Hello From Chaource & Méribel

Hi everyone and welcome to another summer post from your favourite blogging Méribel ski instructor. This time, I'm back in the mountains for a holiday. It's been a busy summer, dominated by house moving in Leamington Spa. So busy in fact, that I failed to remember to book an overnight hotel for the big drive down, until close to departure. It was quite a fluff-up because being the summer holiday period, all of my usual options had already been booked up. This meant having to look further away from the autoroute than I would normally like. I eventually found somewhere, got it booked, and looked forward to a new experience. So what was the name of this new village to me?

A place called Chaource! It's one of those French villages and towns that have three vowels in a row which makes you wonder what the correct pronunciation is? Anyway, I did a bit of searching on the internet about this village, and realised that there wasn't much to find out about the place other than cheese! To be honest I didn't mind really, I was very grateful to have found a nice-looking hotel. And when I arrived late on Sunday, I was pooped anyway and just crashed for the evening in the hotel room. Before going to bed I'd thought I'd look more into this cheese, one that I'd never even heard of. There wasn't much information available online other than the Chaource Cheese wikipedia page. I made a mental note, and decided to do some digging in the morning.

As with many good hotels in France, the breakfast buffet table would be full of very nice goodies, normally including regional cheese. To my delight, a great big slab of it presented itself to me, and I happily dived into it with my first round of several plates of breakfast. It was of course very yummy.

It's funny you know, did I really enjoy it because I knew it had been made just up the road? It's a little bit like having a pint of Guinness in Dublin at the Guinness brewery, or a glass of Saint-Émillion red wine in the village of Saint-Émillion surrounded by the vineyards (highly recommended by the way)! Granted, eating Chaource cheese in Chaource doesn't quite sound so dramatic or glamorous, but it was fun all the same. I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to sniff out where the solitary Fromagerie was in the village, and treat myself to a purchase.

Would I recommend a visit to Chaource, especially for an overnight stop to or from the Alps? Not particularly, because it was quite a distance from the autoroute, and other than the cheese thing, there's not much else going on there. If you are in the area already, yes it's worth a short visit. However the hotel was lovely, and it certainly did the job for a rest between the big days of driving. On another positive, I have now found another new French cheese to look out for in the future.

Anyway, what's it like being back in the Méribel Valley? Absolutely brilliant. That fresh mountain air is divine, and the scenery is as wonderful as ever. There's so much more to this winter ski resort in the summer. Yes there is evidence in places of skiing, and it does take some adjustment to link the seasons.

Méribel is my office in the winter with the ski teaching, but it's also an amazing playground for me in the summer. I've been coming here for years in the summer, and I can't see that changing anytime soon. I drove down with my hiking boots in the car, as well as a mountain bike, a road bike, and a fair bit of camera kit as usual!

As you can see I've made the most of the first few days already, and can't wait to continue to enjoy my time here. I hope you are all having a great summer whatever you are doing. Please come back soon, I'm sure I'll update this blog page shortly, and hopefully fill it with more nice photos. Let's finish with my normal credo, don't forget to Live With Passion. Martin.