J2Ski Holiday 11th January 2015 Sauze d'Oulx

This is another of Piste Paul's photos.
I was surprised at how beautiful the views were in Sauze. I should think he must have taken this one from the balcony outside his bedroom.

I took this one from Google Maps before the holiday to show everyone in the group where the La Torre hotel spa was, that guests in the Sauze could use at a 50% discount during the day time.

The full price was 25 euros so we only had to pay 12-50. It was meant to be full price in the evening but some of our gang got in there super cheap by negotiating with the spa themselves.

2 people in our group went there every evening after ski-ing.

As you can see from the map it was a 5 minute walk from the Sauze hotel. It would have been nice to have a hotel with its own swimming pool etc. but this was something we compromised on, and I didn't hear any grumbles about it.

Some people in the group had lessons during the week.

I booked group lessons for 2 of the group, who had only done one week of ski-ing before, via e-mails through the Sauze hotel with the Sauze ski school for the special price of only 130 euros per person for 3 hours in the morning for 6 days.

Both pupils said the lessons were excellent and they had a great time and learned a lot. Their instructor was called Sergio and there were 8 of them in the group lessons.



In the photo, belonging to J2Skier friend Edmond, we have Billip1's daughter, standing to the right of the instructor as you look at the photo wearing a multi-coloured ski jacket and Edmond standing beside her,in a blue ski jacket. The photo was taken on Saturday, the last day, and you can see that there was plenty of snow by then as it snowed loads during the night and on Friday.

I went with them to the ski school the first day, to make sure they got the discounted price, and they were advised to take the bus to the Sportinia lift which goes directly up to the Sportinia level where the lessons start. The bus runs quite frequently, every 15 minutes I think and there's a bus stop very close to the Sauze hotel by the Clotes piste, although the bus does get quite crowded at peak times.

Normally, if you go up the Clotes chairlift, which is very close to the hotel, then in order to get to the Sportinia level you have to turn left at the top of the Clotes chairlift and ski down to the Lago Nero chairlift only a few yards away, go up this one, turn right at the top and then ski down to Sportinia.

But on Monday the Lago Nero chairlift wasn't going and we had to go up the Clotes chairlift, turn right and ski down blue 52 , take a sharp left turn onto blue 54 and then down to the bottom of the Sportinia chairlift and go up that. Those blue pistes were pretty icy on Monday and I took that sharp left turn and it was one of those nasty narrow gulley-like blind junctions and there was a skier who'd fallen over right across the narrow piste and in order to avoid him I had to ski straight onto the small rocks at the side of the piste (which had no snow on them), so that I fell over as well! :(

I was a bit worried about whether I'd damaged my hired skis so after ski-ing I asked Ian to have a look at them (he services his own skis) and he thought the gouge in one of them would come out OK. And when I took them back to Gros Sport in Jouvenceaux at the end of the week I anxiously asked them whether they were OK and explained that I'd done my best during the week to look after them, and they said it was OK as they knew how bad the piste conditions were.

The ski school held a slalom race and Edmond came second in his class, and they held an awards ceremony for their pupils on Friday night and Billip1's daughter and Edmond went, together with some of us as supporters! (Photo Ade73)



I booked my 2 hour private lesson on Sunday through the same ski school and it cost me 70 euros.

2 of the others also booked some private lessons just for the 2 of them, although I'm not sure which ski school they used as they sorted it themselves, and they said the lessons were very good :)

My OH had lessons last year, Sergio taught her too. She said he was very good

AllyG wrote:Some people in the group had lessons during the week.

I booked my 2 hour private lesson on Sunday through the same ski school and it cost me 70 euros.

I thought the tips you received from the travellers paid for it, rather than you????? ;)

Where are the pictures of you Ally :roll: ?

Iceman wrote:

AllyG wrote:Some people in the group had lessons during the week.

I booked my 2 hour private lesson on Sunday through the same ski school and it cost me 70 euros.

I thought the tips you received from the travellers paid for it, rather than you????? ;)

They paid me and then I paid the ski school, Icy :)

And I have posted up several photos of myself already, but here's another one of Piste Paul's photos, with me and his son in it.



And here's a 'still' I took off one of Piste Paul's videos of us coming back from Sestriere - but I'm going so fast it's hard to see me! ;)



And here's another one of Piste Paul's photos of me (well actually I think his son took this one), having difficulty schussing because my trousers had popped undone due to all the yummy food we were having in the Sauze hotel! I think it's probably the slope just before the Arc de Triomphe on the red 2000 run in Sauze, because we were always trying to see if we could get right to the top without having to pole at all.

I had a look to find the restaurants we stopped at in Val Thorens.

The first one we called in at was the mountain restaurant 'Le Caribou' on the red piste Asters going down from 3000m. I fell on this piste, which was icy and lumpy (my excuse anyway!), and decided I needed to treat myself in this mountain restaurant as I was ski-ing past, and the others agreed to go in.

The staff were pretty slow, which was annoying because all we wanted was a very short rest and a drink, and the bill was excessively large! Mind you, we also treated ourselves to a piece of cake ;)

Tea = 5 euros
Cafe allonge (watery coffee I think) = 2.50
Capuccino = 5.20
Hot chocolate = 4.50
Blueberry cake = 9 euros per slice



(Photo taken from http://www.valthorensguide.co.uk/mountain-restaurants.html)

I didn't realize I'd left my rucksack in the restaurant until after we'd skied down to the next lift, so I had to go back up the Portette lift, and the Thorens lift, and ski back down Asters (I didn't fall over this time though!) and one of the others came with me. The staff were very nice about handing it back, and I apologized.

The second restaurant we went into was for lunch, after we'd done a fair bit more ski-ing around VT. We thought lunch would be cheaper in the centre of VT, as the mountain restaurants are usually more expensive, and we'd been right up the other side of VT so we skied down the blue Plein Sud into the Caron district, and picked the 'Face West Cafe'.

The food here was good, and no more expensive than we were expecting for VT (I've skied here before so I know that the 3 Valley prices are really high!), and the view from the tables outside was great :)
However, the service was slow and we got really fed up waiting for them to produce the bill so we could pay and go, even though I'd told them (in my best French!) that we had to get back to Orelle. The total bill for the 6 of us, for main course and a drink, worked out at 18 euros each, depending on what you ordered. My onion soup, which was really delicious, was 11.20 and my bottle of 7 up was 4.00 euros. The lamb chops were 16.90 euros, the pizza 18.20, and the soup of the day 10.25.



I did hear other members of the group say, after we got back, that they'd very much enjoyed their day out to VT but they were very happy to be going back to our cheap hotel in Sauze d'Oulx in Italy!
(Photo taken from their website http://www.facewestcafe.com/restaurant-val-thorens-images.html

AllyG wrote:
Tea = 5 euros
Cafe allonge (watery coffee I think) = 2.50
Capuccino = 5.20
Hot chocolate = 4.50
Blueberry cake = 9 euros per slice

9 Euros that's 7 quid for a piece of cake! Yowza :shock: I think I'll move over there and open a cake shop...
Am loving reading your posts about the trip Ally.