Grand Alpine Tour

Have spent the last couple of weeks mooching around various parts of the Alps (in between office stints, of course). Highlight definitely the skidoo trips up to one of our snow-bound hotels at Morzine. If you've never been on a skidoo carrying FOUR passengers and driven by a manic Frenchman, I highly recommend it. Was scary as hell, but lots of fun! We got slightly airborne at times, I swear. Not too shabby when you think people pay to do these sorts of things. If you, like my Mum, don't know what a skidoo is, here you go:



Lowlight was the trip down to Alpe d'Huez on Friday. A trip which took about 3 1/2 hours on the return leg on Tuesday took, with various stops and detours, 8 hours on Friday. I just kept thinking "if I set out from Cham, what kind of fun places could I have driven to in 8 hours??" Add in the creepy driver and the fact that I was in the back (which was a blessing thanks to creepy driver, but rather dull and nausea-inducing) and you have one hell of a crappy day.

Things only got better at Alpe d'Huez - I thought I was there until Sunday, but no, turns out I was there till Tuesday - nice to know - and had to attend a three-day management course, why? It wasn't too bad as it happens, and the food was good (and free!) but would have enjoyed a weekend out on the piss still more!

Alpe d'Huez itself was quite nice - and very high up - 1850 metres! Most days we were above the clouds, looking longingly out of the dining room moments at the mountain peaks peeping out above the clouds. The road up there is something else - I pity the fools on the Tour de France coming up here:



On the way down, a helicopter was flying down from the mountain to deliver concrete or something to a truck on the side of the road - it was amazing seeing it coming in that low, dropping off its load and flying up again, over and over again.

Apart from that, nothing's new except the pile of work on my desk I came back to! Am having tomorrow off so catch you all later.