Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Our Avoriaz and Verbier Ski Holiday

We made it back safe and sound from our French/Swiss Alps ski holiday adventure! The scenery was amazing, the food delicious and the company - well, I may be a bit biased, but Dave's a pretty fun travel buddy and ski partner! =)
As funny as this may sound, we were a bit excited to try out the UK public transportation system in getting us to the Birmingham Airport. So, we walked out of our front door, to our bus stop, bus stop to the bus station in downtown Derby, walked about a half mile to the Derby train station, grabbed a coffee and mocha and jumped on the train to Birmingham New Street, from Birmingham New Street we switched trains to go to the Airport. Whew! And we were there!

Dave on the train, getting ready to take a picture of the British countryside


British countryside from the train

Once there, we checked in, picked up our Swiss Francs and Euro's and grabbed some food - oh Burger King, how I haven't missed you! Haha! Believe it or not, it was the only decent choice!

View of the Alps from the plane!

Our flight from Birmingham to Geneva was about an hour an twenty minutes - short and sweet! Our one checked bag thankfully made it and we were off to find our Hotel Les Rhodos transfer driver. Thankfully a lot of Brits work seasonally in Geneva and in Morzine for the resorts, making communication easy! Although, I must say, I picked up, "Bonjour, parlez-vous Anglais?" very quickly!

Our transfer from the Geneva Airport to Morzine (France) only took a little over an hour. Once in Morzine, we stopped off at the Ski rental place to get fitted for our ski's and snowboard gear. And we were all set! Except for the fact that it was 7:00pm, and the slopes close at 4:30pm. So, we settled in for the night in our teeny, tiny room!

We were up bright and early and had some breakfast. Then, headed to the slopes of Avoriaz!

The Avoriaz gondola

Did I mention that I am terrified of heights?!


View from the gondola on the way up the mountain!

Once we reached Avoriaz, we took some pictures and geared up to ski right back down!

This was our first run on the piste - not as friendly as it looks! Me, just happy we made it to the top!

After a few runs, we stopped to check out where we wanted to go next - aka - find a "greener" piste for me! On a side note, I haven't skied since we went to Montana in 2008, so I think I deserve a little leeway here!

Beer and map time! View from our table!

After a few more runs, it was time for a snack! Among the resorts, there were a cluster of restaurants to choose from. This is a picture of us outside the Brasserie. We had an order of frites!

(This isn't even half of our pics, or adventure, but I wanted to update you all with something. More coming soon!)