J'adore faire du ski!

One of the fabulous things about living in Aix-en-Provence is probably something you'd never think of as one of the many reasons to visit, let alone live, here. It's for the skiing! It's amazing to find that even though we are a mere 30 minutes from the Mediterranean Sea, we also have many ski areas in our not too distant backyard. Being a passionate skier that is indeed good news!

One day last month, our international hiking group went skiing, instead of hiking. We went to Mont Serein, the closest of these ski stations(as they are called here) only about 1 1/2 hour drive west of Aix. This tiny resort has only 12 kilometers of slopes and not one chair lift. It really reminded me of some of the small resorts I skied as a child in New England. Mont Serein is located on the north side of Mont Ventoux, the highest elevation in the entire region at 1,912m/6273ft. Mt Ventoux' summit actually looks snow-capped all year round due to the white limestone on the mountain's barren peak. The day we were there, we had lousy ski conditions....low visibility and lots of ice... but we had a good time together on the slopes!

Always up for an adventure, my friends, Fiona and Hilary, and I went for a day trip to St Jean Monclar. This ski station is just shy of a two hour's drive north of Aix. This mountain village lies between the Northern Alps and Provence in the heart of the sunny side of the Alpine range. This was the first time either Hilary or I had skied at St Jean, but our faithful guide, Fiona, had already been here once this winter so we happily followed her all over the mountain!



The two slopes of the skiing area offer 45 kilometers of runs so we had plenty of mountain to explore and the scenery was spectacular!!










Fiona and I keeping warm in the sun and close to each other as we pause to enjoy the scenery...




On yet another sunny day, Sarah and our friends, Teal and Olivia Rapp, went to Les Orres, just up the road from St Jean Monclar, for a mother/daughter-father/daughter day trip. We had a blast-even if the girls didn't want to ski with the "grown ups" most of the day.



Well, that's all for now.... à la prochaine!!