FRANCE A LA CARTE PRESS
RELEASES
Why it's cool again to ski in Andorra
Toulouse - 3 Oct, 2007 - Andorra, the tiny mountain-top
principality in the Pyrenees straddling the Franco-Spanish border,
has enthused and infuriated skiers over the past twenty years.
Now it has faced up to its problems and implemented important changes
bringing renewed interest from top ski operators.
Difficult
of access and subject to traffic-stopping blizzards the beautiful
ski domain had multiple problems to deal with: small
unlinked ski areas, anarchic construction projects, poor quality
hotels and, above all, cheap drink. What was supposed to be Andorra's
trump card - its duty-free status - turned out to be its Achilles
heel. Busloads of British lager-louts turned up winter after winter
to party their way through the season. There was too much 'après'
and not enough 'ski'.
A series of particularly harsh winters in the period 2000-2005
meant that transfer buses from the nearest airport in Toulouse,
France struggled to make the 3 hour journey over icy and snowbound
roads: many a skier from those days has less than fond memories
of overnighting in a school gymnasium in Ax-les-Thermes thirty
miles short of their destination.
All this has now changed. The French authorities have refurbished
the main N20 road up to Andorra - half is now motorway - cutting
access time to 2 hours. Unruly construction has been curbed and
new high-quality hotels built. Hoteliers are now loath to accept
groups of young British skiers while encouraging bookings from
families and individuals. The tiny ski areas have all been linked
into one vast domain - Grandvalira - with over 180 kms of skiing,
110 runs and 63 lifts. It's now the biggest domain in the Pyrenees
and in the top twenty worldwide.
Black spots still remain, of course. The border town of Pas de
la Casa, target for French weekenders looking for duty-free goods,
is not pretty. But if the ski-lift area feels like a hypermarket
car-park skiers soon forget the tawdriness as they climb up into
the unspoilt whiteness of the Pyrenean peaks and swoop down the
sizzling red and blue runs into the hidden valley of the Andorran
interior.
Although some big tour operators programme Andorra canny skiers
will opt for the more flexible - and knowledgeable - local agents
who are based in the Pyrenees. One such is FRANCE A LA CARTE, a
Toulouse-based agency, who offer a small but complete selection
of packages in three of the main resorts in the Grandvalira: Soldeu,
Vall d'Incles and Pas de la Casa. The advantage of this approach
is that customers can choose their own flights and arrival airport,
benefiting from low-cost prices to Toulouse, Carcassonne, Perpignan
or Girona. FRANCE A LA CARTE will then supply a hire car or transfer
at the airport.
One last point: in these times of global warming snowfall in Andorra
is reckoned to be consistently higher than in any other Pyrenean
resort ... or many in the Alps.
WHITE WATER RAFTING in the PYRENEES
Sept 2007
France à la
carte, the leading
French incoming agency, launches a range of rafting packages
Hurtling down a treacherous river gorge, frothy with white water
and spray sparkling in the sun, may not be everyone's idea of autumnal
fun but white water rafting is becoming a very fashionable sport
for low-cost weekenders.
France à la carte, the French incoming travel
agency who work closely with low-cost airlines coming into
Southern France, have created a range of long weekend packages
whereby customers from the UK and Ireland can enjoy the thrills
and spills of white water activities in the hot sunshine
of the French Pyrenees.
Arriving at one of the many airports adjacent to the Pyrenees
on a Friday - Biarritz, Pau, Toulouse, Carcassonne or Perpignan
- guests find a hire car waiting for them for the 60 minute or
so drive to the rafting base. Accommodation ranges from simple
hostel or mobile home to 3* hotel, depending on budget. The action
starts on the Saturday morning with a half-hour training session
in the do's and don'ts of white water. The 'rafts' are in fact
extremely solid inflatable boats which glide over the choppy waters.
Eight crew members and a helmsman per boat - all fully equipped
with wetsuits, life-jacket, helmet and paddle - are launched out
into raging torrents pouring down from the ever-lasting snows of
the Pyrenean peaks. The helmsman, a qualified instructor, gets
the team to pull together so that the raft avoids the more dangerous
whirlpools and rocks and shoots the rapids at optimum angles. On
quieter stretches of the river he acts as nature guide, pointing
out the different plant life, birds and insects. The surroundings
are grandiose: 300 metre high canyons and gorges, deep pools of
green-blue water, ancient villages clinging to the banks.
It's
not all plain sailing of course. People can fall out of the raft
- and
often do - but they soon learn how to float down the
river on their backs to safety. Every now and again the raft pulls
in to the side and crew members do a bit of cross-river swimming
or pool jumping (from 5 metre bluffs) just for the fun. The full
session lasts for three or four hours and can be physically demanding.
Some packages offer a 'rustic' picnic lunch with local sausage
and cheeses and red wine. Afternoons are usually a bit lower key
with either hydrospeed or hot-dogging on the menu: these are white
water activities akin to rafting without the raft. The hydrospeed
adepts use a tiny float to guide them down the river while the
'hot-dog' is a sort of spineless inflatable kayak which is piloted à deux.
