St Gervais this Weekend

Ok here goes, heard that all flights were cancelled on Friday, so we used local internet cafe in St G. as O/H had not brought her laptop. :( Decided we would return to cafe on Saturday after another 12hrs had passed. Cafe owner said he would not be open on Saturday as he was going on holiday for 3days. :( Found internet at hotel in La Fayet through our tourist info. 3 miles away. Called there on Saturday morning, receptionist said as we walked through the door are you here about the coach? what coach we said. We might put on an extra coach on Sunday to get people home. She took our mobile number and said she would let us know by 14.30 Saturday. We went into Sallanchs to see if we could leave our hire car there rather than in Geneva 50mins away. Result, found the local Avis office she said no probs :) Drove back to the apartment for lunch. Well by 16.15 Saturday no phone call, so decided to go back to Avis and extend the car for ten days until the next available flight (that we could book) As we were driving down to Sallanches phone rings, they had space on tonights coach (Saturday)leaving at 20.00. we said we would take it. :) Sorted the hire car,a friend ran us back to our apartment. We showerd, made sarnies packed in an hour. Friend ran us down to the hotel to meet the coach. Cost of coach £120 each. Destination Watford or Victoria? Victoria for us. Left at 20.00hrs drove for 1.5hrs changed onto a different coach that was waiting for us. Drove up to Calais overnight had a couple of stops on the way for a wee and a strech of the legs. Arrived Calais @ 08.00 saturday morning. Chaos @ Calais very busy, we were booked on the 09.00 crossing. Arrived Dover @10.45ish. Drove to Thurruck near Lakeside (Essex), changed coach for London Victoria. Arrived in a very sunny London at 12.45 Sunday. Rush on the underground to Euston £4.00 each. Train to Liverpool £75 fast or £34 slow? Slow train to Liverpool, change at Northampton, Birmingham. All was well until a 40min delay at Tile Hill? :( meant we missed the connection @ Birmingham. Wait @ Birmingham for 50mins for slow train to Liverpool. :( Got off at Liverpool South for John Lennon airport. Shuttle to airport £3.00 each 15mins. No extra charge for the car parking at JL :) Drove car home arrived 20.30 Sunday evening. Decided to go for a beer @ local pub,its bloody well shut :( All in all we reckon about 25hrs to get home. Met some nice people on the way. A mini adventure :) £161ish each to get home.

Glad you got home ok Eggman - good call of the TO to put on the coach what with the French Rail Strikes (I will post my experience on the 10th April shortly!) Will you get the cost of your flights back? Did not realise you were practically a neighbour along the A59 from the newest City.

At our school we have 13 teachers and numerous admin staff stranded - some are being coached home from Spain only tonight although the ones stuck in Mexico and Vegas have been given flight dates in about two weeks :mrgreen:

Oh and you never mentioned the skiing - did you get to Cham?

Thanks Paralytic. Hope everyone gets home soon. The skiing was very good on Sun/Mon at Les Contamines,cold and clear and very quite :) Cost 31.50E with Cart niege. Tuesday we went up the Chamonix Valley looking for Aregentire but missed the turning(driving too fast) ) and ended up at Le tour. Never been before but the snow was fantastic. Nice easy resort plenty of blues and reds, no blacks but enough offpiste without it being too extreme, good for half day ) Weather fantastic, same price. Had Wednesday off looking for new skis. :) Bought some "Movement Naos". I know they are meant for ladies :shock: but at 5foot 6inchs and 11stone 7lbs with a very weak right knee these are the lightest skis ever :-) I can really jump these babys round. Thursday new skis day, we went to Les Gets/Morzine never been before snow not too bad, a few closed runs very hard and icey in the morning but what do you want for 13.50E with C/N ) Gave new skis some stick, very happy boy. Skis were 529E got them for 400E )Many thanks to Salski for the late night research :)(as we had no laptop)Will probably ski this late next year just not at ST. G.

Forgot to mention Glee is back on tonight )

A true adventure :wink:

Hi Eggman,
Thanks for the report on how you got back - it was very interesting :thumbup:

I'm glad you found some new ski areas to play in, and you got your new skis :D

PSC - I never thought about teachers not being able to get back. I suppose there must be all sorts of people stranded in various parts of the world. We have an air stewardess here on holiday with us, and if the volcano continues to cause problems after Friday she will have an extra paid 'holiday'. So I suppose its nice for the air crews, because they're having a bit of a holiday at the moment. But I suppose if this keeps going for too long all the air companies will go bust.

Ally

Eggman that sounds like a good crack, and nice new skis too.

Will post piccys, but @ work and can't get the memory card in the works PC :(