Lyon - La Plagne - Northern Italy March 2009 |
Our spring 2009 skiing break was extraordinary.
Twelve days of sun, sun and more sun. And this is in France and Italy in the month of March. Our main goal was to ski for a week in the beautiful French Alps. This year we chose La Plagne as our base and the huge ski area called Paradiski. This includes La Plagne and Les Arcs which are connected by the Vanoise Express cable car. I skied in Oregon and California: Willamette Pass, HooDoo, Ashland and Mount Shasta between 1954 and 1968... so I don't know if the 'big' ski resorts in the US, Canada, Chile, etc. are comparable to the Alps. But let me say in France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria the skiing is fabulous. Especially when you can ski from your apartment or hotel to the lifts and at the end of the day ski right to the door where you leave boots, poles and skis in the locker. And especially when it's spring skiing with temperatures reaching 17 C on the terrace for lunch at about 1250 meters altitude. And only -2 or hovering around zero centigrade at 3000 meters up on a glacier. But before we got to the slopes, we drove from Boullay les Troux, 35 kilometers southwest of Paris along the autoroute du soleil, the A-6, to the north suburbs of Lyon. Having booked, of course, using Internet, confirming our booking by phone, we had a small room with a shower in a hotel just two kilometers from our evening restaurant booking.
Impecibable service, an excellent meal, wine and desserts. Michelin knows its stuff... this is a 3 star restaurant. I was very impressed with the wine list that ranged from even under 50 euros to over 7000 euros for a magnum of Petrus. Chef Paul Bocuse made the rounds of the tables, kindly posed for photos and even more kindly signed Pierre's Bocuse cookbook given to him by his mother in 1977. The bill for 2 menu classique, 2 aperitif maison, 1 Cornas les Mejeans 2007 - Colombo red wine and 1 Evian came to 391 euros including 19.6% tax of 64.08.
Lugdunum was founded in 43 B.C. and the beautiful setting on top of the Fouvière hill was where the Romans established their town. The theater and odeon, or smaller theater, a Roman road and vestiges of those days are in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The museum is a 5-star visit for me. It's a five-story museum, with ramps and access for wheelchairs, too. You start on the top floor and work your way down and around and then take the elevator back to the top floor and gift shop. History buff or not, you will be bowled over by the artifacts, mosaics, displays and presentation. It is a museum I must go back to visit. We took in a 'light' lunch in a typical 'bouchon' at L'Amphitryon in Lyon, as well as a nice walk round the old town which we got to by taking the 'funiculair' from the top of the hill. It's just a couple of minutes up or down. A couple of euros into the ticket machine and down we went to explore the delightful old town. There are so many shops with original arts and crafts. You must be daring and go through the doors that lead from one street to another, called a traboule. At 54 rue St Jean you can walk through the longest 'passageway' in Lyon. It comes out at 27 rue du Boeuf. Don't miss it! There are others - to discover. Those ski slopes beckoned but our apartment rental didn't started until Saturday afternoon. So Friday night we stayed in a charming gîte called Bellacha in a village called P-u-s-s-y. Yes, that is the official name! It's up a winding road just before Moutiers in the Tarentaise region of France. A double room with shower, a most delicious supper, before dinner drinks, a half liter of wine and breakfast came to a great value price of 101 euros. The living room area with its cozy roaring fire, two friendly cats, books, soft music and great hosts, Babeth and Philippe, made our stay ever so memorable.
We checked in at nine in the morning, parked the car in the underground parking right by our apartment building, rented our skies and off we went for a warm-up on the slopes. A text message arrived as promised later in the afternoon. We finished our warm-up skiing, got our keys and settled in before dusk. What a great start... and it was seven days of heavenly skiing in sun, sun, sun. On our last day the temperature dropped and we 'froze' a bit on the lifts, but we were over the moon! Burnt to a crisp, piling on the sun screen and after sun cream, watching the stars and the Alps in all its beauty at the end of each day from the balcony. Amazing. I can NOT promise you a week of sun and excellent skiing conditions like we had, but I can say we experienced it. Unforgettable. We had yet another travel destination: Northern Italy through the Frejus Tunnel to visit our dear friend, Renée. Bags packed, a bit helter-skelter, checking out in 20 seconds flat at 6:20 a.m. we sailed out of the parking lot and down the 23 hairpin turns from La Plagne to Aimé in the valley, going through Albertville, then direction Turino and into Italy. I do love France, but northern Italy is an absolute 'jewel'. With our GPS we got within 10 kilometers of our destination. Then 'Tina' - our GPS lady sent us on a crazy round the bends, up and over a hill and dale route to reach our friend's house. We made it and remembered the route in the last 200 meters... and, silly us, we forgot to bring the Italy maps to cross check with the technological 'wonder' that was routing us all over the place. Tip: double check that you have all the maps you need before driving in Europe. GPS can mess you up big time!
 The Lac Majore is so, so, so beautiful. We had the snow covered Alps in the background. The blue of the lake in the middle and palm trees in the foreground. Wow oh wow oh wow. We drove around the southern tip of the lake, ending up in Siestra to take speed boat around the islands, landing on the Fishmen Island for lunch. Perfect timing. At 10 euros per person round trip this was a value for money boat ride. Sun, sun, sun and more sun and a table with a view on the Alps for risotto, local fish and wine... it was super. Back to the mainland at 15:00 on the dot and a short drive to catch the ferry over to Varesse to complete our round trip drive.
900 kilometers plus is a loooonnnng day's drive. We split it up by stopping in the Italian town of Aoste to discover Roman ruins, the city walls dating from 21 B.C. and the amphitheater too. The pedestrian main street and the large plaza were interesting, though empty of tourists or locals on a Monday morning. Too early for lunch there we meandered on the national road towards the Mt Blanc Tunnel, stopping in Courmeyer for a delicious lunch with local Aoste dried ham as a starter, followed by local main course dishes and a tiny bit of wine. Oh was the drive back to Boullay way too long... when you want to get home, it's a hard slog. We arrived about 20:30. The wind was blowing and the rain was coming... but we'd had 12 days of sun, sun, sun, and more sun. Simply perfect.
http://www.lecollonges.fr/ 10 rue Gallieni 69660 Collonges-au-Mont-D'Or 60 euros for a double room
69660 Collonges-au-Mont-D'Or Chef: Paul Bocuse http://www.bocuse.fr/ http://www.bocuse.com/
Lyon - Fourvière Web Site: http://www.musees-gallo-romains.com/
33 rue St-Jean - Vieux Lyon 69005 Lyon
73260 Pussy La Léchère Web site in French, English & German: http://www.lebellacha.com/
http://www.la-plagne.com/en/Resorts-En.phtml Open from 13 December 2008 to 26 April 2009 Site in English and French
http://www.savoie-route.com/previsions_ouverture_fermeture-etat_des_cols-7.html Site in French for the Savoie area
Via Ugo Ara, 58 28838 Stresa (Verbania) Isola Pescatori Italy http://www.stresaonline.com/italia/ing/index.htm |
Yes, we had dinner at the world famous restaurant run by Paul Bocuse: L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges.
The next morning we headed for central Lyon. Our first stop was at the Musée Gallo Romain.
Saturday morning off we went to La Plagne. Our apartment was ready at about 15:00; ahead of schedule
as normally it was not until 17:00 that we would be able to 'move in'.
After a 'light' supper Italian style chez Renée, we had to think about the long trip back home.
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Paris
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Linda Thalman
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Email – Linda@wfi.fr
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