The Ski Blog

French VAT cut - eating out really is getting cheaper!

As we already mentioned way back in May, the rate of restaurant VAT in France has been cut to 5.5% since July 1st. French restaurants are now obliged to pass on this reduction to the customer and accordingly have to reduce the price of up to a dozen items on their menu.

CD HQ has heard of at least 2 establishments who have made the change. Aux Petits Oignons in Les Carroz, which reopens this week for the summer season, has lowered the the price on nine dishes, including a 1 euro reduction on the plat du jour, and 4 euros off on two off their Savoyard specialities. The restaurant is also hosting a special jazz dinner on the 14th July, and has a kids eat free offer during the week - where a children's menu is free when the Menu Carte is purchased by an accompanying adult.

Bar le National in St Jean D'Aulps, near Morzine, has also made a splash with the announcement that "Bar le National has reduced prices on ALL PIZZAS....permanently!!!" The bar also has Ben & Jerry's and fresh salads at a cheaper price.

So that's great news. If you know of anywhere else that deserves a mention let us know!

Summer seasons in the mountains - it's all up and running!

As July begins pretty much all the mountain resorts in Europe are opening up, dusting off the lifts and gearing up for the summer season. So head to the Alps or Pyrenees now and you'll be pretty certain that the summer activities will be in full swing.

Whilst the lower resorts, below 1200m, will have been able to start opening lifts, swimming pools, golf courses and other facilities during June, the higher places will have been ensuring that everything's good to go for this month.

July and August can be busy for most resorts.

The Tour de France kicks off this Saturday and will shortly be heading to the mountains of the Pyrenees, then later into Switzerland and Italy,

Across French resorts, July 14th will be marked by fireworks and celebrations.

Music festivals take place throughout the summer - the famous Montreux Jazz festival starts on Friday, and this year's line up includes Lily Allen, Black Eyed Peas, Bloc Party and veteran rocker Alice Cooper. Montreux goes on until 18th July and for the full line up visit the festival website.

For sports enthusiasts the annual Evian Masters, one of the premier events of the ladies pro circuit, takes place from 23-26th July - it's a great chance to see the top female golfers in the world in action.

Chamonix's International Climbing festival is from 11th-13th July, finishing up with a grand fireworks display and award ceremony on the evening of the 13th.

Some resorts are also keen to attract visitors with some super deals - Portes du Soleil resorts for example are offering a Multi-Pass for just 1€ a day, giving you access to lifts, swimming pools, tennis centres and much more, and is available in all resorts across the Portes du Soleil; Les Gets, Morzine, Chatel, Morgins for example.

And the weather forecast is good! It's looking like temperatures will be rising during this week and reaching the late 20's and early 30's.

So loads to do, breathtaking scenery, great weather, sunshine, fresh air - what's not to like! Take a look at summer holiday possibilities on Chalets Direct.

If you've got a special event happenign in your resort, please let us know about it so we can let everyone else know!

How to do a ski season

Following on from our 6 Good Reasons to do a Ski Season post, as promised, we will be covering here ways that you can do a season.

There are various options available and the one you choose will depend where you're starting from.

Do you need/want to work to cover costs? How much can you afford to spend? Do you want to be in a specific resort? All these things are important considerations and how you answer them will effect how you go about planning your season.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs:

If you decide that you need to work to finance the winter, then there are various advantages.

The main one is that many ski resort employers will provide accommodation - and this is the single most expensive and difficult thing to find if you're doing it on your own.

Tour operators and chalet companies: These companies need chefs, chalet hosts, reps, drivers, maintenance people, office staff, bar staff, hotel managers etc etc.. So they're a good place to start.

Take a look at the various companies' websites, usually there will be a job/recruitment page where you can download an application form, fill it in and send it back. Now is a good time to do this as they will all be looking for staff. (If you do leave it late, don't despair as there are often people who drop out as winter approaches, or even after it's begun.)

Natives is a great resource and has jobs listed from large and small tour operators. It's also definitely worth posting on the Ski & Board Jobs forum, where our Chalets Direct members will often be advertising and looking for staff.

