Travel Diaries: Skiing Les Arcs January 2017

Les Arcs

I hadn’t even put on skis for 11 years, having only been skiing twice in my teens, and half way through the first morning when sat on a ski lift up to one of the highest point in the resort instead of panicking, I found myself relaxing. It turns out that skiing is something that, once learnt, doesn’t really go away. Sure, I was a little rusty in places but after a few hours on the slopes most of that rustiness was shaken off. We’d spent most of the day before traveling; home to Heathrow, Heathrow to Geneva then a 4-5 hour shuttle bus into France, up a mountain in the dark (where we learned about the entire life of the girl sat behind us, who was talking loud enough for the driver to hear) to Les Arcs 1950. The resort itself is one of the smaller of the Les Arcs resorts, with less of a party atmosphere than Les Arcs 1800, which is the main resort on the mountain. Les Arcs 1950 is a small cluster of hotels, restaurants and bars and is designed for a ski in ski out system.
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Travel Diaries: New York City Pt. 1

Manhattan at sunrise

Jet lag is a hell of a thing. When you find yourself sat on a balcony at 5.30am, already having been to a coffee shop, to watch the sun come up over the Williamsburg Bridge and you’ve not even considered going back to bed despite having a completely full day planned, you know its hit you. We’d landed the day before at about 11.30am New York time, after getting up at 4am UK time.Despite it taking 1.5 hours to get through passport control and lugging our bags across a hot & sweaty Manhattan, we pushed on, grabbing food at Tiny’s Giant Sandwiches while we waited to check in, and freshening up super quick so we could make the most of the afternoon. The buzz of arriving in New York helped us power through the tiredness that kept threatening to hit. We’d only found out a couple of weeks before that we’d even be doing this trip, having won it through the post I wrote on London’s food scene, and in a couple of short weeks we’d organised our flights & hotel and created a list longer than all of our arms combined of things to do and places to eat.

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Travel Diaries: Budapest

Danube Sunset Cruise

I was sat sipping on a glass of wine, atop a boat sauntering down the Danube, my tour guide headphones discarded as they’d kept changing to Spanish, when I realised our decision to make the trip to Hungary was the right one. The clouds that had been lingering cruelly since we landed had finally parted and played their part in creating one of those sunsets you see on Pinterest or Tumblr, but a lot more real, and a lot less photoshopped. By this time we’d already feasted on a disgustingly cheap but hearty meal in the courtyard at Mazel Tov (Shakshukah Mergeuz for me, Falafel Wrap for her) and meandered around the Jewish District, where our stylish AirBnB was located. The first night of a 4 day trip to Hungary’s capital wound to a close with a few drinks in one of the cities many ruin bars before having an early night (and some chilli cheese bites from Burger King because hey, I’m on holiday) so we could get up early the next day.

Budapest - Buildings
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