The Ski Blog

Tour de France 2010

With Switzerland, France, Italy and now England out of the World Cup many of us can at least turn our attention to other great sporting events. (Good luck Holland - 1-0 up against Slovakia at half time as I write!)

This year's Tour de France kicks off in Rotterdam on Saturday 3rd July and over three weeks will cover 3 643 km, including 6 mountain stages and 3 summit finishes.

The first high mountain stage takes place on July 11th and takes in 189km, starting from the Station des Rousses, in the Jura north of Geneva, to the finish line at high altitude Avoriaz. The final sprint will be the tortuous road that winds up to the resort from Morzine.

Monday 12th July is the first of just two rest days for the riders. Tuesday 13th July is another gruelling high mountain stage starting out from Morzine and heading to St Jean de Maurienne.

The Tour reaches the Pyrenees on July 18th where start and end stages include Ax 3 Domaines and Bagneres-de-Luchon. (See full details of the itinerary)

Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky

British hopes can focus on Bradley Wiggins and his new Team Sky - the first British Team to compete in the Tour for 23 years. Wiggins surprised everybody by coming 4th in last year's event, displaced from the podium by a returning Lance Armstrong. 

For this year's Tour he has been single-minded in his training and fitness regime - and has once again reached a target weight of 73kg, the weight that enabled him to perform well in the mountain stages last year. Leading the "Sky Train" to a podium place is not beyond the realms of possibility and in a recent interview Wiggins was quietly confident, saying that he was "in the ballpark" to win it.

A Fantastic Spectacle

Whatever happens the Tour de France is an amazing spectacle and is followed with almost religious fervour. The stage towns on the route consider it an enormous privilege to be accepted as a starting or finishing venue, and pay a considerable price for it.The massive influx of visitors and business that accompanies the Tour circus more than compensates for the months of planning and preparation required.

The atmosphere on the route is electric - with fans coming from all over world to support their riders. Despite controversy over drugs and doping, you can't help but be caught up in the atmosphere when the Tour comes riding through. For the small towns and villages along the way it feels like a holiday and a great reason for celebration no matter who is first across the finish line.

So if you're lucky enough to be in the Alps or Pyrenees when the Tour is rolling through take the time to watch and enjoy it. It is widely acknowledged as the biggest cycling event of the year and the one that really matters!

If you're looking for a place to stay in Morzine or any of the other mountain venues why not try the Summer Solutions room.

Get the taste of your last ski holiday!

Enterprising Meribel ski chalet company, Fish and Pips, have come up with the definitive answer to all those guests who want the recipes for the delicious dishes they had on holiday. They have put all their favourite recipes in a cookbook. The cookbook, A Portion of Fish and Pips, came out late 2009, and inspired them to then enter The Times chalet chef competition, which saw them walk away as winners.

Holly Fisher, one half of the Fish and Pips partnership, has been kind enough to answer a few questions:

What made you decide to publish a cookbook – and when did you first have the idea?

We have been thinking about doing it for a while now, probably 2 years ago or so.
It’s something that I have always wanted to do. The final decision was prompted mainly at the request of so many of our guests and also by one of our staff members who said we’d be mad not to. The more we thought about it, the more we thought that it wasn’t such a bad idea not only would it be a new challenge, but also a great piece of marketing and no one else in the chalet industry had done it before.

We’re really proud of the final product, but never in a million years could we have predicted how much work would be involved and I take my hat off to anyone would publishes a book! I think taking on a new resort will actually be less work than producing a cookbook, but that hasn’t put us off and we’re looking to bring out ‘A Second Helping of Fish&Pips’ next year. It has been worth it though in so many ways and really enjoyed working with our fab little team on it.

Did winning The Times chalet chef competition inspire you this season – and did many guests comment on it?

Actually it was the other way round, the cookbook inspired us to enter The Times chalet chef competition! If it wasn’t for the cookbook then the journalist from The Times would never have prompted us to enter the competition. It’s amazing what a little 120 page book can do.

I hope people have really enjoyed the book, we’ve had good feedback on it so far. They made really good Christmas presents especially for people who have stayed with us or worked with us, we had some guests buying up 10 at a time!

Who is actually responsible for the recipes in the book?

It was an almighty team effort. The recipes are representative of the food we produce in the chalets and are a combination of mine and Philippa’s, the chefs and even some of hosts who often make better cakes than the male chefs! We couldn’t have done without the help of the team.

A Portion of Fish and Pips is available to buy from their website at just £20. So why not get hold of a copy and try out some of those fabulous recipes!