Calais to Motiers anything to lookout for

Thanks for the excellent review. I like reading the detail reports of
other peoples ski holidays.

We drove down to Les Arcs on the 25/26 of March and it was a really easy
drive. Since it was Good Friday we left a little early than normal,
16-30 and picked up my neice and boyfriend in Sevenoaks and our friends
luggage in Ashford (He was taking the train - which worked out perfectly
- and did not want to lug his luggage across Paris). The predicted
delays on the M20 did not materialise and we caught the 21:30 ish
shuttle. The M25 was fine. We arrived in Bourg St. Maurice well before
8:00 on Saturday morning so had breakfast before shopping and going up
to our apartment. My wife and I shared the driving and listened to half
of the new John Grisham book on the CD. Judging by the number of Belgian
cars on the road Belgium must be deserted over Easter week - can anyone
confirm this?

The skiing was excellent with one or two days of rain/snow which
fortuneately seemed to occur over lunch. The snow was firm in the
morning, going soft in the afternnon with the approach to Arc 1800
definately wet. For some reason the return to 1600 was better. In the
mornings the wide, crowd free, runs in Valandry were excellent (with the
exception of Aigle, which seemed a favorite of the ski schools). There
must of been some rocks about since I broke the edge of my ski, but I
cannot really recall them.

My neice had skied once before (years earlier with school) and her
boyfriend never, yet the quality of instruction was such (the soft snow
helped as well) that they were both able to ski the easy black from the
Grand Col by the end of the week, as well as ski from the top of the
Aiguille Rouge.

We left at about 19:30 on the Friday night and caught the 6:30 shuttle
on Saturday morning. The drive was uneventful apart from the motorway
around Lyon being closed and being diverted around the Lyon ring road.
This was exceedingly exiting with all vehicles doing about 100 kph less
than 5m apart; much more exciting than the skiing and rather terrifying.
We heard the rest of the John Grisham book.

The cost of fuel, tolls and shuttle came to just under £300 for the the
4 of us in the car. This was significantly less than any other was of
getting to the Alps.

John



Team SJ wrote:
Thanks for the comments.
The skiing was good. We'd not been to LaPlagne before so it was a change
from Argentiere. In Montalbert there were quite a few options per hill.
Either straight down the mountains or along roads. The older kids wanted the
reds while the younger ones were happy with roads and easy reds. It was nice
to be able to ski though the trees which always makes for more interesting
skiing. In fact one day while having an afternoon break in a mountain bar we
saw a deer in the woods. La Plagne had some interesting runs down narrow
little runs between rocks. As we had to pick the kids up each day at 12 we
didn't get past LaPlagne Centre. The snow was pretty good for the time of
year with it only being slushy at the end of the day. I reckon we lost about
75cm of snow cover through the week. The web cams show it's kept stable this
week. We got stuck one day due to avalanches but luckily the chalet owner
picked the kids up from ski school, fed them and told us to stay up the
mountain and have lunch. So what started out as a real headache turned out
to be one of the best days we had.
I also managed to fit a bit of Geocaching in while in LaPlagne but I'll
leave that for you to discover....


Back to the journey. I forgot to mention that after asking how far down
through France you could pick up UK radio for the Wales vs. Ireland game. I
forgot all about it, enjoying the drive down I suppose. In the end the Welsh
lads came good beating Ireland and clinching the six nations rugby title.
Utd also won that day so a good one for me all round.

We saw the signs for the Parc Asterix as we drove back from Disneyland to
Calais. I think it was open it certainly had as many signs for it as
Disneyland (Mrs S-J's just come in and said it wasn't opening until the 8th
April). I don't think the kids know who Asterix is having been brought up on
Pokemon et al. Anyone recommend it at all? I know it's rather off topic for
Europe skiing but if you're driving it's on the way or way back depending on
your journey.

We had considered calling in at Legoland in Windsor as well on the final day
but I think everyone just wanted to get home at that point.

So I think that about does me. We've been home four days. Mrs S-J has been
knee deep in washing. I even spent most of the England game last night
ironing (new man or wot!).

Recommendations...
Driving is fine as long as you keep any kids entertained.
Expect the roads in the UK to be hell and the roads in France to be heaven
(except the last 20 miles on Saturday)
Staying in Reims was okay but I think next time we may travel as far as
Macon or even Lyon or even all the way.
Leaving a day early worked well but did mean missing a days skiing.
The stop over in Disneyland was good.
I can recommend the Campanile in Bussy Sant George for Disneyland.
Use toll roads. They are cheap compared with the UK's congested motorways.
Don't wholly trust GPS mapping as ours wanted to take us via Geneva not
Lyon. (Shorter but not dual carriageway I'm assured)

Thanks
Robin


"Edi" wrote in message
...

Well done, glad you had a good time... good journey report ! Next time you
can go to Parc Asterix as well... actually it may be closed in winter.

How was the actual skiing ?

All the best,

Edi


"Team S-J" wrote in message
...