Saturday evening is spent eating and drinking (we're in France
after all) before guaranteed sleep. On the Sunday there's a day
of canyoning - another approach to the river - which is a slower
and more intimate exploration of these steep-sided river valleys
cutting through the Pyrenean piedmont. Again equipped with wetsuit
and helmet, the canyoner slides, climbs, jumps and plunges down
the river bed through rock pools and streams, over cliffs and overhangs,
among juniper bushes and prickly pears. The rest of the day is
usually spent stretched out in the sun but more intrepid (or fitter)
participants often head off to explore local sights (that's where
the hire car comes in handy) like Lourdes, the Cathar Castles or
Biarritz. After another night in France guests return to the cold
north on the Monday.
The bases used by France à la
carte are in the
Basque Country near Biarritz, in the Central Pyrenees just south
of Lourdes and in Languedoc on the Aude river. Prices start at
just 215 euros per person - hire car, accommodation, white water
activities, equipment hire and picnic included. Participants should
be over 13 and be able to swim 50 metres. France à la carte
report that as well as lots of couples and families they get quite
a few corporate clients who use these weekends as a team-building
tool. The best seasons are autumn and spring when water levels
are high and flights are cheap.
Toulouse, Tuesday 28th August 2007, 12 noon
FRANCE A LA CARTE launches 2008 ski
programme
Incoming ski operator for France, France à la
carte, has launched its biggest ever programme
of ski breaks in both the Pyrenees and the Alps. The web-based
tour operator has increased its range of resorts on offer to
include top resorts in the '3 Valleys' region of the Alps as
well as all the best-known Pyrenean resorts.
The
company's Director, Ms Sylvie Butler, said at the launch: "With
our extended offer we are now the biggest incoming agency in France
dealing directly with the UK and Irish market". She drew attention
to the fact that France à la carte had
moved quickly to position itself in the chalet market - the fastest
growing sector of alpine skiing: "We have a selection of large,
authentic wooden chalets - suitable for families or groups - in
the resorts of Isola 2000 and Serre Chevalier", she announced.
The unique business model invented by France à la
carte is particularly well suited to the short
ski break market: the company does not supply flights but tailors
its products around low-cost airlines' arrival airports. In
this way Londoners can fly from Stansted to Grenoble, for example,
and be on the slopes at Chamrousse barely an hour after touching
down. With the spread of the budget airlines network customers
from Belfast, Manchester, Dublin and Leeds as well as London
can now enjoy 3 night breaks - long weekends - in exotic resorts
such as St Lary in the Pyrenees and Valfréjus in the
Alps which were the preserve of the leisured classes only a
few years ago.
Ms
Butler is proud of her 3 night breaks: "When we introduced
the 'long weekend ski package' two years ago people in the trade
thought we were mad," she says, "but we were only responding
to a demand. Some customers now take a weekend break in the Alps
in January and another in the Pyrenees in March!" The secret
to a good short break, she revealed, is the provision of a hire
car at the airport with every package. "Competitors who operate
transfers from airports often fail to tell clients that there's
only one bus for the whole day's flights - our customers pick up
their car and are free immediately to get to the slopes, explore
the local region or head for a good restaurant while the others
are still waiting for the transfer bus to fill up."
As well as a hire car each package contains a ski pass for each
member. Ski equipment hire is a dawdle with on-line reservation
on the company's site in partnership with Skiset, the biggest French
provider. France à la carte customers
get a healthy 20% discount.
Asked
to name her favourite resort Sylvie Butler hesitates and admits
finally: "It
has to be St Lary in the French Pyrenees. It's a spa with a genuine
village feel, a choice of restaurants
and nightlife ... and some excellent skiing. I have been going
there with my family for years and never tire of the atmosphere."
A vos skiis!
Toulouse, Tuesday 30th January 2007
Airbus A380 opens to the public
The mighty new passenger airliner - the Airbus A380 - can now
be seen at close quarters by its many admiring fans. Since this
month the general public is invited to tour the new Airbus facility
at Blagnac, near Toulouse, France where the Airbus planes are assembled.
The tour starts with a nod to the past as guests are taken to
admire one of the last Concordes to fly under Air France colours;
there could be no better way of under-lining the extraordinary
difference in scale between the supersonic airliner of the sixties
and the great behemoth which is the A380. The Concorde is sleek,
feline ...and incredibly small whereas the new Airbus is extravagantly
enormous in every way.
The tour takes the visitor into the newly-constructed hangar where
the beast is assembled and before even seeing the airliner one
is knocked out by the very size of the building: it's like a football
stadium. And there on the playing surface is a plane being put
together. One is struck by the lack of bustle and haste: the few
workers visible seem to spend a lot of time quietly discussing
and contemplating before making a few decisive gestures. It is
a lesson in modern manufacturing techniques watching the way the
technicians work in small groups, methodically and quietly. We
are light years from 'Modern Times'.
The rest of the comprehensive 90 minute tour includes a short
film on the Airbus project as well as a tour of the extensive plant
where the whole range of planes are assembled - after being brought
in pieces from 4 corners of Europe. If you're lucky you'll see
one of the two A380's taking off or landing or, more likely, one
of the extraordinary 'Belugas' - the Airbus transport planes resembling
an overgrown dolphin which ply between the various Airbus sites
ferrying plane parts.
Practical information: France à la
carte (francealacarte.com)
run a little weekend 'aerospace' break in Toulouse combining a
visit to the Toulouse Space Center with the A380 visit. They look
after tickets, hotel accommodation and transport. All you have
to do is get to Toulouse which is not difficult as its a major
airport with direct flights from most European capitals. As a bonus
you get to see the latest Airbus planes as soon as you arrive:
the civilian airport and Airbus share the same runways!
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