Tour operators will often also provide a season lift pass and the opportunity to get free rental equipment during the season with their contracted suppliers in the resort.

You may not get your first choice of resort, so it's best to be flexible. If you are dead set on a particular resort, then apply to companies which specialise in that resort only - then you know you will get your first choice.

Accommodation may be small and will most likely be shared, so again be flexible and open-minded. And be prepared for hard work! This often takes people by surprise but the amount of work involved, especially at the beginning of the season, is considerable. This does get better, by the second week of January you're in a routine and suddenly find that you've got lots of time to get on the hill.

And of course nobody does a ski season for the money - don't expect to get paid a lot!

Local bars, restaurants, ski shops: If you've been to a resort and have set your heart on going back there to work, then it's also worth applying directly to the local businesses. Many of these are keen to take on Brits who can help with their British and English speaking clientele - but they will also expect you to have some working knowledge of the language too.

The employment package that comes with these jobs can vary so it's best to make sure you know exactly what is included. If accommodation is not provided make sure you're aware of this well in advance - and ask your employer if they can help you find somewhere to live, or at the very least, if they have any contacts you can try. If accommodation is not provided expect to be paid more.

Going it alone:

Accommodation: If you've decided that you would rather be in control of your own destiny, so to speak, then the first thing to get sorted is accommodation. Take a look at the resort websites and contact the local agencies. If you have any contacts in the resort use them, often places will be found by word of mouth.

Post your requirements on the Long Stay Solutions board and keep an eye on it - there are various offers going on there all the time, from whole chalets to small apartments.

Work: If you don't want to commit a lot of time, but would like to earn some beer money, then there are often opportunities when you first arrive in the resort to pick up part-time or ad hoc work.

Again it's worth approaching the local businesses - bars and restaurants may need extra staff over the busy periods, ski shops could maybe use a hand on Fridays and Saturdays.

Tour operators are a good first call - on their changeover days they may need help with transfers, cleaning chalets, transporting luggage etc. It's best to approach the rep/company when they first arrive in resort to see if there is anything available.

Keep asking and of course make sure that people can contact you easily should something come up.

But do be aware that there is no guarantee with these kinds of jobs - you may have work one week and not the next. So if you really need to earn money it's best to find something for the whole season and do that in advance.

Lift passes: A season lift pass can vary in price depending on the resort. So make sure you know what you will have to pay and what concessions or offers may be available. Some resorts have cheaper lift tickets for workers, but you may have to provide proof of employment. Some resorts may also have offers if you buy your season pass before a certain date. So it pays to do some research and find out what's available.

Working visas, permits etc: Find out if you need one and if you do apply well in advance. Don't rely on your employer to sort this out.

So there's a few tips on getting organised to work a ski season. If that seems daunting, then working for a tour operator or chalet company means that a lot of the big issues are solved for you - such as where to live, but in return you need to be flexible and be prepared for hard work.

It's a fantastic experience as anyone who's done it will tell you, so if you're interested I'd say get on and do it!

Do you have any stories, advice or even a job on offer? Let us know about it - post a comment!

Six good reasons for doing a ski season...if you need convincing!

It's around six months, give or take, until the beginning of the next ski season in the northern hemisphere. That might seem a long way off but even now ski companies are putting their winter programmes together and recruiting.staff.

Who hasn't returned from a week's skiing and wished they could be there all the time? If you've toyed with the idea of spending a winter in the mountains then here's just some of the many good reason why you should get out there and do it!

1. Improve your skiing/boarding in different conditions: A week or two a year is a very short time to really improve your snow skills, so spending a whole season gives you more time to practice and learn. It's worth setting some time and money aside so that you can have a few lessons during the winter to sharpen up and learn how to cope in different conditions.

Over a winter snow conditions will change enormously and being there the whole time means you can try them all. Hard-packed, powder, light, heavy, icy, corduroy, elephant snot, crud - a seasoned ski bum will have as many words for snow as an Eskimo, and they're not synonyms - they all describe the white stuff in its various forms. You'll be amazed at how conditions can change, by the month, from one day to the next, even by the hour - as temperature, weather, wind direction, traffic all have an impact on the snow.

