Stavenger

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Saturday morning, just after landing, on the local beach – our two city kids are happy.

There isn’t many short-haul flights from London where the destination is not obvious – Stavenger is one. The regular flight from London is mostly used for people on business to work on the North sea oil industry, so here we are in the south-west of Norway for 40 hours of family fun.

The main known attraction in the area is Lysefjord fjord located few hours from Stavanger. It is best known for Preikestolen pulpit rock – big rock overlooking the fjord. Unfortunately the hike would have been too much for Olivier, so we stayed on the beach and went for a local tour on the scenic road – taking ferries for the great amusement of Chiara and Olivier.

Before jumping back on the plane – the Oil museum was quite a hit as well !

Summary with a few images …

6 years ago - we used to do this - now we have to let the youngsters

6 years ago – we used to do this – now we have to let the youngsters

Until this day - Chiara has been swimming in all the waters she encountered - but the 5 degres of the North  Sea in March proved a step too high (good for me too as I didn't have to join her). This picture was taken after 10mins of her playing in the water, she couldn't feel her feet.

Until this day – Chiara has been swimming in all the waters she encountered – but the 5 degres of the North Sea in March proved a step too high (good for me too as I didn’t have to join her). This picture was taken after 10mins of her playing in the water, she couldn’t feel her feet.

Family pose without the photographer on duty.

Family pose without the photographer on duty.

No matter the wind and the cold, ferry as so much fun we had to do every crossing outside (we were the only ones)

No matter the wind and the cold, ferry as so much fun we had to do every crossing outside (we were the only ones)

Olivier looking for stuff to throw in the water - anything.

Olivier looking for stuff to throw in the water – anything.

While we were having a moment of culture - kids were playing in the fake oil rig.

While we were having a moment of culture – kids were playing in the fake oil rig.

This is our moment of culture - amazing small scale models of oil rigs and boats.

This is our moment of culture – amazing small scale models of oil rigs and boats.

Chiara playing in the local playground - made of recycled inflatable buoys.

Chiara playing in the local playground – made of recycled inflatable buoys.

Where is the snow ?

The lack of snow is less evident in black and white, but when we arrived at the resort, it had a late autumn feel.

The lack of snow is less evident in black and white, but when we arrived at the resort, it had a late autumn feel.

First week of skiing at Christmas for the kids in Le Sauze last year – and the season was not starting very well, almost no snow at all – just a slope of 50m x 20m in the middle of a grass field. It was just enough for Chiara – and way too much for Olivier who started for the first time.

We had a great and relaxing time though – lot’s of sun and some decent skiing for the less demanding of us. Chiara got her first star (just) and we had two last days with some fresh powder (20cm) – just enough to get Chiara to try real skiing !

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Olivier’s first day with his skis (well technically it was the night before as he wanted to tries his skis when we rented them at 7pm on arrival …). He did mostly walking with them, and to learn this grass is actually pretty stable.

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Chiara posing on a nice mountain of artificial snow (which will be used a few days later at the bottom of the chair-lift to allow it to open – brought down with trucks).

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An artistic artificial snow-man deserve an special portrait !

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When you can’t slide on skis, when you have no sledge – well, then you slide on your bottom – like old days …

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Champion in action – ski lift always deserves a lot of concentration when you wright less than the perch.

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Olivier taking it the easy way with Axelle.

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Snow waves.

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“Ubaye” river joining “La Durance” in the lake of Serre-Poncon – with a nice and white dump of fresh snow (not much though ;-))

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Martinique – it was last October !

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Chiara and Olivier moments before entering the church for Eleonore Christening.

Sometimes there is no end to pushing things back … A bit that this post which has been in the work for months. We had a crazy end of 2014, and now that ski season is over for 2015, back to the blog ! There are big changes happening in vgway.com – for a start full pages blog post will allow more space for images.

So we were lucky to spend October half-term break in Martinique for Eleonore Christening. Kids were delighted obviously, and they still talk about it today after this never-ending London winter. Now given our state of fatigue, we did not take the camera out much so we have an unsurprisingly low number of good pictures – here are a few.

And yes … apologies for not posting anything in the past few months, not cool 😉

Inside the church during the loooong ceremony.

Inside the church during the loooong ceremony.

Dimond Rock view at sunset.

Dimond Rock view at sunset.