Archive for January, 2017
Snow Photos: 19 January 2017
Snow Photos – our latest selection
Snowfall in Europe has been massive in the last couple of weeks which is great news for anyone either in the Alps now or going there soon. Snow-forecast.com’s latest snow overview reads, “if you’re going to France this week, you couldn’t have timed it any better.”
Over in North America, there has been as much as FIVE METERS falling at Heavenly Lake Tahoe since the start of the year and more snow is expected to across the mountains throughout the week, including Colorado’s Vail, Beaver Creek and Breckenridge; Utah’s Park City Mountain (which has received 226cm in January); and the Lake Tahoe’s Heavenly Mountain Resort (500cm in January alone!).
Here’s our round-up of the best recent snow photos from our featured resorts:
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Finally, this great video has been doing the rounds on social media – massive amounts of snow in Flaine! Read the rest of this entry »
A 5-star Experience – Ski Independence go skiing
Karen M and Adam from the Ski Independence team had the pleasure of visiting a huge number of our featured luxury hotels and residences in the Tarentaise ski resorts of Val Thorens, Tignes, Val d’Isère and Les Arcs in December, as well as sneaking in a couple of days on the slopes. Karen sums up the trip below.
Adam & Karen enjoying a sunny lunch
5-Star Experience – First stop: Val Thorens
We arrived in Val Thorens on the afternoon of a beautiful sunny day at the start of December to begin our mini-tour around the Alps. Neither of us had been here before so it was great to see it for the first time on such a lovely day. After quick lunch we started our visits around to a few of the luxury hotels Val Thorens has to offer. Read the rest of this entry »
A Denver City Stopover
Voted the best place to live in America in the 2016 US News and World Report, Denver is sophisticated and diverse, boasts a great climate, is packed full of cultural attractions and has a thriving restaurant scene. Our Senior Ski Specialist Karen visited Denver on an educational trip in December 2016. Here are her thoughts on her experience in the Mile High City.
A Denver City Stopover might just surprise you!
I’m not going to lie, Denver, in my head, was an industrial sprawl providing infrastructure for the Rockies, but little else. How wrong I was – downtown Denver is clean, walkable, safe and full of interesting architecture and quirky independent boutiques. Hipsters have well and truly taken over here – it’s virtually impossible to buy a drink that’s not in a jam jar. And if you’re not serving hand-ground-artisan-coffee-beans-personally-sourced-from-an-indigenous-community-in-the-woods then you’re not selling coffee in this town!
View from State Capitol
Our group stayed at the Crawford Hotel. Part of a new (2 year old) refurbishment of Denver’s Union Station, dating from 1881, it’s an awesome building and there are lots of bars, restaurants and shops on the ground floor. Every outlet is independently owned and local – no chains here. Hotel guests get given a discount card when they check in: this gives you a free coffee, a scoop of ice cream, a beer and discounts in the stores. Entry level rooms are small, but really stylish and comfortable.
Why this hotel is of particular interest, though, is its location. The tram from Denver Airport arrives right at the back door of the hotel and we got from the plane to the hotel in just over an hour! The tram goes every 15 minutes from the airport terminal, and takes just over half an hour. Read the rest of this entry »
