Messages posted by : AllyG
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A few people moved about between groups, and there were always a large number of people ski-ing with Felthorpe and her group. Here's a photo of them, again taken by Sinbad14:
Left to right we have: Ian W, Felthorpe, Far Queue, Davidsa2, Little W, Brooksy, Scull99, Mrs W, Felthorpe Junior, and Mr Felthorpe. |
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Here's a photo of the mini-bus that took us to and from the slopes each day, outside our hotel - the Gran Baita in Folgarida. Photo taken by Sinbad14.
And here's a photo of Sinbad14 taken at the junction between the red pistes 77 and 73, just above the Groste gondola in the Madonna di Campiglio region of the resort. This is where I went wrong one day, and directed my little group of 5 down the 73 to the Spinale Express gondola instead of down the 77 to the Groste gondola and homewards over the bridge on the moving carpet - but it didn't much matter as we simply went up that gondola instead and then back down the red 73 until we arrived back at that junction and went the correct way this time! We were pretty relaxed about which way we went, and I always left plenty of time to get home, so that if we went the wrong way on the odd occasion it didn't matter. I don't think any of of us wanted to spend ages poring over the piste map and discussing which way to go - as long as we were ski-ing we didn't much care! And as you can see in the photo the signposting was generally pretty good :) I had a picture of the general layout of the pistes and lifts in my head, and the others were willing to let me direct which way we needed to go. I just stopped at all the junctions to make sure we all went the same way. I have a new nick-name now - the 'Ally Nav' and if I went wrong sometimes, well, so do most of the Sat Nav systems! Last year, in Tignes, we had the ski hosts, but this year we just had to manage as well as we could ...  |
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The holiday was 'officially' Sunday 2nd to Sunday 9th February, but because it wasn't a package holiday everyone could make up their own minds how they got to the Gran Baita hotel in Folgarida, and back.
I decided to ski 8 days, and get to Folgarida from Verona airport, and back, on the train. So, I flew from Gatwick to Verona on Saturday 1st and back on Monday 10th, with BA (cost £100 return). I was planning on getting the airport bus to Verona train station, but the Italian couple sitting next to me on the plane very kindly offered me a lift in their taxi :) I'd arranged to meet CatP at Verona train station. She'd flown from the U.S. to Milan Malpensa, stayed in Milan overnight, and made her way on the train to Verona. We travelled from Verona to Trento (the nearest mainline stop to Folgarida, on the line to Munich) which only cost us 7 euros each. We missed the express train, which only takes an hour, and got the slow train which took about 1 hour and 40 minutes. Then, we simply walked across the square in front of the train station to our very posh hotel - The Grand - in Trento, which only cost us 93 euros for the room including breakfast for the 2 of us. This hotel is like a marble palace - incredibly luxurious - and the staff were very kind to us and the supper was fantastic :) We made an early start the next morning and caught the Dolomiti Express train from the station close to the mainline station (which cost about 5 euros for each of us). This is a train which serves the local villages all the way to the ski area at Folgarida/Madonna di Campiglio. It takes about an hour and a half to get there, and I'd discovered that we could get out in Daolasa where there's a gondola right next to the train station so we could start ski-ing practically straight away :) I'd arranged with one of the ski hire shops to take our luggage back to our hotel in Folgarida (which they did free of charge) so we hired skis (for me) and boots (for Cat), got changed, left our luggage and went up the gondola. Once we were on the slopes the first thing I noticed was how crowded they were - mostly with families with kids and ski schools, and then that most of the people weren't very good skiers/boarders, and finally that most of them were Eastern Europeans. Eventually we discovered that it was the Polish half-term that week, which explained this! For me, anyway, it was an enormous contrast to Tignes where I was used to being one of the worst skiers on the slopes. In Folgarida we found ourselves overtaking most of the people on the pistes. Presumably this is because Tignes has a reputation as a resort for advanced skiers whereas Folgarida is better known for beginners and lower intermediates. However, there were some expert skiers, and the following Sunday I met up with some Italians who were there for the off-piste ski-ing. The first day Cat and I skied back down towards Daolasa (you can only ski half way down to it), and down to another village near there - Marilleva. The red run down to Marilleva is pretty long and it's fairly challenging to ski all the way down without stopping, especially when coping with chopped up powder snow . Coming back, there's a gondola half way up followed