Since we didn’t manage to go skiing last weekend, we were determined to go this time, especially since the conditions are excellent (loads of snow, clear blue skies, sunshine….). Some colleagues of Mathilde from CIV were going to Auron, so we decided to make our way there as well.
We set off at a reasonable time of 8:30, and were happy to find the roads pretty clear of traffic. The drive to Auron is in itself pretty spectacular, following first the Var valley, and then the dramatic Tinee valley, with its imposing cliffs. We quickly parked the car, and then rented the gear. We arrived in Auron just after 10, and figured we were well set for a day of skiing. But alas, things did not start well, with slow & chaotic service at the gear rental shop, and a looong wait for the lift up to the station. And things didn’t improve much, as we finally got ready to start skiing – as I dropped my skis in the snow, one of the bindings came off! Fortunately, there was a “ski binding repair station” conveniently located just next to the slope. Apparently the staff is no longer allowed to fix the bindings – for fear of being taken to court in case they make a mistake. Eh? This is France, not the US of A! Anyway, I eventually managed to get the binding fixed using the typical software engineers approach to a problem (randomly/blindly try various “fix candidates” until one works – or at least seems to work ;-). Unfortunately, by the time I was finished, Stephane called us – time for lunch!
So we skied down the slope, an easy blue, to get in to the rhythm of things, and made our way to the restaurant, where we met the gang (Stephane, Ann-Sophie, Christophe and their kids). We pretty much all had a tartiflette (except for me, who had one and a half ;-) – a pretty good choice I must say, even though it was a bit liquid for a tartiflette (let’s say a fondue-tartiflette hybrid). A coffee later, and we were ready to hit the slopes again. We were rather keen to set off, as we only had about 2 hours left for skiing. Well, we made the best of those two hours, doing a couple of long, very enjoyable runs on the sunny side of the mountain, in truly perfect conditions. It felt a pity we had to leave so early, but other obligations called… And at least this way, the roads back were clear, as well.
For the evening, I was given the opportunity to finally visit Mathilde’s school, the CIV – Centre International de Valbonne, which I had heard so much about. As the name implies, it’s an international school, and a massive one at that. The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the CIV – and I have to say I was pretty impressed with the party they put up. There was live music (courtesy of CIV students, but hey, they sang a lot better than me!), a big buffet (I especially liked the galette de roi(s) we had for desert) as well as free wine and champagne! Good thing Stephane had kindly offered to drive us ;-) We got back home pretty early (since Sandra & Stephane had brought there little girl Clelia along).
That’s a good thing, since I the plan was to go skiing on Sunday as well (this time with Pete and Sami, the Finnish lads), which inevitably means getting up at an ungodly hour… Anyway, I got up as planned 7:30 sharp, jumped in the car, and drove down to Nice to pick up Sami. Unfortunately, I was greeted by a nasty surprise in the form of big traffic jams (the Prom’ was closed due to the Nice 10km classic race). We eventually got underway for Auron at about 9 o’clock. Thankfully, the traffic was pretty good this time, but due to some difficulties in finding a place to park meant we didn’t get to start skiing much earlier than the day before…
The conditions were just as good as the day before, so we really had a great time. Pete eventually joined us, and took us down a black run. I’m happy to report I survived (obviously, since I’m writing this blog!), and didn’t even fall over once - and I even enjoyed it ;-) We then headed back to the station to meet up with Pete’s wife Anne and a couple of other ladies – but had time to do a bit of off-piste/powder snow first. I survived this adrenaline-filling experience as well – more by chance than design it must be said. Sami had a moment of fear as he barely avoid a collision with – to quote him – “120 kg of human mass bearing down upon him” (I was a bit hurt by his estimate of 120 kg). We then joined the girls for a few more ski runs. There was still a bit of last-minute drama in store for us, as the last ski lift we took ground to a halt for about 20 minutes (some idiots tried to jump the queue and ended up stuck underneath the ski chair behind us). We finished a most satisfactory day of skiing drinking vin chauds down in the village – and then it was time to hit the road back home.