So doing a ski season means you get the chance to try out these different states of snow and get a chance to learn how to handle them. 

2. Get to know a ski area in depth: Visiting a resort for a week will give you a quick overview of the ski area. Spending a few months there will allow you to really get to know it the way the locals do. It gives you the chance to get off the beaten track and explore. You'll have the time to find out where to get the best snow, when to go there and when to avoid it.

Learn some mountaincraft - there's opportunities to do this in most resorts - or take a course with H.A.T so that you're not going blind into potentially hazardous situations.

3. Learn new skills: Obviously there's all the new snow skills you can learn such as skiing, snowboarding, telemarking, cross country skiing, how to ski powder, how to land jumps and ride rails - the list goes on.

But there's a whole load of other stuff you can learn too. Become a chalet host and learn how to cook a three course meal for 8 every night on a budget. Become a ski tech and learn how to wax and maintain equipment. Become a DIY expert by getting a job as a chalet maintenance man. Learn to speak French/German/Italian by working in a bar or restaurant.

Learning is good for us at any age. It keeps us interested and interesting. Taking on new challenges boosts self-confidence. So get out of your comfort zone into a foreign environment and after just a few months you'll be asking yourself why you didn't do it earlier!

4. Meet new people: Ski resorts attact people of all ages and from all walks of life. Gap year students, retirees, those taking a career break - you'll find them all. You only need to go into a bar at apres ski time to be aware of the cameraderie that exists between skiers, (and of course snowboarders!). There is an automatic, assumed bond - the skiing.

We tend to bond more with people when there is a common goal or activity, and just like the golf course, the chair-lift can often be the starting point for business deals and partnerships, job offers, even marriage!

Quite often the friends you make doing a ski season will be friends for life.

5. Health and Fitness: Guess what, being at altitude can make you healthier. In 2000 an Austrian study (called AMAS 2000 - Austrian Moderate Altitude Study) tested 62 men between the ages of 39 and 65. They were taken to Lech and were prescribed hikes ranging in elevation from 1400 - 2000m. All were suffering from high blood pressure and had high blood sugar or cholestorel levels. They remained on their normal diets during the study.

After three weeks all the subjects showed significant improvements in various areas; circulation was better, blood pressure was lower, blood-sugar and cholesterol levels were better, reaction times improved and they all had higher counts of young red blood cells. The latter suggests that altitude could have contributed to all these benefits.

Red blood cells carry oxygen to the heart and brain. The thinner air would have stimulated red blood cell production as the subjects were acclimatising to the altitude. More red blood cells may have helped along the general improvement in the men's health.

It's got to be good for you being outdoors and exercising regularly throughout the winter hasn't it? Of course the health benefits of doing a ski season can also be cancelled out by the social effects of point 4!

6. Experience the rush: Spending winter in the mountains can also be time out to relax, enjoy and get the adrenaline pumping.

When you're negotiating something steep and deep, there's very little else that can occupy your thoughts. Mortgages, exam results, the M25, the onset of middle age - and all the other little worries that you might carry with you - pale into insignificance when you're having fun. Plus there's an enormous sense of achievement when you have accomplished something that would have seemed impossible just a few months before.

So are you convinced yet? In our next post we'll be suggesting ways of doing a ski season.

Are you interested in doing a ski season but don't know where to start? Have you done seasons and want to say what you felt about it? Any advice for budding ski bums?

Please add your comments or email us at info@chaletsdirect.com

Karine Ruby

One of France's great snowboard champions, Karine Ruby, will be laid to rest tomorrow (Monday) at 3pm in an open air ceremony which will take place in the centre of Chamonix by the Maison de la Montagne.

Karine died on Friday in a fall down a crevasse on the Glacier du Geant. Since retiring from international competition Karine was training as a high mountain guide at ENSA, the prestigious Ecole National de Ski et d'Alpinisme in Chamonix. She had been guiding two clients, one of whom died with her. The second has since died from his injuries.

