Ski and Sun - a Fab Combination!

Louise Edwards on 18 March 2012
After a very busy winter working long hours in the office, I desperately needed some fun on the snow. Normally, my annual ski would have been booked way in advance, but not this year. With only three weeks’ notice, we booked a late deal to Sestriere in the Italian Alps.

A 07.15am morning flight from Manchester meant a very early start on the M62 over the Pennines. I had already pre-booked the T2 multi storey car park in advance and got a great rate. It was a good job as we were diverted off the motorway for motorway closure repairs which added time to our journey. Why is it that whatever time you get on that motorway....there are problems! I must make a mental note to try and get a Doncaster or Leeds flight for my summer holiday!

The flight is only one hour and 30 minutes from take-off to landing and we arrived in a very busy Turin airport. Anyone who has been skiing knows that these airports resemble a cattle market on a busy Saturday! We survived a busy luggage retrieval area and found our ski rep waiting along with numerous coaches ready to take people for a week on the slopes.

We were booked in the Olympic Apartments, which were built for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. They are good, basic apartments of a 3* standard. I’ve stayed in better but they were perfect for this holiday. We had fantastic views of the piste.

There is a bar, restaurant, supermarket, pool table for the boys, swimming pool, gym...I could go on. The facilities were more than adequate. The resort was very busy with Italians (it must have been their school holidays) but I liked the buzz.

For the next six days we had some fantastic sunshine - nice hot weather - and had the best time skiing. We were very lucky with the snow. It is a high resort, so one of the few remaining resorts in that area that still has a decent amount of snow coverage.

Every morning we would get the Gondola from outside our apartments and take the 15 minute journey over to Sauze D'ouz. We loved it over there, especially first thing on a morning. There are fabulous wide open runs which were very quiet, in fact you could ski for miles and not see a soul. Perfect!

The boys loved it. At twelve and nine years of age, they have been on probably half a dozen ski holidays and are very competent skiers. They’re probably better than me....but don't tell them!

Needless to say, the holiday went far too quickly and before we knew it we back on the plane, feeling refreshed, exhilarated and realising that it would be another whole year before we could repeat the experience.