St Martin de Belleville Review

So all back safe and sound - no problems with the journeys even though Birmingham Airport had been shut due to snow on Friday.

A really good week we had with lots of sunshine only spoilt by heavy snow on our last day which meant I could not get over to Courcehevel to meet up with Ally - sorry :oops:

We arranged our own accommodation, flights and car hire. Some times we book through the Agencies or direct with the owners that we have got to know. We stayed next door to our friends in seperate studio apartments but as theirs had Sky TV we spent most evenings watching the Olympics there. The apartments are at the top of the station within 20M of the gondola. We have rented in the village before which is great to be near the restaurants and bars (all three of them) but makes getting up the mountain slower as you have to take the drag up to the Gondola. St Martin is a very pretty looking village where new buildings are constructed in the traditional style. There are five plus restauarants, La Voute - mid priced and popular that does Pizzas (also take away) and traditional food. Etoile des Neiges which used to be dead due to their high prices but this year was busier. La Montagnard - looks divine and the food is supposed to be good but never been and our favourite for value and on the whole good food - L'Eterlou. The hotels all have restaurants but we have never eaten there. Le Dahlia next to the Gondola serves at lunch and apres ski but we find it pricey, the decor tired and with no fire to warm up next to, not very inviting. I have uploaded the trips for Days 1 and 2 from my igotu GPS Tracker here;

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/43519
http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/43540

The rest will follow soon.

Great photos. Glad you had a good time :D

For those who were wondering I was able to ski really well (after only six weeks after breaking my 5th Metatarsal). The rear entry boots off Ebay for a tenner were a godsend and interestingly the comfiest ones I have ever worn :oops: I was able to ski better than I can walk :lol: However I did get more pain than usual in my other hip and foot probably from over compensating.

I will try and load the other days up over the next week. I quite like my little Igotu tracker although the speeds it was recording were about 15% slower than our friends GTREK tracker. I wore theirs one day and my speeds were much faster than shown by the Igotu. The GTREK also allows you to work out your downhill distance only which the Igotu doesn't.

On the whole a really good week and it did warm up by Wednesday. The snow cover was generally good although the snow on Friday was needed for some runs. The queues were horrible at the beginning of the week but we made a point of skiing up till 2pm and then having lunch. After skiing 15 designated lifts on the Piste Map I was able to claim a Diplome De L'Escapade at the end of the week which certifys me as a 3V expert :mrgreen:

Brilliant for you, glad you had a good week despite it being half term and full of rugrats.

Hi PSC,
I'm glad you had a good time, in spite of your foot, and thanks very much for all the photos. I haven't got any (except one I think taken from our aprtment), but yours show the area pretty well, seeing as we were almost in the same place at the same time.

And don't worry about missing seeing me on Friday. I was struggling a fair bit to start with because I haven't skied powder before, and it was all over the place! I will write up my own account of my holiday.

Ally

PSC well done you :thumbup: Excellent photos and love the a-trip gadget too!

I think we need a photo of the rear entry boots though :D