anyone can open a restaurant and serve what they want.And the chains are all over the place with their deep freezers and microwaves. That is why our first topic of conversation is, where are the good restaurants?
Louise: I and my suitcase flew over you (or pretty close, anyway)on separate flights Saturday. See Salut! for the sorry details of why we weren't together. I raised my British Airways orange juice in a toast to you.
Yeah, Bill, we saw you go over and we raised our glasses of champagne - hope you saw the Christmas decorations!
You're lucky to have got your suitcase so quickly - some people are going to have to wait for up to three weeks to be reunited with their Christmas presents and ski clothes!
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