by a chair and it was really funny because later on in the week when I was ski-ing with some of the others in the group we totally forgot to get out of the gondola until the lift guy asked us something in Italian and we shot out of it and he very kindly grabbed all our skis for us :oops: Then we skied over to Folgarida and I didn't know what the hotel mini-bus looked like or where it picked us up, so I phoned someone else in the group because I was pretty sure they were there by then, and found a whole gang of them in the pizza restaurant in the village, and they pointed out the mini-bus to me :) Out of the 22 of us, Cat and I arrived on the train/skis, 7 people in 3 cars that had come out from the U.K. (although Daved had been in Italy for a week already), 11 in the mini-bus taxi from Verona that Ian had organized, and 2 on the public shuttle bus from Milan Bergamo - the FlySki bus. The hotel hadn't even asked us for deposits, and when I got there I found they were giving out vouchers for the reduced price 6 day lift passes which we took to the lift office in the morning, and we didn't even have to pay for those until the end of the week! I didn't have to handle anyone else's money - everyone was responsible for paying for their own hotel bill etc. We went into the Orso Bruno mountain restaurant where they make pizzas in a proper oven in front of you, and have really delicious cakes :) My first introduction to the cooked sandwich was in Verona train station, and all the mountain restaurants seemed to do this, whether it was a round roll with lettuce and cheese in it, or a huge thing about 6 inches square (foccacia) with aubergines, mozarella and courgettes etc. in it. I don't know any Italian but they all seemed to know what a vegetarian sandwich was. It was rather more difficult trying to persuade them to give me tea - I had to specify English Breakfast tea bag, hot water, and cold milk, or I got some other very strange combinations! And as I said before, the hot chocolate was nothing like any hot chocolate I've ever had before - it was so thick you could practically stand a spoon up in it! And a drink and a toasted sandwich only cost around 6 euros :) |
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Sinbad14 gave me lots of photos. Here are 2 of them:
This is the village of lower Folgarida, where we were staying. This is where we started and finished each ski-ing day. The hotel mini-bus brought us here, to the gondola, each morning beginning the free shuttle service at 8-30 a.m. and then brought us back between 4-5 p.m. The hotel was about a 5 minute walk from the gondola and the lift was much appreciated :) In this area were the ski hire shops, ATM, ski pass office, general store, pizza restaurant, souvenir shop, medical centre, pharmacy etc. 
One thing I particularly liked about the ski area is that it has virtually no drag lifts. The only one I went on all week was a very short poma lift that just serviced the slalom course. There were some old 2 and 3 man chair lifts, but there were also a lot of modern chair lifts with 'bubble' windscreens to keep the cold, wind, and snow out when we were sitting in them. Plus, there were several gondolas in the area as well. This is me (red jacket, white helmet, black trousers) and Simon (a J2Skier friend) enjoying the comforts of the windscreen :)  |
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I am not home yet. I'm currently in London, hoping to go home today, but the floods here seem to have disrupted the trains.
I had a great holiday :) Thanks everyone for coming with me :) And Tony, it wasn't luck, I spent ages organizing all that snow ;) I will write a long report on it when I get home. I reckon it's a great resort :) |
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Thanks very much :) I've had hot chocolate in most of the mountain restaurants now, and it's delicious everywhere! It's more like chocolate mousse or chocolate custard than a drink, and they give it to you with a spoon :lol: Here in Italy, or this part of Italy anyway, they have a very strange habit of cooking the sandwiches, or rolls :shock: So when I order a vegetarian sandwich I get something like tomato and mozzarella melted and slightly toasted and have to wait about 5 minutes for them to do it. And I really like the apple strudel and all the other cakes :) The weather cleared yesterday and we all had a fantastic day ski-ing in the sunshine. For the first time we could see Folgarida village and the whole valley, and the really impressive mountains in the background :) However, today it was back to normal, with snow and thick fog, so we have all become exceptionally talented at ski-ing when we can't see where we're going! Yesterday I skied the Pinzolo area with 2 of the others from the group, and there was a fantastic red run, well several actually, that we could carve down at top speed because they'd been groomed and there was hardly anyone on them. But it does take about 2 hours to ski there from here, as the connecting gondola takes just over 20 minutes and there's a lot of ski-ing between here and there! And today 5 of us skied down to Marilleva (after we'd been up to the highest point above Madonna di campiglio and back