For President’s Day, Cole and I headed to Chamonix, France with our close friends Whitney and Alex. We flew into Milan Friday evening and picked up our Peugeot rental. The speedy Italian drivers with their derogatory hand signals sitting on our tail, helped us arrive in Chamonix a short 2 hours later.

We dropped off our bags at our Airbnb, a former cheese room in the 1500’s now converted into a small apartment just a few steps from downtown Chamonix. We headed into town, stumbling upon a great bar to grab some drinks (and play a few foosball game) before making our way over to an Italian restaurant where we stuffed our faces of burrata, pizza and pasta.

Saturday morning, we woke up early ready to hit the slopes! We stopped at La Jonction coffee, our soon to be daily stop for a caffeine fix. We collected our rentals and passes and warmed up on the slopes. We spent the morning tearing up the mountains (or in my case, more like the mountains tearing me up).

We met for lunch at Altitude 2000 – a restaurant halfway up the slopes with incredible views overlooking Mont Blanc. We had the best and cheesiest lunch ever – lasagna, croque monsieurs, and cheesy potatoes. We spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to burn off all the calories from lunch and enjoying the incredible views and sunny skies. After a day full of skiing, we headed back to our airbnb to soak in our hot tub and enjoy some drinks while the sun set. That evening, we had reservations at La Tablee (thanks for the great recommendation Melis!) to continue our cheese affair over a fondue dinner.

Sunday we woke up early to make the most of our second and last day skiing. I decided it would be best to do a morning lesson so I could hopefully join the group in the afternoon. I met my ski instructor, Thomas, just after 9 and he quickly built up my skills and after 2 hours, I successfully skied my first black run!! I met the group for drinks after my lesson and saw Cole looking a bit worse for wear. Unfortunately, he had quite the tumble after he was skiing down the mountain at his normal, top speed and decided to take on a hill. Unfortunately right as he landed, there was another icy hill that he wasn’t expecting and it didn’t end well. According to Alex, he will never forget the image of Cole’s skis flying over his head.

We then headed up for lunch up at the top of the Brevent cable car at a restaurant called Panorama, which was literally sitting on the edge of the mountain and overlooking Mont Blanc. After a successful morning with Thomas, I was ready to join the group on a black run back down the mountain. We finished off the afternoon with a few more runs before we were ready to apres ski. We bar hopped until we couldn’t hold out any longer for our hot tub. We soaked again for a couple hours and then got ready for dinner at Bizes, a restaurant recommended by our Airbnb host. This Scandinavian BBQ restaurants was right along a brook which our table overlooked. After some amazing lobster bisque, pork belly, and steaks, we were officially stuffed. We made a quick FaceTime call to Papa and Mama A before heading back to our Airbnb to pass out.

Monday was our final day in Chamonix and we opted to spend the morning exploring the beautiful downtown. We checked out a ton of the ski clothing stores and then decided our final meal should definitely be fondue again at La Tablee. We ordered a vat of cheese dip along with the best French Onion soup and stuffed ourselves. We then headed back towards Milan where we may or may not have gotten a sneaky camera speeding ticket in the tunnel. We had an amazing weekend skiing in the beautiful Alps and look forward to making this an annual tradition!