MitsuStyle - French Alps

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My girlfriend, my co-worker Jenna, and myself are all taking a vacation to the French Alps the first week of March! I'm real excited as I can't even remember the last time I took a vacation. I've done a lot of traveling in my life, but it's always usually been work related, not for a vacation.

Some of you may remember my European co-workers that came to a couple meets. Well Fabian (the Belgium guy) is booking our rooms at Val Thorens right now. He'll be meeting us there with a couple of his friends as well, and we'll get to spend about a week out there! I can't wait to get there, do a ton of snowboarding, enjoy it all, and take lots of pictures! I've never boarded outside MN!!!

OK just wanted to vent and share my excitement! Here's a link to the place we're going :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_Thorens
http://www.valthorens.com/winter-en/home-page.1.html
http://media.ski.com/trailmaps/tm_valthorens.jpg
http://www.totalski.com/totalski/ima...20Thorens2.jpg

Wow that looks like so much fun. Looks like the runs might last a little longer than 30 seconds like ti does on the hills we have here.

Have fun and take lots of pictures!

Dude im jealous! We need pics when you get back!!

Wow, that looks like a sweet place. I've never boarded through the clouds before. MN hills really suck compared to actual mountains.

I spent many, MANY days at VT and the whole of the Tres Vallees (3 vallies) when I lived over there. You MUST get over to the '92 Olympic Downhill (Piste Killy) to ski that beast. Even after almost 20 years it's still considered one of the toughest Olympic downhill runs ever.

Damn, that looks amazing!

Wow, that's one amazing picture. I need to do this one day (soon).

Oh yeah, tell us how bad the smell is up there! ;)

No Olympic runs for us. Most us of snowboard, and the ones who ski aren't badass skiiers. For me, just some fun carving around, the occasional jump, that's what I like. I don't want to die!

Definitely jealous.

I've only ever seen the Alps from the window of a plane, it would be crazy to ski or board there!

Stay away from the Belgian beers. Worse than PBR.

I don't know about that. Chimay Blue is pretty good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnoEclipse (Post 271516)

Stay away from the Belgian beers. Worse than PBR.

WTF!?!?

I seriously hope you are kidding. Belgian beers are the best. You have Chimay and other abbey beers such as St Bernadus, all the various Saisons and tripels, to me it's the best beer in the world.

I think I will forward this to my beer friends, they will cringe. Hellomynameis, Scheides, care to comment? Haha.

I have some dim, dark memoies of Bad JuJu caused by a Most Skanky Belgian Beer (I think it was Jupiler) one 4 day weekend in Tignes. Missed a whole day skiing because of it. Rinsed and Repeated almost exactly a year later. Last time I ever lost a ski day to drinking.

I've got a 5200 word personal write up on skiing in Europe. It's a bit much to post here but I'll PM it if anyone wants it.

That sucks to hear, I've never had skanky belgian beer.
But cool that you (and now Brandon) have the opportunity to ski in Europe. My friends and I have discussed doing it before, but we're all too cheap to buy plane tickets over there for just a week. I've heard it's really cheap once you're there though, no $80 lift tickets like out west.

Quote:

Originally Posted by asshanson (Post 271520)

but we're all too cheap to buy plane tickets over there for just a week. I've heard it's really cheap once you're there though, no $80 lift tickets like out west.

That's when having an uber amount of frequent flier miles comes in handy :) My roundtrip ticket is Free. My girlfriend is 7000 miles shy of a free ticket, so I'm going to transfer 7000 to her account so she can also get a free ticket. The transfer fee is $95. So all in all, 2 round trip tickets to Paris = $95 Total :D

Pretty sure the lift ticket cost was something like $250 for the entire week.

wow. that place looks awesome. I really need to get out there once during my lifetime. These hills in MN are boring but it's all I can afford.

You can get the TGV right at Charles DeGaulle (I think you have to transfer if you fly into Orly) and go straight to 3 Vallies. Local shot from there to val Thorens. Don't bother with a car.

I wouldn't even bother with skis, boards, or poles. I'd bring my clothes and boots and rent the 'heavy stuff' once there.

Already planning on taking the train.

And we do plan on bringing our own gear. Speaking of which, if anyone has a snowboard bag/case that I could borrow, please let me know!

I've got a bag you could borrow, I doubt I'll be using it any time soon.

Cool thanks. I'll have to hit you up later on about that.

Alright, just let me know.

Flying out tomorrow evening. Very Excite Very Excite!!!

Have fun dude!! Take lots of pics!

Have a good time man!

Thanks again for letting me use your snowboard bag Kevin.

I'm 99% packed. Taking off from work at noon, and heading to the airport at ~3pm!!!

Sounds fun, get lots of pictures (not that you wouldn't already).

I'll I can say is holy shit what a trip.

Here come's a ton of pics, 56k be afraid...

Katy up on the slopes on our first day
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1599.jpg

You can see we were on a Glacier, you can see the blue ice in the backround
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1601.jpg

Us at one of the higher peaks at Val Thorens (~3200m in the air). You can see we are well above the clouds, and that white mountain in the backround is Mont Blanc, the highest peak in France over 4000m tall. And the 150 person lift that takes you up there.
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1603.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1607.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1611.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1608.jpg

Also taken from the same peak, but at this angle, all those mountains are Italy
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1610.jpg

Other Misc Pics:
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1619.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1584.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1658.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/STA_1663.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1653.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1645.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1617.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1615.jpg

And of course we partied:
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1625.jpg

Ordered a Kebab and wasn't expecting a Hot Pocket... Delicious though!!
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1639.jpg

And the last day we took the early train to Paris so we could have a half day to try and squeeze in as much site seeing as possible. Paris is really beautiful. All the buildings are huge, old, tons of detail go into all the building designs. These pictures do no justice, you really need to see it all for yourself. I'd recommend anyone looking to go site seeing somewhere, to go here. You just can't stop looking at everything, it's amazing...

Here's a few pics of our Paris adventure.

(I'll take the one on the wall...)
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1705.jpg

Arc De Triumph
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1703.jpg

Eiffel Tower
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1677.jpg

Me on the tower
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1690.jpg

View from the 1st level of the tower
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1686.jpg

The Louvre Museum
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1725.jpg
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1721.jpg

Notre Dame
http://www.mitsustyle.com/photopost/...m/IMG_1736.jpg

Sweet, Looks like you had a blast!

Wow, looks like you had a great time! Nice pics!

Hell yeah, it was awesome!!

Kevin. Apparently my luggage didn't make it back on our flight. Neither mine, nor Katy's, showed up at MSP. They said they hope to have it tomorrow and deliver it to me tomorrow evening. So I'll get you your bag back as soon as they get it all back to me. It worked really well!! Thanks again man!

Looks like a blast dude!! Im jealous!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halon (Post 280058)

That sucks man! I hope they get it rounded up. I'm not in any hurry to get the bag back, so it doesn't really matter to me, as long as they can find it again. I'm glad to hear it worked out well for you.

Well the luggage showed up sometime late last night. It was sitting here when I woke up this morning. I'll get you your bag back to you sometime this week man. Thanks again!

Damn, looks like you had an awesome time!

Those pictures are awesome! I'm jealous you got to see the Eiffle Tower and the Arc. Glad to hear it was a good time, except for the luggage thing coming home. :)