The plan was to meet up at Sauze d'Oulx in Italy for a long weekend of skiing. I flew from Glasgow to Milan on Thursday 28th February and then had to get the train to Turin and onwards to the airport to meet up with the free shuttle that our accommodation (Flexible Breaks) provided from the airport. Jared, Bec and Jeff were going to spend the day in Turin and meet me then as well but when they arrived in Turin from London earlier that day the weather was terrible so they decided to go straight to Sauze with Emma, Celia and Marcus.
My day was long, and probably not worth what I saved in transport costs. Oh well, it was an experience, and to be honest, everything went just as I had planned and was not too difficult at all. I ended up getting a taxi from the train station at Turin to the airport, and although he didn't speak much English, and I no Italian, my taxi driver was very friendly and we had a short stilted conversation about New Zealand. I think he realised that I was a bit worried about the time, so he drove REALLY fast to the airport. A little scary!
As it turned out, I was earlier than the flight so had to sit in the airport for a while with the Flexible Breaks people waiting for the people who were arriving from London.
So, it was quite late when I finally arrived at the apartment that I had organised for us. As an aside, Flexible Breaks were really good and I would definitely recommend them for short ski trips in this area.
Friday was good. Nice weather but a bit windy. We decided to mainly stay in the Sauze area and explore further on the Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes we all skied together... sometimes we split up into smaller groups. It was fun!
Saturday unfortunately was REALLY windy. The only lift open was the little one at the bottom, so we decided to give it a miss and have a lazy day. And so it was! We wandered around town in the morning, had a big long lunch, then everyone went back for naps in the afternoon. We cooked in the apartment for dinner and sat around chatting.
Luckily Sunday was fine again, mostly... Still windy so the higher runs were closed and halfway through the day one of the main lifts linking the village and the top of the Sauze ski area closed. We happened to be at the top when this happened so we stayed up there and just used the wee two-seater chairs to get up. It was really cool because the mountain emptied out and we could go a bit wild! Very fun :-)
The restaurants/bars and the staff in them in Sauze were really good. We went back to one place a few times. We were all trying to talk in Italian (with Celia's patient tuition) and they kept talking back to us in English - quite bizarre. So we asked them to talk to us in Italian and they did! and they were very understanding. Apparently a lot of English people do go there so they must be used to it. We made sure they knew that we weren't English though! And because we went over the weekend (not from Sunday to Sunday like most groups), we didn't notice a huge English presence. It was very nice.
Lazy morning on Monday (with crepes and pizza, mmmmm) and then back to Turin about lunchtime to catch our flight back to London. Unfortunately, my flight back to Glasgow was delayed so it was a bit later than I'd hoped. The other funny thing was, there was snow on the ground when I got back to Glasgow! Could've just stayed in Scotland... ;-)
Friday was good. Nice weather but a bit windy. We decided to mainly stay in the Sauze area and explore further on the Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes we all skied together... sometimes we split up into smaller groups. It was fun!
Saturday unfortunately was REALLY windy. The only lift open was the little one at the bottom, so we decided to give it a miss and have a lazy day. And so it was! We wandered around town in the morning, had a big long lunch, then everyone went back for naps in the afternoon. We cooked in the apartment for dinner and sat around chatting.
Luckily Sunday was fine again, mostly... Still windy so the higher runs were closed and halfway through the day one of the main lifts linking the village and the top of the Sauze ski area closed. We happened to be at the top when this happened so we stayed up there and just used the wee two-seater chairs to get up. It was really cool because the mountain emptied out and we could go a bit wild! Very fun :-)
The restaurants/bars and the staff in them in Sauze were really good. We went back to one place a few times. We were all trying to talk in Italian (with Celia's patient tuition) and they kept talking back to us in English - quite bizarre. So we asked them to talk to us in Italian and they did! and they were very understanding. Apparently a lot of English people do go there so they must be used to it. We made sure they knew that we weren't English though! And because we went over the weekend (not from Sunday to Sunday like most groups), we didn't notice a huge English presence. It was very nice.
Lazy morning on Monday (with crepes and pizza, mmmmm) and then back to Turin about lunchtime to catch our flight back to London. Unfortunately, my flight back to Glasgow was delayed so it was a bit later than I'd hoped. The other funny thing was, there was snow on the ground when I got back to Glasgow! Could've just stayed in Scotland... ;-)
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