Today we went to La Bresse skiing. It is east of Vittel about 1.5 hours, in the Vosges Mountains. We got our picture taken, not once, but twice, we think, on the way. You see here in France and maybe elsewhere in Europe there are no police with radar trying to catch you speeding on the road. They have these detection systems set up and if you are detected speeding, your picture is taken and then you get a little citation in the mail. Well we are hoping it is little, but who knows. We saw a "camera like" flash twice today. If we would have known, we would have given them a good Kodak smile. The second day we were here we got a digital notification, in the vicinity of a cow pasture of all things, what appeared to be a speeding citation. It flashed --1 point. That's 3 in 1 week. Oh my, oh my. To be honest the French drive very fast here, many times we have to get out of their way, so all I can say is, we could not have adopted this habit so quickly...could we!
Anyway we want to tell you about our skiing day. After getting off the 4-lane highway we meandered a two-lane road for about 35 minutes that reminded us of Nyes Road for our Pennsylvania folks (there is nothing in Ohio like this road, since 99.9% of the roads are straight in Ohio). Maybe two short guardrails on this road, hairpin turns, narrow (a standard size (USA size) GMC pickup truck passed coming the opposite way-we practically had to get off the road), snowy/rain surface, Grand Canyon size drop offs (on my side, yikes). It was a white knuckle ride. Surely on a clear day the scenery would have been breathtaking, and yes my breath was taken away by the above described ride.
We were surprised to find that the mountain was larger than we imagined. Before we left the states we bought ourselves new skis and carried them with us as part of our travel luggage, and so we were excited to try them out. They worked beautifully through thick and thin snow, as anyone who is a skier knows, can be a challenge. The weather could have been better but being our first time out, ya put up with more than you would near the end of a ski season or ski day.
We had rain to start out with, which soaked us wetter than either one of us have ever been. We looked like we had just walked through a lake. Then came freezing rain pelting our faces making goggles useless. Then snow ahhhhhhhhh, now your talking, this is why we are here, now we can see. We rode the poma lift (for non-skiers this is a disk attached to a pole. The disk goes between your legs and you are pulled up the mountain, skis are on the snow) which is often used for high elevations or high wind conditions. High wind - an understatement! I could hardly stand up at the top. Let's throw in some fog. But wait, oh no, here comes sleet stinging our faces, again making the goggles, you guessed it - USELESS! Could it get any worse, I don't think so! They closed the poma lift by the time we got to the bottom.
These cycles of weather continued all afternoon. We finally gave up and headed for the lodge, ending our day. The food in the lodge is your typical French cuisine -baguettes, croissants, cheese, wine, espresso.
Photos of our temporary furnished apartment, our rooms are on the left front and side, first floor. And the doorway to our apartment building. The doors are super heavy-wrought iron and glass.
It has been difficult to get photos, the rain seems endless. We are told this weather is unusual. I am sure hoping.
