Skiing in France, strike two :)

During long-term relationships, marriages and friendships, we slowly take on traits from each other, so I am now like my husband have always been in the mood to exchange two July/August vacations for one winter vacation 😀 Especially when we have great experience behind us. So September 2022, same agency, much bigger company, and a new spot on the ski map – Orders 😛 or Less Ores. 

To get to this ski resort, we passed through last year’s, where, at first glance, was significantly more snow. I was slightly disappointed, but let’s move on, how can we know if we don’t see? Second, Brianson, as I already wrote, is an adorable place with a lot of content for those who do not ski or for those who are tireless, who would walk, visit, and go for drinks, dinners, and parties even after skiing. Less Ores is a set of buildings with apartments, along with two shops and several restaurants. Nowhere to walk, to look around, nothing – just skiing, grocery shopping, and apartment time. I would not like to comment on the cleanliness and quality of the apartment – we were not in Ritz last year either, but it was much, much better.

The tone of the text so far clearly indicates that I am not satisfied, but it is the overall impression that I still cannot shake off. While we were there, I really tried to make the best of every day. However, nothing special – the weather didn’t help us, one day we didn’t ski at all, because there was fog, snow and rain and the slopes opened late. We skied fine for two days, but not smoothly. On a penultimate day we used barely two hours before we turned into glaciers, with deposits of snow and ice all over us and then gave it up. It was decided by the majority of votes to go home a day earlier – I won’t even mention the disharmony and negative energy in the group while deciding on the further schedule. This option suited me in a way – we spent a day in Italy, with our daughter, so that improved the impression, but it would have been even better if we had skied at least four (not three) days out of six. I have to add, the nature and surroundings are beautiful, like probably everywhere in the Alps, so I enjoyed the three days we spent on the trails.

To summarize – if you are going to France and choosing between these two ski resorts, go to Briançon / Ser Chevalier (Les Orres had significantly less snow this year than Ser Chevalier, at least during the time we were there). It’s a little closer, from Serbia anyway, (not much, but after a whole day in a car or bus means when the trip ends two hours earlier), the trails are better and ski lifts are newer, and the place itself has a lot more to offer if the weather happens to be bad and you can’t go skiing. I know that such a bad impression was mostly influenced by the weather, but also by the equipment of the ski resort – I don’t expect to go to 2,500 m and be pleasantly warm. Just like I don’t expect to always have six sunny days when skiing – I’m ready for fog, snow, everything… But when there are newer lifts, they go faster, or they have hoods, you can spend more time on the slopes until you’re completely soaked. In this way, the age and slowness of the lifts mean that you sit unprotected too long, you get frozen to the top and then the cold takes hold much earlier in the day, because whatever your equipment is, after the tenth time you sit on a seat full of snow (not even a hood nor workers who would clean the snow from it) everything is wet on you. There.

It will be better some other time 🙂