Ever since I had studied abroad at 16 I dreamed of going skiing in the Swiss alps. The dream was finally going to come true when we purchased our tickets to fly into Geneva, Switzerland and drive to Zermatt. Unfortunately, Zermatt is not exactly priced for teachers in Spain so we decided to venture into the beautiful town of Aosta, Italy.

Our trip had quite an interesting start to it. We arrived at the airport as we normally do for our 8:30 am flight, only to find out it had been delayed due to weather until 12:30 pm. After a few hours of waiting and way too many trips to the customer service desk our flight was eventually cancelled. We opted to take the hotel and free transportation option from EasyJet even though we are all residents here… Upon arriving at our hotel we found out that not only was it a highly ranked hotel but it was all-inclusive. Our food for the entire day was free and an open bar was simply 15 euros. It turned the whole cancellation ordeal around quite fast.

The next morning, we were able to take our 8:30 am rescheduled flight and after circling the air for quite some time (as the airport was still closed) we landed with a small delay around 12:30pm. We picked up the rental cars, grabbed some snacks and we were well on our way to the beautiful alps. The drive was even more stunning than one could imagine, huge mountains covered with snow and small towns lit up brightly at night. It felt strange to arrive in Switzerland and then drive to France to finally end up in Italy.  The 25 degree temperature was quite different to the 65 degrees that we left in Palma. After our long travel day we were all tired and went right to bed so we could begin our first day of skiing.

(Outside our Airbnb, and our new little pupper friend)

We woke up early and ready to ski/snowboard. I was pretty excited as it had been about a year since the last time I skied. Once we arrived to Pila Ski Resort I quickly saw why so many people adored the alps. With each ski lift we took the view got even more beautiful. We were a group with a mixture of skiers, snowboarders, beginners and intermediate so it was fun to see everyone try a totally new sport.

Our Airbnb was situated about 15 minutes from the slopes which made it easy to access. The town however, was 30 minutes down the mountain so we spent most of our time skiing, or warming up in the cabin. It was a cute spot with no wifi or reception which made a cell phone free trip. We made small dinners and large breakfast’s to help us stay fueled for our long days on the mountain. We did get to try a small bit of Italian food for lunch which brought me back to 16 eating loads of pasta and other carbs.

Due to the cancellation, half of our group was departing on Monday and the rest on Tuesday. In order to get the first half back to their flight on time we needed to drive them back to the Geneva airport, which allowed us even more time to see the beautiful alps. It also included a brief trip to the UN! Something I wanted to see after knowing we were flying into Geneva. After a late return into Aosta we got ready for a good night’s rest to enjoy our final day of exploring.

Our last day we had planned to go visit Zermatt but we weren’t quite prepared for distance to get there and it was extremely cloudy which wouldn’t allow us to see the Matterhorn. We decided to keep exploring through different towns on our way back to the airport. We stopped in Cervinia, Italy and Charmonix, France before arriving back in Geneva. In Cervinia we got some pretty great Italian pizza (unfortunately no pictures to prove it). In Charmonix it was a cute little French ski town with a million foreigners (again, apparently I got tired of taking photos). We tried taking our time getting back to Geneva knowing that our bed for the night was the oh-so-comfortable airport seats. Through all the travel and disruptions we certainly learned what to do for next time and I’m already wanting to plan another ski trip!