Skiing Holiday with my son in Villars, Switzerland Feb 2013
I know that during my most recent blog post I mentioned that I would be focusing largely on business matters in my blog and within a few days I have already managed to break that previous statement by posting a blog article about my most recent holiday in Villars, Switzerland with my son Louis and my closest friend, sorry!
I haven’t covered any of my recent holidays here in a while but as I take 4-5 holidays a year with my family I might as well keep a blog on them.
I have never taken my son skiing before, in fact the last time I went skiing was almost 3 years ago in Sweden with an old friend of mine. My Son Louis has recently turned 10 so I decided to take him along with a friend to a hotel resort in Villars, Switzerland, the hotel we stayed in was very nice indeed… the reason I chose Villars as my destination of choice was because a mutual friend of ours owns a property there and he had recommended the location to us many times before.
We got there, checked into our room and scoured the location to get our bearings quickly, to our great pleasure just across the road from our hotel was the train we needed to catch to take us to the start of the mountain routes, which was only a 30 minute train ride in itself.
Day One:
On the first day I dropped my son off along with Steve’s son Tommy at the first of two private skiing lessons at the ski school at the bottom of the resort, waved goodbye to Louis and proceeded to take the ski lifts up the mountains with Steve and his daughter Ruby.
Upon our return from a mornings skiing I found my son upset and frustrated with how hard learning to ski can be. He was not too pleased with his lack of progress as he found it difficult and wanted to go home early, however after calmly explaining the situation to him his faith in skiing had been rejuvenated and we where both keen to tackle the slopes together the following day.
Day Two:
The second day began with dropping Louis and his friend off for another morning of ski school, although this session would only last an hour so I took it upon myself to teach him how to ski myself for the rest of the morning. To my surprise Louis had grasped the ins and outs of skiing much quicker since taking him under my wing and I was comfortable with taking him up the ski lifts to the main slopes…
During the second day we stopped off halfway up the mountain at a great Jamaican style bar/restaurant, it was warm, cosy and provided a welcome change to the chill of the mountains, we enjoyed reggae music at 2,000ft above sea level it was fantastic!
On the journey back from the mountains my son Louis asked me if we could ski back to the hotel following some beautifully shallow cross country tracks trough the forests along a 5 mile route down the mountain. I told him there would be no way that he would be up to the task, especially after a whole days skiing already behind him and considering how much fun he’d had already today I didn’t want that to be ruined, but he insisted.
He ended up faultlessly skiing down numerous blue, green and even some challenging red runs on our way back to the hotel and it was a real pleasure watching him mastering the art of skiing after the tough first day he had.
Day Three:
Day three saw us all as a group attempting some more challenging slopes higher up the mountain taking multiple ski lifts to various parts of the resort and experiencing all of the slopes we hadn’t already tried.
Our evenings throughout the trip consisted of visiting many different restaurants sampling the local cuisine and drinking some local beers. On one occasion I had managed to consume 4 pints over the course of a day’s skiing and then a further 6 pints over an evening and I still wasn’t drunk, must’ve been the altitude!
The Journey Home:
Unfortunately we had a very early start on our last day with us leaving the hotel at 5am in the morning! On route to the airport I got a chance to test out the handling capabilities of our rental car along some treacherous mountain roads picking up a hefty speeding fine on the way which arrived at my offices the other day payable in Swiss francs! Only joking!
I’m looking forward to taking my son again in the near future and on many more adventures!
One thing I did notice throughout our trip was how expensive everything was in Switzerland. The food, hotels, drinks and essentials all add up, luckily though I’ve had a good year so far and can afford it and proves as a constant reminder to myself that hard work and dedication in the workplace pays for memories like these and makes the trials and tribulations of business all worthwhile.