So how did it all go. Fantastic, super, great.
As we suspected the French roads were a dream. However the M25 in the UK
was a complete nightmare! We didn't see a thing in France for the first
200 miles due to think fog. Mrs S-J drove from Calais to Reims in the
fog. Respect. (I'd had enough just getting to the Chunnel) I drove for
about an hour from Reims were we stopped at one of the many pretty
reasonable service areas for breakfast. Mrs S-J drove us all then to
Montalbert.Yes we did hit traffic at Albertville but it was nothing
compared with the M25. The snow chains didn't even come out of the box.
The skiing was great. The kids went to ski school in the morning and
skied with us in the afternoon.As the snow was disappearing fast we
decided to leave a day early rather than get up before the traffic. So
after lunch we set off for Bussy Sant George. Not one traffic jam or road
works in sight. If you know your French geography then you'll know that
BSG is only 7km from Disneyland. We had a day at the Parc and a day at
the Studio before heading back to Calais. It may be a coincidence but
once we went through the final toll we hit fog again. Back in the UK we
drove 2km before our first traffic jam!!!!!!!!! The M25 was busy but
moving and we were home for lunch. 1650miles.
Would we do it again? Yes. It turns out it's not the distance it's the
traffic. The kids had the DVD player running in the back. We had the
occassional potty stop and something to see now and then. The usual
question to the kids was " have you heard of....." to which they would
respond "no". To which we would reply " well this is where .... is made"
(Usually wine!). We saw the giant paper clip near Lyon. The Mushrooms
near Dijon, although I have no idea what that was about.
If you are considering driving, do it. We may or may not do it again
depending on what flights etc we can get but it was okay. (I'll not
mention our friends breaking down twice)
Thanks for the little tips and pointers and look forward to travelling in
France again. I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow
though.
One final thought. Having combined a skiing trip with a visit to
Disneyland it was like having two holidays for the price of two holidays
;-)
Thanks again.
Team S-J




"Robin Sayce-Jones" wrote in message
...

With 7 days to go the excitement of driving to the alps is increasing
every day.
We're doing the Calais, Dijon, Lyon, Albertville route.
What I'd like to know is....
Is there anything interesting to look out for on the way down.
We're doing Calais to Reims in the dark. The rest will be done on
Saturday.
GPS waypoints would be great but anything of interest would be good.
Thanks in advance.

John Elgy wrote:
With 7 days to go the excitement of driving to the alps is
increasing every day.
We're doing the Calais, Dijon, Lyon, Albertville route.
What I'd like to know is....
Is there anything interesting to look out for on the way down.
We're doing Calais to Reims in the dark. The rest will be done on
Saturday.
GPS waypoints would be great but anything of interest would be good.
Thanks in advance.







Sounds perfect. I just picked one of my children up last night after
school ski trip to Saalbach. I picked him up in Sheffield at half past
midnight, he left his hotel in Saalbach in the morning, and
unbelievably flew back. around a 15 hour trip for an hour and a bit
flight, bloody stupid. He had a great time though, claims to have had
fresh snow as well.

Other child I got back the day before from his trip to Heavenly, now he
did have lots of fresh! School trips to California for a week, if only
in my day :-)

Hoping to go away as a family next year, I had to sacrifice my skiing
this year to let them go, and I certainly will be driving.

bill

Felly sgrifennodd Team SJ :
Back to the journey. I forgot to mention that after asking how far down
through France you could pick up UK radio for the Wales vs. Ireland game. I
forgot all about it, enjoying the drive down I suppose. In the end the Welsh
lads came good beating Ireland and clinching the six nations rugby title.
Utd also won that day so a good one for me all round.

In case you didn't realise, you can watch the highlights he

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugb...al/default.stm

Adrian
--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

Felly sgrifennodd John Elgy :
The cost of fuel, tolls and shuttle came to just under £300 for the the
4 of us in the car. This was significantly less than any other was of
getting to the Alps.

Fuel, tolls and Norfolk Line?

Or even fuel, routes nationales and Norfolk Line?

Every time I've checked on the shuttle fares, they've been at least twice
the price of Norfolk Line; maybe I'm missing some deal?

Adrian

--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

Adrian D. Shaw wrote:
Felly sgrifennodd John Elgy :

The cost of fuel, tolls and shuttle came to just under £300 for the the
4 of us in the car. This was significantly less than any other was of
getting to the Alps.


Fuel, tolls and Norfolk Line?

Or even fuel, routes nationales and Norfolk Line?

Every time I've checked on the shuttle fares, they've been at least twice
the price of Norfolk Line; maybe I'm missing some deal?

Adrian


I concede your points

In the past we had always found Sea France was the least espensive way
across that little bit of water and like you the found the shuttle was
about 3 times the price. This easter we got a fixed time return, which
was only available after 17:00 from Folkestone and before 11:00 from
Calais, for £98 (we could not believe it ourselves). OK this was
slightly more than Sea France, but we felt the more frequent crossings
and avoiding the problems at Dover due to the Calais berth problem were
well worth the extra £10. Incidently it was the problems in Calais that
caused the hold ups on the M20 with an "operational stack" to store the
trucks waiting to cross the channel!

Interestingly this special price no longer appears available.


