Morzine VS Chamonix for 2018

May 5, 2009

Would you believe it. Morzine and Chamonix are scrapping over who should host one of the events (should Annecy win the bid) at the 2018 Winter Olympics. I guess in this fight Morzine counts as the young upstart and Chamonix are not pleased. They have been claiming that Morzine is “too far” from Annecy to be included in the bid.

The full story can be found on the Dauphine Libere website, in French. If you’d like help with the translation then try the Google Translator it works “sufficiently”!

Briefly the president of the bid did some googling to see what the stats looked like from Annecy to Chamonix and Morzine, the result being:

Annecy to Chamonix 95km equating to  1hr 09min at the wheel.

Annecy to Morzine 86km equating to 1hr 18min at the wheel (there is less motorway on this route).

So this is fairly inconclusive so he took a local member of the Judiciary (from Thonon Les Bains so impartial) to drive the two routes, the results being.

Annecy to Chamonix 95.7km equating to  1hr 07min at the wheel.

Annecy to Morzine 85.5km equating to 1hr 12min at the wheel

So Chamonix wins by a whisker – but surely they are clutching at straws argueing over 5min!

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Posted by Gareth

French bank Holidays.

May 5, 2009

So for 2009 we have.

  1. Thursday 1 January – New Year’s Day (Jour de l’An).
  2. Sunday 12 April – Easter (Pâques).
  3. Monday 13 April – Easter Monday (Lundi de Pâques).
  4. Friday 1 May – Labour Day (Fête du Travail).
  5. Friday 8 May – VE Day – WWII Victory Day (Fête de la Victoire 1945).
  6. Thursday 21 May – Ascension Day (Ascension catholique).
  7. Sunday 31 May – Whit Sunday (Pentecôte).
  8. Monday 1 June – Whit Monday (Lundi de Pentecôte).
  9. Tuesday 14 July – Bastille Day (Fête nationale).
  10. Saturday 15 August – Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Assomption).
  11. Sunday 1 November – All Saints’ Day (Toussaint).
  12. Wednesday 11 November – Armistice Day (Armistice 1918).
  13. Friday 25 December – Christmas Day (Noël).

The observant will notice that May has 4 of them and on June 1st there is another, in 2010 all 5 fall in May,the only saving grace (for those who find bank holidays disrupt the working week) is the fact the French don’t move the bank holiday if it already falls on a holiday (like the British do). BUT then there is the habit of “faire le pont”, so for instance the holiday on May 21st falls on a Thursday, everyone will take a day of holiday on Friday too, thus making a really “long weekend”, so much so that they will refer to these really long weekends as “petit vacances”.

This means that working in May is almost as disrupted as working in August. When I first moved to France I was not aware of these customs and found life to be rather lonely in the mountain village I live in on these weekends. Now I leave for the coast with everyone else!

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Posted by Gareth

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