We are sitting in a guest room of hotel Vicente, built in 1877 and run by a family for 5 generations. It is 10 am on Sunday, January 30 th. The sun just peaked from behind the mountain and the church bell chimed 10. We are in the Pyrenees!
We came here Friday night after a 2 hour drive from Zaragoza. Funnily enough, it was pouring in Zaragoza, which never happens and as we drove into the mountains it was snowing. Needless to say, there were at least 3 bad accidents we passed.
Before we left, people at my work told me I needed to get chains for the vehicle. Seems they are all very serious about them. I figured that living in the dessert and not ever having snow would make you worried about the white stuff. Just to entertain myself, I went and bought synthetic wheel socks (which are quite neat and take no time to put on) and figured: I will show them some Canadian driving and bring the chains back for refund once we return.
When we got to the mountains, it was snowing so hard that everyone was putting chains on. You could not drive anymore because these roads were not being plowed.
With my Canadian ego slightly dented, off I went and put the snow socks onto the tires. 5 minutes later we were chugging along, no slip and slide. They are truly an amazing feature.
We got into town - Panticosa, which is right in the Tena valley, surrounded by the mountains. We checked into the hotel, which is at the very top of the village, with spectacular views of the valley, the village and the mountains.
We checked in and went for a walk into the town centre, with the snow quietly falling. It was so quiet and peaceful, with the only thing disturbing this idyllic scene was the explosion of the snowballs manufactured by daddy and thrown by Tessa, afterwards retaliated by Grace and mommy.
We could not have picked a better weekend to be here: it snowed the first time in 2011 and first snow since early December. Everyone was excited about the snow, whole 30 centimeters, or one foot of new powder.
The next morning we got into our snow gear and off to the mountain. While there is absolutely nothing in English here, we found our way to the gondola and bout tickets. I was off for some snowboarding and Cathy with the girls were chilling and signed up for some sleigh riding (which unfortunately was not anywhere as exciting as the o-zone at mount Washington).
Snowboarding was great fun, I was able to go on some untrimmed runs with about 3-4 feet of powder. Very fun feeling! After about 5 hours I was very tired, but enjoyed every minute of the sunny sunny day and perfect conditions surrounded by spectacular, sharply ridged mountains.
All equipment, services and staff were top notch. The ski resorts in Spain are run by a joint venture between Spanish government and private company Aramon.
After skiing, we went to visit a local, brand new, rec centre, called La Paul, which has a huge pool, jacuzzi, sauna and Turkish baths. We also got a discount because of the affiliation with the hotel. What we did not know is:
- you must wear a rubber cap
- you must have slippers
- you cannot have kids in jacuzzi
- several other rules they quickly explained to us
conveniently we could purchase caps and slippers, so we were in luck. After a day in the mountain, we were really looking forward to the jacuzzi. But wait! The jacuzzi was only 37.5 degrees Celsius! Isn't that the body temperature? We had to make due with a few minutes in the sauna, which wasn't as fun as sitting in a hot tub.
At the end of the day we had a nice dinner at the hotel, some wine and off to sleep.
We are all packed and ready to go back to Zaragoza and this experience will stay with us forever. We will surely be back.
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