Karine Ruby was the first female champion in snowboarding when the sport made it's Olympic debut at Nagano in 1998. She became world champion six times before moving into the discipline of boarder cross. In 2005 she retired from competition and began her training with ENSA.

She grew up in the shadow of Mont Blanc, and learnt to snowboard on the steeps and deeps of this famous range. She had bought and renovated one of the oldest farms in Argentiere, not far from where her parents live today. She was well known and highly regarded in Chamonix, but was always friendly and down-to-earth. Xavier Chappaz, the former president of the Chamonix Compagnie des Guides, said: "For us Karine was just Karine - not an Olympic champion. She was a star of Chamonix, a true mountain girl...always smiling and respectful." (Le Dauphine 30.05.09)

She was just 31 years old.

Winner of the Snow Snaps Competition

Our Snow Snaps competition, launched last winter, has now closed and we are delighted to announce the winner - Marie Ransom of St Gervais, with her early morning pic of walking up the St Gervais slopes early on in the winter.

 

A Coolboard will be making it's way across the Channel to Marie. If you've not heard of Coolboard take a look at our 5 part fitness series which we ran in Dec-Jan, a comprehensive set of exercises to help you build strength, stamina and so much more.

Take a look at the Coolboard website for more details - it's a great way to maintain fitness over the summer too!

French restaurants getting cheaper?

If you skied in France over the winter you might still be reeling at the memory of a £6 pint, or steak-hache-frites on the mountain for four with a coke and little change from £100.

The strong Euro of course had a lot to do with making the experience more painful, but the 19.6% VAT rate, one of the highest in Europe, also played a part.

From July 1st however eating out in France should get cheaper. The government has cut the rate of restaurant VAT to 5.5% and is putting pressure on restauranteers to pass on the reduction to the consumer. The catering trade will have to produce a list of up to a dozen everyday items that will benefit from the full rate cut - which should include items such as the plat du jour, mineral water, basic starters and desserts, and coffee. “A customer should be able to order a meal which is entirely subject to the full VAT reduction,” said Hervé Novelli, the Trade Minister.

That's great news for skiers and snowboarders, especially families. Alcohol however will not be subject to the same rate cut.

The move is seen as an attempt to get people back into restaurants and eating out. As in the UK the catering trade has suffered from the economic downturn with a drop of between 20 - 50% in income between January and March this year, (source Times Online). The VAT cut doesn't mean that everything will be cheaper but it could mean that a standard plat du jour will be around 10% less than last year - so that's got to be step in the right direction.

Read more at the Times Online or on the Ski Club of GB website.

Chalets Direct now on Twitter

Sorry we've been a bit less than prolific on the Ski Blog recently!

With the ski season over in Europe we are now in the process of doing what a lot of our members are doing - hanging up the boots, waxing the skis and boards to store for the summer, and getting the mountain bikes, tennis raquets, golf clubs etc out.

It won't be long before the summer is fully up and running - some resorts reopen their lifts in June. Whilst there is loads to do in the mountains in summer, the pace is less hectic than the winter race to get to the cable car, so there's a more laid back feel to your favourite winter resorts.

We'll be making regular blogs over the summer months to let you know what's going on - and of course if there is anything you particularly want to find out about, or anything you want to tell us about please let us know - send us message here or we are now on Twitter - username ChaletsDirect and we're at http://twitter.com/ChaletsDirect. Let us know if you're there and we can follow you. You can also follow one of our founder members, carolynb3, as she is known - in tribute to her favourite skis from a couple of years back!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Chamonix does summer too!

We can honestly say that winter 2008-9 is now over. There are a few high glacial resorts where some lifts are still open, but apart from that most lift companies are hanging out the chairlifts to dry, switching off the cable cars and looking at what maintenance has to be done over the quiet inter-season weeks.

It won't be long before many alpine resorts are opening up again for the summer. Summer in the mountains is more relaxed than in the winter months but there is still loads to do and enjoy.

