I usually take a day off skiing during wintersport holiday but this does not mean I stay away from the pistes. In fact I love visiting them on foot with my normal snow boots and not with ski boots and skis!
By the way, in Europe we call slopes pistes here.
One of the things I look forward to is being able to hop from one mountain restaurant terrace to another, both skiing and on foot. And I just love people watching from the outdoor terrace as well! Not just any kind of people watching though, but skiers and snowboarders watching. It is very entertaining.
In Vaujany, on the Montfrais terrain, you will find 3 cafe restaurant terraces, and all three are situated on different altitudes with approximately 500 meters distance from each other. The first restaurant you will encounter from the piste if you are coming from l’Alpette is Restaurant Les Airelles which has the biggest and perhaps the best outdoor terrace on Montfrais. The restaurant looks out to 3 pistes. Great for watching the skiers and snowboarders pass by and come down the mountain.
I passed by this restaurant the day before this scheduled lunch whilst skiing with the Dutchman and I told myself that I will have lunch here the next day.
This was actually a very late lunch because before coming here I was hanging out at a different restaurant terrace in a nearby mountain. With cable cars, travelling from one mountain to another is made easy and relatively fast. Fact: It is quicker for us to reach Alpe d’Huez from Vaujany skiing and snowboarding than with the car which will take us approximately 45 minutes through a winding route.
For lunch, I decided on some local chevre cheese, myrtille jam, and a green salad, paired with some French bread and a local house (red) wine.
January is still the low season for wintersport holiday so the pistes here at Alpe d’Huez Grand Domaine Ski Resort which Vaujany is a part of are not that busy yet, although on the weekends it can get a bit crowded because of locals coming over for a weekend ski. Because this is France, the terrace scene is also a bit quiet (compared to Austria for example).
And lo and behold, guess who I saw come gliding down the piste as I sit on the terrace to people watch? The Dutchman, haha! I quickly recognised his body frame, his ski jacket and the way he snowboards. It was a good thing that he saw me waving my hands on the air. It was almost the end of the day so he joined me, and then we went back together to our apartment chalet via the Montfrais gondola-lifts.
To get here at Les Airelles, take the Montfrais gondola-lift in Vaujany and get out at the top, then take the glass tube ramp escalator and walk uphill for a few metres. You can also ski down from l’Alpette on the Chalets and Les Travers pistes as well.
Most ski lifts usually close between 16:00 and 16:30, while the bigger ones are open until 17:00. The lift here at Montfrais closes at 16:30 I believe but I have seen them working past 17:00?
Travel Period: January 2017
Destination: Montfrais, Vaujany (Isere – Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes), France
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All pictures were taken by a point and shoot pocket camera or a smartphone.