A bigger saving could have been made by using the routes nationales and
avoiding the tolls (128 euros,or £90)and the consequent saving on fuel
costs by travelling slower. A further saving could have been made by
refusing to carry my friends board bag on the roof. This had an amazing
effect on fuel consumption and could also saved a further £10-£20!

So with a bit of care (and being prepared to loose 2 days skiing) we
could have shaved the price down to under £200 for 4 of us.

John

John Elgy wrote:
Adrian D. Shaw wrote:


In the past we had always found Sea France was the least espensive way
across that little bit of water and like you the found the shuttle was
about 3 times the price. This easter we got a fixed time return, which
was only available after 17:00 from Folkestone and before 11:00 from

These are the time we usually use. Seafrance about 95 Eurot was 90
and you can change out of the times on the day for 30 .
We were booked on the 20:00 out missed due to operation stack, no charge
to leave at 22:00
Coming back arrived very deliberatly late for an 8:30 am booking (at
5;15 pm )
Et charged us 30 GBP making the crossing a total of 120 , not bad for
total flexibility !

Oh and the skiing at Le Tour / Grds Montet was great too.

A

We have used the £98 offer a couple of times. We have always been on the
right train. Eurotunnel seem pretty flexible if you arrive between the
proper times. I think they just want the off peak business and appreciate
what the M25 and M20 can be like. Some friends were outside the time on
outward and return. They only got charged on the way back.
We have been offered £15 at the check-in to change for an earlier train but
we wanted to see what the prices were like for wine & beer at the terminal.
Stella was e8.39 for 24 x 250cl. I'm sure that was pretty similar to the
warehouses so we picked up a couple. The wine boxes were good value. Any
opinions?

Ah, Le Tour and Grands Montet. We spent several years in Argentiere. Mainly
for the fantastic ski school which would take the kids from 6 months to 12
years from 8:00 til 18:00. Not that we did but it was convenient. Now the
kids can ski with us we tried La Plagne for the first time. I can see we'll
be back to La Plagne for a few years as we enjoyed it so much.
Robin


"Alun Jenkins" wrote in message news:4252976e$1@gull...
John Elgy wrote:
Adrian D. Shaw wrote:


In the past we had always found Sea France was the least espensive way
across that little bit of water and like you the found the shuttle was
about 3 times the price. This easter we got a fixed time return, which
was only available after 17:00 from Folkestone and before 11:00 from

These are the time we usually use. Seafrance about 95 Eurot was 90
and you can change out of the times on the day for 30 .
We were booked on the 20:00 out missed due to operation stack, no charge
to leave at 22:00
Coming back arrived very deliberatly late for an 8:30 am booking (at 5;15
pm )
Et charged us 30 GBP making the crossing a total of 120 , not bad for
total flexibility !

Oh and the skiing at Le Tour / Grds Montet was great too.

A

I got a copy off eBay of the whole series.
Regarding your position. I was born in Aber, I used to visit my Granddad
until he died in 2002. My Dad helped build parts of the Uni in the sixties
before we moved away. When we left for England I was 3 and could only speak
Welsh. Since then I've lost the knack. Welsh at heart though.

"Adrian D. Shaw" wrote in message
...
Felly sgrifennodd Team SJ :
Back to the journey. I forgot to mention that after asking how far down
through France you could pick up UK radio for the Wales vs. Ireland game.
I
forgot all about it, enjoying the drive down I suppose. In the end the
Welsh
lads came good beating Ireland and clinching the six nations rugby title.
Utd also won that day so a good one for me all round.

In case you didn't realise, you can watch the highlights he

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugb...al/default.stm

Adrian
--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 17:34:16 +0100, "Team SJ"
wrote:

we wanted to see what the prices were like for wine & beer at the terminal.
Stella was e8.39 for 24 x 250cl. I'm sure that was pretty similar to the
warehouses so we picked up a couple. The wine boxes were good value. Any
opinions?

No point buying Stella at the UK end, or indeed in many of the
warehouse-type outlets, as it's not real Stell Atrois, but the awful
stuff brewed in the UK. Chalk and cheese.

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

Good tip Ace. I just checked and the stuff I got at the French terminal is
brewed in the UK. Ah well I live and learn. Last August we went to Brugge
via the tunnel and ended up at a Belgium Carrefour somewhere between Oostend
and Brugge (it's a long story!) where we picked up some Stella. When we got
home we did some exhaustive back to back testing between UK & "proper"
Stella. As Ace suggests they are like chalk and cheese. Having said cheese
we nearly spent as much on cheese as we did beer!


"Ace" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 17:34:16 +0100, "Team SJ"
wrote:

we wanted to see what the prices were like for wine & beer at the
terminal.
Stella was e8.39 for 24 x 250cl. I'm sure that was pretty similar to the
warehouses so we picked up a couple. The wine boxes were good value. Any
opinions?

No point buying Stella at the UK end, or indeed in many of the
warehouse-type outlets, as it's not real Stell Atrois, but the awful
stuff brewed in the UK. Chalk and cheese.

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the
Ski Club.