Enjoy the Views:

Take Chamonix - already a mecca for mountain lovers in the winter - the town takes on a different feel for summer, and a holiday there can be as relaxed or as active as you want it to be. Climbers, hikers and mountain bikers come to enjoy different ways of getting up and down the mountains, with something to suit all levels from the novice to the expert.

The major cable cars along the Chamonix Valley open up so you can get to the higher mountain trails more easily, and enjoy the breathtaking views before heading off to explore further afield. The view from the top of the Brevent cable car is possibly the best view of Mont Blanc you will ever get - take binoculars and you might even see a group of people heading for the summit of the highest mountain in western Europe.

The Flegere lift at Les Praz is a good starting point for a hike up to the Lac Blanc - again be prepared for spectacular views and some physical effort to get there. It's worth it - it is a very popular route and can get busy in the high season months of July and August.

Festivals and Events:

However summertime in Chamonix isn't all about hard-core mountain sports. Throughout the summer the town puts on some great events to entertain its visitors.

Midsummer night on June 21st is usually the date for the Fete de la Musique, when the central square, Place Balmat, is the main venue for local bands and most of the bars will also have live music and djs.

July is the time for the climbing festival, when a giant climbing wall is erected and climbers from all over the world come to compete. Even if you've never climbed, and have no intention of doing it, it's an amazing show. It usually takes place over a few days leading up to July 13th and culminates in the grand final in the evening followed by fireworks, music and dancing.

In August, the busiest summer month, there are two big events. The Fete des Guides a traditional festival which celebrates and honours the high mountain guides. During the festival there is a huge sound and light show which takes place at the outdoor climbing wall at Les Gaillands, followed by a massive firework display. Then on the morning of the 15th August at the main church there is a ceremony attended by Chamonix mountain guides where the new guides are welcomed, the old are remembered and the ice axes are blessed.

The Ultra Trail, sponsored by the North Face:

Late August is Ultra Trail time! The North Face Ultra Trail is a mammoth cross country race around Mont Blanc, starting and finishing in Chamonix, and going into Italy and Switzerland. It's a gruelling round the clock trek for competitors covering 160km and around 9000 vertical metres. The time limit for completing the course is 45 hours and the record is 21 hours 6 minutes.

The send off on a Friday evening from the centre of Chamonix is quite amazing, with around two thousand people taking part. Throughout the weekend you can see runners coming along the finishing stretch down the Rue Joseph Vallot - stop and cheer them on.

Chamonix's got it all!

So there's plenty of choice of things to do on a summer trip to Chamonix. Sports facilties are good, swim and play tennis or golf with great views of Mont Blanc. Enjoy the shops, from upmarket designers to the latest and greatest in technical outdoors gear. Browse the weekly local market, with so much local colour and flavour you could be forgiven for thinking you're in a BBC learn French series!

For more details of the events and what there is to do in Chamonix take a look at chamonix.com. It's a great place for a short break or a longer stay - for accommodation see our Chamonix summer selection!

It ain't over till it's over.....more snow on the way!

According to the latest weather reports it looks like spring will be temporarily put on hold next week as some areas could get up to 50cms of fresh snow.

For the resorts that will still be open it's a fitting end to what has been, after all, an exceptional snow season. Snow is forecast across Austria, Italy, Switzerland and France - so for all die-hards the last ski of the season could well be in fresh powder.

Whilst a lot of ski resorts are closed or closing this weekend, those that are left have a few fun things up their sleeves to entertain visitors.

The highlight of Ischgl's last weekend is the Top of the Mountain party at lunchtime on 2nd May, starring Kylie Minogue, and is free if you have a lift pass.

Chamonix's lifts are open until 10th May - buy a 2 day Mont Blanc Unlimited pass and get the second day for just 1€.

Tignes ski area is open until 5th May, and the glacier continues until 11th May. The weekend of 2nd -3rd May sees the traditional Black Shoes, a telemark event, with live music in the evening.

Other resorts which continue into May include Saas Fee and Obergurgl. It looks like winter 2008-9 will go out with a bang!