We set off at a reasonable time of 8:30, and were happy to find the roads pretty clear of traffic. The drive to Auron is in itself pretty spectacular, following first the Var valley, and then the dramatic Tinee valley, with its imposing cliffs. We quickly parked the car, and then rented the gear. We arrived in Auron just after 10, and figured we were well set for a day of skiing. But alas, things did not start well, with slow & chaotic service at the gear rental shop, and a looong wait for the lift up to the station. And things didn’t improve much, as we finally got ready to start skiing – as I dropped my skis in the snow, one of the bindings came off! Fortunately, there was a “ski binding repair station” conveniently located just next to the slope. Apparently the staff is no longer allowed to fix the bindings – for fear of being taken to court in case they make a mistake. Eh? This is France, not the US of A! Anyway, I eventually managed to get the binding fixed using the typical software engineers approach to a problem (randomly/blindly try various “fix candidates” until one works – or at least seems to work ;-). Unfortunately, by the time I was finished, Stephane called us – time for lunch! 
So we skied down the slope, an easy blue, to get in to the rhythm of things, and made our way to the restaurant, where we met the gang (Stephane, Ann-Sophie, Christophe and their kids). We pretty much all had a tartiflette (except for me, who had one and a half ;-) – a pretty good choice I must say, even though it was a bit liquid for a tartiflette (let’s say a fondue-tartiflette hybrid). A coffee later, and we were ready to hit the slopes again. We were rather keen to set off, as we only had about 2 hours left for skiing. Well, we made the best of those two hours, doing a couple of long, very enjoyable runs on the sunny side of the mountain, in truly perfect conditions. It felt a pity we had to leave so early, but other obligations called… And at least this way, the roads back were clear, as well.
For the evening, I was given the opportunity to finally visit Mathilde’s school, the CIV – Centre International de Valbonne, which I had heard so much about. As the name implies, it’s an international school, and a massive one at that. The occasion was the 30th anniversary of the CIV – and I have to say I was pretty impressed with the party they put up. There was live music (courtesy of CIV students, but hey, they sang a lot better than me!), a big buffet (I especially liked the galette de roi(s) we had for desert) as well as free wine and champagne! Good thing Stephane had kindly offered to drive us ;-) We got back home pretty early (since Sandra & Stephane had brought there little girl Clelia along).
That’s a good thing, since I the plan was to go skiing on Sunday as well (this time with Pete and Sami, the Finnish lads), which inevitably means getting up at an ungodly hour… Anyway, I got up as planned 7:30 sharp, jumped in the car, and drove down to Nice to pick up Sami. Unfortunately, I was greeted by a nasty surprise in the form of big traffic jams (the Prom’ was closed due to the Nice 10km classic race). We eventually got underway for Auron at about 9 o’clock. Thankfully, the traffic was pretty good this time, but due to some difficulties in finding a place to park meant we didn’t get to start skiing much earlier than the day before… 
The conditions were just as good as the day before, so we really had a great time. Pete eventually joined us, and took us down a black run. I’m happy to report I survived (obviously, since I’m writing this blog!), and didn’t even fall over once - and I even enjoyed it ;-) We then headed back to the station to meet up with Pete’s wife Anne and a couple of other ladies – but had time to do a bit of off-piste/powder snow first. I survived this adrenaline-filling experience as well – more by chance than design it must be said. Sami had a moment of fear as he barely avoid a collision with – to quote him – “120 kg of human mass bearing down upon him” (I was a bit hurt by his estimate of 120 kg). We then joined the girls for a few more ski runs. There was still a bit of last-minute drama in store for us, as the last ski lift we took ground to a halt for about 20 minutes (some idiots tried to jump the queue and ended up stuck underneath the ski chair behind us). We finished a most satisfactory day of skiing drinking vin chauds down in the village – and then it was time to hit the road back home.
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