Arinsal Andorra

Like the rest of Europe, Arinsal has been bitterly cold this weekend.  It meant that we had excellent snow conditions, if you could wrap up warmly against the wind and cold. It is very difficult in these conditions to keep children warm. If you examine a child’s glove that due to the size there is very little insulation, therefore a child’s hands get cold much sooner than an adults.

Regular readers are aware that I stay in the Palarine hotel and enjoy staying there.

Early last month, this hotel had their first bad review on Tripadvisor.  The couple who complained were here during a week when the weather was bad and the ski conditions were not very good, so they blamed everything on the hotel.  One complaint was that there was not a kettle in their room. Tea making facilities are commonplace in England but I do not remember having a kettle in any room in a continental European hotel. If this facility is important to you, like me, you will have to bring a travel kettle with you when you visit Arinsal.  This misunderstanding had me thinking that I should tell you what I know about the hotels in Arinsal.

The Palarine has a good reputation for a friendly service and for its food, many of the expats say that it is the best food in Arinsal and book in for the excellent themed evening meals.  From the village centre, it is 15 minute walk, if you run.  I walk down most evenings in 20 minutes.  There is a free bus service during the day and a half hourly pay bus (€1-50) running until 10 pm. 

The St Gothard Hotel is about 10 minutes walk closer to the village centre. It is much larger and is popular with school and group bookings and puts on live entertainment some evenings.

In the village centre there is a great selection of hotels all a very short walk from the lift, some only seconds away. They are: the Montane, Coma Pedrosa, Arinsal, Ayma and Micolau.  I have not stayed at any of these so it would be unfair to comment on the facilities. The Ayma and Arinsal are traditional Andorran hotels and the others have been recently modernised.

There are two apartments both very conveniently situated: St Moritz and Poblado Apartments. Clients have praised the standard of accommodation in both. I have not been in either. About three or four minutes walk up the main street is the Princessa Park, thought by some to be the best hotel in Arinsal and perhaps the most expensive. It has magnificent public rooms, a piano bar and a livelier bar in Bogart’s.  Some clients have told me that the bedrooms are not as big as they had expected, after seeing the grand entrance and reception area. The Crest and the Patagonia are another ten minutes or so up the hill. Both are situated close to a chairlift and at the end of a ski run that is suitable for intermediates.  They are a bit isolated from the other bars in the village. At the very top of the village are the Velvet Apartments they have a magnificent view and are apparently well appointed but only suitable for those with a car.

Like they say in Yorkshire “You pays your money and you make your choice".

I had no work today (Sunday), so I enjoyed a great morning skiing the new powder snow.  It started to snow on Saturday afternoon and had been snowing on and off ever since.  Apart from that, all my excitement this week was away from the slopes.  I had a splendid dinner on Wednesday at the Palarine for the traditional Burns’ Night Supper; we had excellent Roast Beef and some very tasty Haggis.  We had two Scots in the first set of Strip the Willow and six other nationalities.  Their dancing was less than perfect but danced with great courage and vigour.  We had our annual Burns party at Bogart’s Bar on Saturday.  There was a lot of country dancing with a very enthusiastic crowd.  We had ten couples dancing the final strip the willow of the evening.  When we finished, a rather good rock band started to play.  Spanish people arriving to listen to the band must have wondered why I was wearing my kilt.

On Friday I had an email from my daughter telling me that she had won the award for Best Actress for her part as Anna in the King and I, production by the Fareham Musical Society.  This was presented at The Curtain Call Awards 2011 ceremony hosted by a popular South Coast news paper.

Back to the skiing: we had excellent weather all week and great skiing on good quality snow, most of which had been made at night time by our snow cannons.  The quality of the snow was excellent, due to the fact that we were having cold nights. This brings me to the question, what is good snow?

The best conditions for skiing is when the snow is cold and dry, the sort of snow that you cannot compress into a snow ball. We rarely experience this type of snow in England.  However we often find it at altitude when it is very cold.  British holidaymakers seem more interested in the depth of the snow rather than the quality.  We ski only on the top three or four inches of snow. (That is about 7 to 10 cms for our younger readers).  It does not matter whether you have one metre or twenty metres of snow below that.  If the top layer has melted during the day and frozen at night, you will have ice to ski on, irrespective of the depth underneath.  Some of you may have experienced this is some of the cheaper East European countries.  This is usually due to the fact that they do not have the hard currency to buy the “Piste Bashing” machines that we have.  These machines break through the top layer exposing the real snow below.  Arinsal’s heavy investment in snow making equipment had really been worthwhile this season.  Sadly we are very quiet this season, I think due to many British people seeing that we do not have a great depth of snow so far this season.  On the positive side it means that the slopes are not crowded. You can see from my reports that we have been enjoying good skiing with fairly quiet slopes.

