At the beginning of January, 2002, we organised our first group ski trip to Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy. The resort is situated in the heart of the Italian Dolomite mountain range in the Southern Alps and is considered to be a very "chic" town, supposedly attracting the rich and sophisticated from all over Italy! (Well that was true until all of us lot arrived!!) Cortina is one of the Alp's most respected ski resorts and is part of the World Cup circuit (the Women's Downhill event was held in Cortina the week after we were there!)
The ski holiday was strictly by invite only and were selected from the most distinguished of our friends. Unfortunately, none of them were able to make it so we were left with this sad lot instead (;->)
Rich & Kirsty
Sam & George
Andy & Emma
Jonny & Ness
Ting
Paul
We had decided to travel with Crystal holidays and elected to stay at the Hotel Royal which was situated right in the heart of the pedestrianised zone in the town centre. The hotel was a very pleasant surprise and had loads of character. Our Crystal rep was called Vanessa and she was excellent, showing us the best places to go, taking us on guided tours and basically became an additional member of our group (together with Geordie, another holidaymaker who joined up with us!)
The only real drawback of the holiday was a lack of snow. For some reason, hardly any snow had decided to fall over the Southern Alps in 2002 and as a consequence the mountains were pretty bare. Luckily for us, Cortina has fantastic backup from snow cannons and virtually all pistes were open (even if they did look a little peculiar set on a backdrop of brown mountains!)
Everyone, except the two of us and Sam and George, were winter holiday novices, so took ski lessons, with Andy and Ting electing to try out snowboarding. Progress was rapidly made with Paul and Jonny clearly becoming the most talented, natural skiers (others would say most suicidal!)
Midweek, whilst the others were taking their lessons, Sam, George and the two of us took advantage of the opportunity to go on the Sella Ronda, a 26km circular ski tour that takes in four valleys and six different resorts in the Dolomites. The Sella Ronda can be skied either clockwise or anti-clockwise and can be skied in a single day! It was a fantastic experience although it was extremely tiring ... muscles ached for days afterwards. When we all finished, we headed off to an apres-ski bar to celebrate our achievement, with the help of a couple of steins of quality Warsteiner beer!
Other highlights of our trip included an evening in a mountain restaurant which we travelled up to on a motorised sled (rather fast, if I remember rightly!) At this restaurant, we ate and drank plenty, with Ting deciding to sample a polenta sandwich (??), before heading back down the mountain on the sled.
On the last night, Sam and George had prepared certificates for each member of the group, celebrating their most memorable contributions to the holiday. There were many amusing categories but the highlights included Andy winning the Best Impression of a Piste Basher for his snowboard crash that put him out of action for a while and Jonny winning the Best Comedy Crash for his high speed incident where he fell off the piste (onto solid ground) losing both his skis in the process! (To see Rich's certificate, click here.)
George, as expected (though a valiant attempt was made by Paul Salt!), won the Biggest Contribution to Apres-Ski category, by completely failing to disappoint with his usual high-energy antics. He even surpassed his traditional "pink jumper wearing", by deciding to strip entirely to a full audience in the Clipper bar!!
Who knows what he'll get upto next year ....
To see the Scheffau liftpass, click here.
