4 Days in Morzine

What better way to celebrate your birthday and the end of the January exam season than disappearing off to the French mountains to ski? My mum, sister and I voyaged to the charming, Alpine village of Morzine in eastern France; a ski village we used to visit when we were younger and enjoyed 4 glorious days of skiing, drinking marvellous wine and eating all the cheese fondue we could get our hands on.

I thought I would document our trip on my blog to provide an insight to how stunning Morzine is and I always find that travel posts are so enriching and inspiring. Here is a day-to-day log of our skiing holiday:

Day 1, 30th Jan 2019:

We arrived at London City Airport at silly o’ clock on the Wednesday morning, brimming with anticipation for the holiday. A short flight later, we landed in Geneva and began our transfer journey to Morzine. We were dropped off at our hotel first and were greeted with an adorable, alpine-esque hotel with wooden panels and shutters encasing the entire building. After unpacking our things in our little studio room, we decided to sort out our ski equipment for the forthcoming day. Enduring the slow and painful process of finding a ski boot that fits, we eagerly anticipated what colour skis would be selected for us. For me; flourescent green boots and purple skis...not the most chic combination.  We then headed to what turned out to be the most millennial restaurant in Morzine for dinner, where we enjoyed chai lattes and gluten free burgers - who knew!?

Day 2, 31st Jan 2019:

Our first official day of skiing, we woke early to catch a quick breakfast and begin the dreaded walk with our ski gear up to the Pléney lift that would take us to the central skiing area. Taking this journey had me reminiscing of days gone by where I would have an ESF skiing instructor shouting "get up child!!" at me as I fell to the ground in a tizzy trying to snow plough down a green run. Bad skier no more.

It felt quite alien having skis on the end of my feet once more, as it had been 3 years since I'd been with my mum. Nevertheless, we quickly got back into the hang of it and were parallel skiing down blue runs until our hearts were content.

For dinner, we chose to revisit one of our old, favourite restaurants in Morzine, Le Chaumade. To our shock, they had completely modernised and revamped the entire restaurant so it was almost unrecognisable. We ordered 2 raclettes, which came in little hot pots and an array of the most vibrant, beautifully peeled vegetables you have ever seen. Utter bliss, however, the cheese fondue did end up solidifying by the end due to the lack of heat keeping it soft, making it quite difficult to tackle.

Day 3, 1st Feb 2019:

The Friday was somewhat of a write-off in terms of skiing. With snow falling constantly all day, it made for horrible conditions to ski in; the visibility was simply so poor. Yet, we gave it a good go; travelling up to the top and taking the B piste all the way to the bottom. It proved to be too difficult for us, so we took the rest of the day off and decided to pursue a nice bar for some well-deserved après ski. We chose the Haka Bar, which had a buzzing ambience and friendly barmen who were willing to concoct any cocktail we wanted. Luckily, we stayed close to home and ordered 3 Pornstar Martinis, which were shaken to perfection.

Day 4, 2nd Feb 2019:

After terrible conditions the previous day, we were outrageously happy that the sun beamed down and there wasn't a snowflake in sight. We decided to attempt some different runs on this day, around the Les Gets area. We skied down the 3 blue runs at the top of the La Rosta peak, where we had some beautiful views of Mont Blanc to enjoy. However, despite the gloriousness of the day, I took a tumble on our way back down to Morzine town which, because of my incompetency in putting my hands down first when plummeting to the ground, resulted in some serious stiffness in my right side the next day.

For dinner, we tried La Rotonde, a restaurant just footsteps away from our hotel. We ordered a raclette, anticipating it would be similar to the one from La Chaumade, but, to our surprise, it was a proper raclette in all its glory, accompanied with a scraping knife, hot rod lamp and charcuterie. The best dinner of the holiday, no doubt!

Day 5, 3rd Feb 2019:

Sunday was spend mooching around the town, enjoying the scenic landscape and wishing in the back of our minds that we'd booked a hotel with a spa (my stiffness from that fall was getting progressively worse and more painful). We took it easy, decided not to ski and to just enjoy eating some Savoyard food instead.

Day 6, 4th Feb 2019:

During our last day, we made every effort to soak up every inch of the stunning, alpine landscape as we could. We even attempted a red run (absolute daredevilism), which, pleasingly, turned out to be a much more pleasant experience than some of the icy blue's we had skied down. Navigating some different-to-normal pistes, we discovered a charming little spot, by the Mouilles chairlift, to grab a little glass of something before we made our final way down to the bottom. One gluten-free crêpe and a strawberry mojito later, we were packing our things and heading to the airport to conclude what was, a fantasting skiing holiday.