Today, I had a great day's skiing.  The air was cold, the sun was shining, the sky was a magnificent blue and the snow was cold and very skiable. I skied down to the village on the Marrades run. They had made enough snow to open this run during the past week. I have been back in England for a week and today was my first day back skiing in over a week.

I am often asked at what age one should bring children skiing. The answer often depends on the child. As a guide line I would point out that the ski school does not accept children less than six years of age. There is a good reason for this. Under this age very few children have the physical strength to ski properly and even fewer have the mental memory to remember the lesson or have the concentration to get value from a three hour lesson. Indeed, my personal opinion is that nine is a better age to teach children skiing. Young children compensate their lack of strength by leaning on the back of their boots for support. When they are old enough to ski properly we have to change this habit, which may be deeply engrained in their minds. I think that parents should also consider the safety aspect of allowing their very young children onto a crowded slope. Collisions do occur. A collision between a five year old and a fourteen stone adult could have very serious consequences.

In Arinsal we have an enclosed ski area for four and five year olds. The gentle slope is served by a small rope tow. Any collision in this area will be at a slow speed between two children of fairly equal weight. I am always amazed at the lack of concern for the safety of their children that some parents show. We had two children this week without crash helmets OR sunglasses. Andorran children under 12 must wear a safety helmet when skiing. The Andorran authorities do not enforce this law on foreigners. Perhaps they think if the parents are not concerned about safety, why should they?  So please look after your children, skiing can be a dangerous sport if all the rules are not followed.

The guests this week have had very bad weather. I really felt sorry for them, as I had a very friendly group from Ireland, in fact there was only one English lady in my group.  I had a successful private lesson with a girl whose friends had taken her up mountain to teach her to ski.  Their method of teaching was to shout “Turn” at the poor lass.  She was almost in tears and said that she hated skiing. Her boyfriend paid for a one hour private lesson and in that time I had her smiling and turning left and right down the beginners slope and using the lift on her own.

One of our readers, Geoff, asked which instructors specialise in different fields. My own speciality seems to be instilling confidence into mature ladies with a nervous disposition. This requires no special qualification, only patience and common sense. On the other hand some instructors have attended courses on different areas of skiing. Marcus has qualified an adaptive ski instructor. That is dealing with disabled skiers. This can range from teaching paraplegics in a specially designed chair with a mono ski under it, to deaf dumb, blind or even with learning difficulties. He is also a race coach. Ian is qualified in Snow Park techniques and off piste touring. Scott is another enthusiast on the jumps and rails.  Both have great admiration for Ismael, who was once Chilean Aerial Champion. Although not a native English speaker, he speaks it well. Dean and Darrin are happy to teach snow blade skiing. Scott would love to teach mono skiing but thinks that only French gays from the Seventies would like a lesson.  Sadly we have no native English speaker teaching Telemark skiing, but Pablo from South America is happy to oblige. Corinne and Maryanne are very good with young children.  This brings me onto my topic for next week’s report: what age should you take a child skiing?

I had a really jolly class of beginners this week.  Some made rapid progress and I was able to move them into a faster class. The others were a bit slower and we stayed on the “magic carpet”, they were all pleased with the progress that they made. I had a few very good après ski with this group. I hope that some will return to Arinsal in the future.

One of our readers, Alistair, asked, "what do instructors look for when classifying the groups?" So I thought I should explain the different classes that we offer at Arinsal.  First, the BEGINNERS class: This is for people who have never put skis on before and for those who have had a dry slope taster but did not manage to make a snowplough turn.  Next group is what we called DRY SLOPE or ADVANCED BEGINNERS:  This is for skiers who have skied on a dry slope or have skied before but do not feel confident enough to join an intermediate class. All would be expected to make a snow plough turn to the left and to the right on an easy slope.  We would normally grade this group according to how steep a slope the client would be comfortable on. Then there are the intermediate classes (which I think Alistair is asking about). We watch the clients ski on a blue run.  Level 1 is for those who do not make parallel turn but make a snow plough turn, Level 2 is for those who make basic parallel turns.  Level 3 is for skiers who make refined parallel turns, make use of the edges and showing signs of carving.  We offer more advance classes: bumps, off piste, and gates - if there is sufficient demand.

I hope this will be of some use to anyone coming to Arinsal.