Day 1 - I've been here before...

16:00
My cab is at a fairly startling 05:00. Thankfully (depending on your perspective), my brain woke me up at 02:30, and wouldn’t allow any more sleep - so I’m up and ready with literal hours to spare.

The airport’s pretty empty, and I’m settled in and ordering a pint a little before 06:00.

I’ve actually not been here THAT often before. Here is the departure lounge at Gatwick South terminal, and here is the venerable Flying Horse Wetherspoons. I think my last visit was on the way to Croatia in 2015, with a motley crew of maybe 10 of us.

This trip is likely to be a little more circumspect than that journey into the abyss.

An obligatory pint of Guinness and a breakfast sandwich grease (literally in the case of the sandwich) the skids. I meet with my travelling companions - Simon and Shenda (who regular readers of this travelog will recognise from our recent trip to Sri Lanka), plus Jamie and Wendy - wonderful friends of many, many years.

Our flight is a touch late departing due to a technical fault, but we’re on our way in decent enough time, and the Captain reckons we should only be about 10 minutes landing into Torino.

I’ve not skied in Montgenevre before, but am looking forward to exploring a new ski area. Montgenevre is part of the Milky Way ski system, and has the fabulous feature of being able to ski internationally. Montgenevre is about 1km inside France, and the other side of the mountain is in Italy. The resort promises plenty of decent places to eat and grab a much deserved post-slope beer, and has the advantage of a quick and easy transfer from Turin airport to our base for the next week.

Now, the EU has introduced a new entry/exit system recently - October 2025 I think. This is for any visitors from outside of the European Union, including (obviously) the UK. The border check on arrival into Turin is carnage and chaos. Carnos - if you will. There are somewhere between 4 and 5 separate lines, with subtle differences in requirements between each. One is clearly for EU citizens. It moves quickly and happily. One signals that it is for holders of biometric passports from a variety of countries, including the UK. I join this queue. It moves reasonably well, and after perhaps 10 minutes I’m at the automated arrival gate. I pop my passport in, it’s scanned, and NO GO. I’m directed to the ‘manual check’ queue, which is both high in volume and low in progress. I point at the poster that says UK biometric passports can use this queue, and receive an incredibly Italian shrug, accompanied by advice that the poster is out of date.

Wendy, by this stage, has zoomed through the border with her Irish passport, and I seethe with jealousy.

The remainder of the party are directed to a different queue altogether, for some kind of registration for the new system. Passport check, facial recog, and fingerprints - that sort of thing. Honestly, these border requirements are making it increasingly difficult to get away with the petty crime that is a feature of so many of our travels…
Having successfully navigated this registration process, we’re given a blue sticker for our passport, and I’m directed back to the biometric queue. I’m suspicious. For reasons I don’t entirely understand, Si, Shenda and Jamie are in the manual check queue. I cross my fingers and hold my breath as I approach the automatic gate, and… SUCCESS! I skip through the border control gate and join Wendy, who has used her time efficiently to track down everyone’s bags. It’s approaching midday, and our transfer allegedly leaves at 12:15. Wendy and I separate. She stays with the bags while I go and find our transfer company to let them know of the delay. They’re terribly sanguine, they’ve been dealing with these delays all season as the new system gets up to speed.

The others FINALLY emerge a little before 13:00. The next time any of us crosses the EU border will be better, as we’re now recorded into the system. I suspect arriving into any other Alpine airport would have had similar challenges, but the set-up at Turin is particularly woeful.

The transfer is a breeze. The bus is pretty full, so we’re spread out around it. Wendy and I sit next to each other and natter contentedly for the 90 minute journey. Given many transfers into the mountains rise above 3 hours, the brevity of this one is a blessing.

20:30
On arrival, we separate. I’m staying in a small studio in a building adjacent to the apartment block the others are in. My AirBnB host, Federico, runs a small pasta shop in the town centre, and I need to pick up a key from him. The apartment is up the hill from there, and dragging my large and weighty duffel bag behind me is quite the workout.

My studio is great. Everything I need, nothing I don’t. It allegedly sleeps up to 4 - 2 on a double sofa bed, and two on Murphy style bunk beds. For 1, it’s perfect. It would be shareable for 2. I would not fancy squeezing more in.

We quickly meet up to do some admin. Ski passes, hired skis, ski lockers and the like. This is largely completed without incident, except Shenda has somehow ended up with skis the same length as me. Now, Shenda’s fairly tall, but she’s a good 15cm shorter than me, so this doesn’t really make sense. She and Si head off to get them swapped, while the remaining contingent head off to get ourselves wine.

We park up at Le Graal, a big cafe/restaurant/bar type place in the heart of the town. They have reasonably priced drinks, a big outdoor terrace, and crucially a big TV screen showing the Scotland vs France Six Nations game. Despite living in Surrey for the past 25 years, Jamie is a dedicated Scot, and particularly enjoys the sweet irony of Scotland beating France while he’s in France, by a frankly ridiculous score of 50-40.

Around 18:00, we separate again. I’m off to the supermarket to grab some groceries - wine, water, bread, cheese, saucisson. These are the 5 apartment essentials.

I’m hungry, so make myself a sandwich, have a glass of wine, and watch an England performance almost as dismal as the display I experienced at Twickenham against Ireland a few weeks ago. England deservedly lose, giving Italy their first ever victory against them.

I’m suddenly narcoleptically tired. I was planning to head over to catch up with the gang, but decide to just have a little rest of the eyes before I jump into action.

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