We have Arrived!!

We have arrived at "Le Refuge" - the name of our new little home in Araches, French Alps. After a long but survivable flight from HK we managed to get to Araches mid-morning without a hiccup. Although for me it was a serious white knuckle journey. Driving on the wrong side of the road is going to be a continuing challenge. On the navigation front, thank god for GPS! We had to negotiate our way out of Geneva airport, right through the city and on to the autoroute. I really don’t know how we could have done it without GPS. Other than the speed of the traffic ( 130km/ hr!), driving on the autoroute was a breeze. Graeme’s only lapse was when we arrived in Araches and had to do a U-Turn. We traveled about 200m before Gra suddenly remembered he was on the wrong side of the road. Thank goodness the traffic was very light.

Arriving at the Teste Chalet, there was no-one around but the house was open and we assumed that Marie was not far away. We were touched to see our name Mr & Mrs Oxley on the downstairs entrance to our apartment. In less than 5 minutes, a bright and relaxed lady arrived to greet us. Marie speaks perfect English, but smiles politely at our torturous attempts at her language! Showing us through we were delighted to find that our little apartment is gorgeous and just what we imagined it would be. Set on a hill above the village centre, it is a classic Chalet. All around us are traditional buildings and there is plenty of open space between the buildings. The view from the front lawn to the mountains is superb. Unfortunately we have missed the autumn colours which must have been spectacular.

Getting settled we encountered the usual problems with technology…wrong power adapter and no connectivity to their wifi. Hopefully we’ll be able to resolve these problems quickly and get back on line. It’s amazing how reliant we are on technology.

We enjoyed a quick cuppa with Marie and a light lunch of bread and local sausage that Marie had kindly provided for us. Exhaustion crept up on us and we retired for an afternoon sleep while we waited for the super marche in Les Carroz to open at 3:30. The stores close at 12:30 and re-open at 3:30pm. How civilized. After a good shower, we both collapsed on to the bed and fell into a seriously deep sleep. Thank goodness Gra set his alarm for 3:30 or we would have slept right through the afternoon and really messed up our internal clocks. We felt absolutely hideous when we got up, but with sheer will-power we threw on our clothes and headed out to the Les Carroz which is 2 villages up the road from Araches. We didn’t quite find the safe pathway and had to negotiate the side of the road. Les Carroz is a picturesque ski village. There appears to be very few large apartment style complexes, and the accommodation appears to be mainly in the quaint traditional chalets. Like Wanaka in June, the ski shops were just starting to get in stock and set up their stores.

The journey home was a little fraught as dark comes early here at this time of the year. We retired to our cosy little apartment for a meal of steak, onions, mushrooms, spuds and courgettes. Graeme bought a little bottle of Savoie Gamay. We are going to take some time to adjust our wine pallets to French wine, but after the second glass, it was totally drinkable.

We had checked the weather at the tourist information bureau and it appears that while tomorrow will be OK, there is some nasty weather coming on Friday and over the weekend. So the plan tomorrow will be to get ourselves orientated with our village by foot and save our car driving until Friday.