After the successful trip to Sölden last year, I thought why not try again. Unfortunately, it seems that global warming has increased demand for the higher altitude mountains — not a rental to be found. I booked a short stay near Chamonix for Christmas, but while a great value it was a bit remote and quite small. But when catching up with Andrea Macario (an old Nokia colleague and a master organizer of ski holidays whom we’ve joined before) I found the crew was meeting up in Val Cenis in the south of France. While searching, I found a interesting accommodation in Les Alpages — walking distance to the lifts and a spa complex with sauna, whirlpool, and ourdoor pool. It also turned out that Thomas, one of the other Nokia colleagues, owned a place in the same complex, so we went all in. Just like the old beach rentals, these were only available for the week and so our little holiday turned into an extended holiday.
The journey was a bit more complex than our regular Austria trips — over 1200km from Berlin. So we decided to take a slow route down, stopping in Munich (where we were able to have a lovely burger dinner with Jo who was returning from Kitzbuhel) and then for an overnight in Milan. Another complexity was how to pack for the 10 day trip including all the linens for the apartment. Amazingly, we managed to pack everything in the car… except that Teo decided to wear pajamas and we were left with just one pair of sweatpants (latter supplemented with a extra pair of Uniqlos in Milan).
Chika had booked us into the Westin in Milan, which was a nice dash of luxury in our bohemian adventure. While waiting for the room, we had a late snack. As long as we were going big, I decided to splurge with some caviar and champagne — while we didn’t make to it Rome, we acted like Romans. Afterwards, we walked through the town which was a bit mixed due to the fact that it was the second day of Christmas and some things were closed. While we didn’t find pants for Teo that day, we did enjoy some fantastic gelato at Venchi Cioccolato e Gelato. The Mont Blanc was amazing. Afterwards, as most of the classic italian restaurants were on holiday, Chika booked us at the hotel restaurant PanEvo where we had an amazing (but overloading) Lombardi course dinner.
The next day, we had booked tickets to see Da Vinci’s last supper mural at the Basilica di Santa Maria delle Grazie. It was incredibly difficult to book tickets via their online system (they only go on sale at noon the Wednesday before and the system was constantly crashing), but finally I managed to get 4 tickets at 8.15, 8.45, 9.00 and 9.15. I went first, and then luckily they allowed Chika and they boys to go all together. Educational mission was accomplished!
After tasting Teo’s pasta during the snack the day before, I was dead set on getting some good pasta so I booked us at Maccheroni – La Carbonara N°1 di Milano. The pasta was amazing, and their eggplant parm was so light I could have eaten 4 portions. Kai rated the carbonara a 9.5. We then rushed back to the hotel to pack and head up to the mountains.
While not the most adventurous part of the journey, the trip to Val Cenis wasn’t so easy. The navigation showed that the shorter route was closed (we later learned that this is always closed for the winter) and then later showed the longer route closed (which was because I had the wrong POI in the navigation). But finally we arrived into our new 1-bedroom abode. Luckily, with the Japanese background the small space didn’t cramp our style as much as I thought. Every night the couch turned into 2 trundle beds, and given the ski activity people were quite tired in any case.
Given that we had the full week (6 days to ski), we were relieved of the pressure to be at the 9am opening of the lifts. Overall, it was positive ski week but it took a bit to learn the mountain. Due to the short days and the situation of the valley, finding the sun was a bit of a challenge. But on the second day, we met up with Thomas and his family and found all the sweet spots on the mountain. The snow up top was great, and the boys took advantage to barrel down the mountain at top speed. We managed a few days of apres ski with the whole crew (including Andreas extended Italian compatriates) and some nice meals and drinks at the varied restaurants of the resort.
We managed to do a majority of the dinners in our small apartment, and our meager supplies from Germany helped to complement our Italian groceries (including some divine fresh pastas Chika bought at Peck in Milan and 2 small rotiserie chickens which we serindipitously found at a discount grocery store outside Torino on a fuel stop).
But the grand meal was the raclette party for New Years Eve at Andrea and Andres chalet. With 11 adults and 11 children, it wasn’t clear how it would all go off, but with the Italians and French team in the kitchen it was a spectacular classic complete with all the trimmings. We did an early countdown around 10.30pm followed by some fireworks in a beautiful winter mountain setting. Chika drove us back home and we were able to celebrate the true New Years just in time, followed by our family viewing of Stranger Things season 5.
While it was cold (some mornings started at -11c), we decided to ski the last 2 days (Teo and I took of New Years Eve due to Teo’s shin pains) and leave early on Saturday for a full day drive to Berlin to avoid the holiday traffic on Sunday. We had a last aperitivo session with the Nokia crew at Thomas’ flat and then packed up the apartment for an early start. We managed to get on the road by 6.20am and made decent time to Basel (some road constructions slowed us down) by 13.00 for a lunchstop at a local markethalle.
Over time, the arrival time creeped later and later. We stopped for an early dinner snack at a rest area outside Heidleburg around 5pm, and then we found the snow we had been missing in the mountain. At some points the conditions were so bad we were driving at 30km/hr, but Chika perservered. Even at on point we started sliding in the snow, but Chika calmly got the car back under control. The rest of the trip was a slow journey back to Berlin, finally arriving safe and sound around 1am, almost 19 hours after setting out.
It was a great time all being together without the day to day distractions of work and other duties (although Teo managed to keep up with his book reading and Kai worked on his presentation). It was so much fun that we are all a bit saddened about going back to school/work, but all the more encouragement for planning the next adventure.