down) and went up the other mountain behind Marilleva and down some blacks and reds and went down a mini timed slalom course, which videoed us! However I went down it really slowly, so that I wouldn't fall over, so I'm not sure I want to see the video :( The group of 22 of us seems to have sorted itself out into smaller groups according to what time people have breakfast and are ready to go out the door, and we all seem to have managed to find like-minded kindred spirits who like to ski/board at the same pace :) We've had a few minor injuries in the group but so far nothing too serious ... We met Daved and CatP as we were about to go down the last long black run, piste number 1, down to the village, and Daved shouted at me to hurry up as he shot past me! What cheek! ;) Hopefully there will be some photos to follow ... |
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There is masses and masses of snow here and everyone seems to be having a great time. We all like the hotel and the resort :)
The only problem is that it's been either foggy or snowing so hard that I've only had glimpses of the mountains behind! The mountain restaurants are much cheaper here than Tignes- 6 euros for a cup of hot chocolate plus a large slab of cake. But the resort is quite crowded at the moment - there are lots of Polish families here because apparently it's half term at the moment in Poland! But there are still plenty of pistes away from the crowds and I think it's less crowded today than yesterday. The pistes are graded differently from Tignes as well - the blacks are more like reds and we went down an itinerary black today and it was nothing like as difficult as the one I went down in Tignes. I am actually quite impressed with this resort :) I think the most I have queued at a lift so far was for 5 minutes - the rest of the time I've gone straight on :) The ski-ing is quite challenging because of the poor light conditions and all the powdery lumps everywhere, so it hasn't felt like the ski area is too easy, and there are plenty of pistes and it's a reasonably sized ski area. There are loads of mountain restaurants, so whenever I want a break I can stop for a hot chocolate or whatever and the cakes are fantastic :) The first mini-bus leaves the hotel at 8-30 and it only takes a couple of minutes to get to the gondola, which opens at 8-30. So I've been ski-ing from just before 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m. each day with just a couple of stops for refreshments in the mountain restaurants. Everyone seems to be getting on very well with each other, and half the group went to Tignes last year on that trip, so they know each other already. |
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Here is the List updated to today Wednesday 29th January. If anyone wants to go on it, or you see a mistake on it, would you please let me know by posting up on here.
However, I will be ski-ing myself in a few days, so you'll have to use your fingers to count down sleeps until I get back! ;) AlistairS going to Cortina in 2 days on the 31/01/2014 Old Andy going to Serre Chevalier in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Gaz C going to Wengen in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 GreenGoblin going to La Tania in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Boardbiker going to Arabba in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Oldboarder going to Folgarida in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 AllyG going to Folgarida in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Far Queue going to Folgarida in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Brooksy going to Folgarida in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Felthorpe going to Folgarida in 3 days on the 01/02/2014 Davidsa2 going to Folgarida in 4 days on the 02/02/2014 Ian Wickham going to Folgarida in 4 days on the 02/02/2014 Daved going to Folgarida in 4 days on the 02/02/2014 Snowy0000 going to St Anton in 10 days on the 08/02/2014 Bald-eagleman going to La Thuile in 15 days on the 13/02/2014 Flat Country Skier going to Soll in 17 days on the 15/02/2014 Wanderer going to Stuben (St Anton area) in 17 days on the 15/02/2014 Lizzie-B going to Cervinia in 17 days on the 15/02/2014 Tin Pot going to Megeve in 18 days on the 16/02/2014 johnski96 going to Alagna (Monterosa) in 18 days on the 16/02/2014 Tima going to Flaine in 24 days on the 22/02/2014 Far Queue going to Madonna di Campiglio in 31 days on the 01/03/2014 Drabilee going to Lech in 31 days on the 01/03/2014 Smudger going to Soldeu in 31 days on the 01/03/2014 Iceman going to Sauze D'Oulx in 38 days on the 08/03/2014 Caltonhat going to Arabba in 38 days on the 08/03/2014 Snapzzz going to Sauze D'Oulx in 39 days on the 09/03/2014 Andyhull going to La Plagne in 44 days on the 14/03/2014 Ade73 going to Courchevel in 45 days on the 15/03/2014 FILF going to Flaine in 45 days on the 15/03/2014 Old Andy going to Val d'Isere in 59 days on the 29/03/2014 Freezywater going to Meribel in 65 days on the 04/04/2014 Bald-eagleman going to Pila in 66 days on the 05/04/2014 Andyhull going to Val d'Isere in 84 days on the 23/04/2014 |
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