skiing in chamonix

paul and tim in chamonix centre

chamonix from the ski slopes

Whenever I visit the Alps, I am reminded of the mountains in Ogden. The cities, towns and villages are situated in deep valleys, so there is no sense of foothills, just majestic mountains. It reminds me of my childhood visits to see my grandparents. Ogden isn’t surrounded by mountains in this way, but there are no foothills, and my grandparents lived as close to the mountains as any building in sight.

Before moving away from Europe, Paul wanted one last ski trip in the Alps, so we organized a trip to Chamonix, France. He’s skied there before and also did some hiking and ice climbing on the glacier a few years ago. I was there one summer with students, but this was my first visit in the winter. We originally planned to go by ourselves and booked a hotel in the centre of town so that Tim and I could easily get out while Paul skied. Breastfeeding makes skiing and losing enough weight to fit into my ski pants difficult. It’s also a little too early for me to do vigorous activity. Back in the autumn, we’d spoken with Jon and Tara Lawn, friends of ours with two children, about a ski trip but they didn’t think they could make it. They ended up joining us, along with Tara’s brother JG. They have friends from England who live in the US and own a flat in Chamonix, and we were fortunate enough to get to use it for the week. They left their nearly two-year-old with grandparents and brought their seventh month old son, Dominic, along. I volunteered to baby sit him; instead, they did split shifts every day, and I watched him at lunch when they switched. It worked well, and I got a crash course in what Tim will be like in a few months. Jon and Tara are a great parenting team, and Paul and I observed and learned. The five of us enjoy good food (who doesn’t?), and Tara organized a chef to come to the flat and fix us a meal on Monday night. They returned to England on Friday and we moved to a hotel. Paul skied Friday afternoon, and we left on Saturday. We made the trip in the car, which served as a test run for our summer travel plans. (We plan to drive to Istanbul and back, seeing as much as we can along the way.)

chamonix centre

Chamonix is not just a ski resort, but a proper town with a bustling centre and shops for locals and obvious tourist shops. From our bedroom and the living room, we could see the Aguille du Midi gondola lift and a glacier on one side and tree covered mountains with sheer rock peaks behind them on the other side. Straight out the window over the town stretched mountains that seemed to join as the valley took a turn just outside of Chamonix. It was warm when we arrived and the next day, and then the cold weather returned and we had snow: a lot up high and a dusting in town. We ate at least as much cheese every day as the French, if not more. I had the creamiest Brie I’ve ever tasted. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of baked camembert and fresh bread. The bakery across from our flat was typically small with rows of fresh bread behind the woman (it seems in Chamonix that this is always a woman) working at the counter and a nice assortment of pizzas and quiches under the glass in front of her. As I always do in France, I had a quiche, cold, and ate it while walking around the neighborhood, which was just a block from the main pedestrian area. Most of the restaurants display their menus near the door. Along with English, there were almost always German translations. I noticed Russian on several and, using my rusty Bulgarian, could figure it out. I’m almost certain that the Russian wasn’t there when I visited Chamonix five or so years ago.



lunch break at the bottom of the ski slopes


On our way to Chamonix, we spent the night in Dijon, a wonderful surprise. The hotel that Paul found on the Internet was located 100m from the town centre where a glorious Cathedral loomed above the required cafes. We enjoyed a beer outside with Tim, his first in France.
beers in dijon

We then walked a short block to the plaza in front of some kind of palace. We didn’t have our guide book, so I’ll let you look up the details.
dijon palace in the morning

We stayed in Rheims on the way home which also has a glorious Cathedral, but our motel was outside the centre, just off the motorway, a miserable utility motel done in a nautical theme for some strange reason. Beside the car park was a field with a braying donkey. We went in to the centre and had a croque monsieur. It must be a larger city because there was more bustle, traffic, and noise. We had some car trouble on the way home, but other than that, it was a lovely holiday. We've altered our plans for the summer now to include more time in the Alps.