A fireplace and a reblochon salad, and fitting the snow chains on the car’s tires for almost 3 hours

After my eventful last skiing day in Valmorel, I called the Dutchman who is left at the chalet hotel nursing a hurt arm after a fall the other day. It’s been snowing all day and the roads are covered thick with snow. I knew that it would be injudicious for me to drive the car back to the chalet hotel without installing the snow chains.







So while waiting for the Dutchman to get to Valmorel town centre, I looked for a cosy restaurant to have lunch. I found La Marmite Restaurant located under Hotel du Bourg and the arch. When I stepped inside I was warmly greeted by a glowing fireplace. Outside is snowing cats and dogs and a fireplace is just what I needed at this very moment.



I settled myself quickly beside the fireplace and ordered a ‘Reblochon chaud sur pain perdu’ (salade with stewed tomatoes, French toast and hot reblochon cheese) and paired it with ‘Lapero de maison’ (rose wine with raspberry and blueberry cream) for my drink.



The salad and reblochon French toast was nice, 4 stars out of 5 but the lapero de maison drink, oh, it was a soaring 5 stars. Wonderful drink. Reblochon by the way is a local cheese in the French Alps.



Dutchman ate lunch at the chalet hotel so when he arrived he just ordered coffee.

























Afterwards we went down to the parking lot and saw the car in a snowed-in state. I am really glad I called the Dutchman because there is no way I am driving the car without the snow chains on! That would be suicide, and that is if the French police will not first catch me and issue a ticket. When it is snowing in the Alps, every car (does not matter if you have winter tires on) must have snow chains installed. And I need the Dutchman to help me install them.



And the struggle begins with fitting the snow chains on the tires...



So we began fitting the snow chains on the car’s tires... 10 minutes turned to 30 minutes, then it turned to an hour, then 2 hours… by this time Dutchman and I were covered in snow, we were cold and our hands were freezing, moreover, we were about to pull each other’s hair. Why are these snow chains not fitting on the tires!? Why is it so damn difficult!? ARGHHH. And by the way, it is getting dark.







And already dark here... this picture was taken when we were almost done... after nearly 3 hours!



Needless to say, we were utterly desperate, extremely frustrated and absolutely exasperated. We have no choice but to continue on until we are able to fit the snow chains on the car’s tires.



The light at the end of the tunnel came after nearly 3 hours of struggling to fit them together. WHEWWWW. What a relief! Now we can go back to the chalet hotel and have some drinks to recover from the ordeal.