Today we skied over to Val Thorens, although we learned from a couple of teenagers on a chair lift yesterday that it is not cool to call it Val Thorens, it is now known as “VT”… in fact even uncool  may no longer be the right thing to say… oh what eves

Anyway, Val Thorens was once and (maybe still is) the highest ski resort in Europe, giving it perfect snow conditions, but limited architectural merit. As well as the great skiing the other reason to ski over there is the waffles. This is a cafe we discovered what must be very nearly 20 years ago, serving freshly cooked waffles, and here it still is.

It occurs to me that this is truly remarkable. Most of the busy lifts in the 3 valleys have been upgraded since we first came here, anything that was slow and had queues has been replaced by state of the art 6 man express chairs, the last of the old gondolas of any significance will go this summer. We are not talking trivial changes here, these lifts cost 5 to 10 mllion Euro a go. Skiing as a sport has changed hugely in that time, but the cafes and restaurants up on the mountains have hardly changed, there are a few new ones, and this one in particular has been extended, but most of the ones we knew are still there… with the same menus! Why would that be?

Anyway, back to the waffles. As you can see a healthy lunch with no UK calories and 4 portions of fresh fruit…..

Val Thorens has more than its fair share of the latest trends, it seems that every bar and cafe now has to have music, but bizarrely enough this one had a band playing “Hotel California” and similar vintage. Oh it has a sushi bar as well.

Back to the quasi normal world of Meribel there was floodlit sledging organized this evening. Normally we are here in school holidays but this year our half term does not line up with French (or most of the UK for that matter) holidays and so it is slightly quieter than previous year. This also means there are slightly less evening activities laid on, but the sledging has to be done….

This year they were lending out “snake sledges” which are individual plastic tray sledges clipped together with a hinged joint, so two or more people try and steer it down the slope. Luckily the helmet cam was on hand….

http://youtu.be/ZxLux2GIh_Y&rel=0

Anyway, another fun day…..

last day skiing tomorrow…..