Ah, Tremblant Village! Full of European charm and quant cobbled streets, small boutiques and eateries, pubs and bars, all just oozing with gemütlich. It was, I suspect, the closest thing to being in Europe without actually being in Europe.

On arrival in the Village we checked into our hotel, the Carlson Country Inn, and then went for a walk to soak up the atmosphere. Despite the fact that the rainy weather was not in our favour, the village was a thriving hub of activity with the main centre, Place St Bernard, literally being at the foot of the ski slope. People were wandering about, shops were busy and street entertainers amused the kids with some very clever baloon sculptures. The group eventually wandered back to the hotel to change for dinner, while I went out to try and capture some dusk photos with my camera. Dinner was had at Caseys; a bustling, noisy, pub-style restaurant which was conveniently located directly across the main thoroughfare from our hotel.

Many years ago, I wrote a "dream list" - a list of 100 things I wanted to do in life. Somewhere towards the top of that list it said "Skiing in Canada". So the next morning was especially meaningful to me as I buckled into my boots, grabbed my skis and headed out to catch the gondola to the top of the mountain, as it was quite literally one of my dreams coming true. The weather was still not being kind, and the snow was not as perfect as I had imagined due to the warmer than usual weather patterns, but none of that was going to spoil my dream. Tremblant is a great mountain, with 94 runs of varying grades from easy green runs all the way up to double-diamonds. Because the warmer weather had been exposing the mountain to some rain, which had then frozen in places, the harder runs were unfortunately a bit too icy to be skied safely. Nonetheless, the Smiths and us had a wonderful morning going up and down the mountain with the kids. The snow on the main trails was quite good, and even when it was a bit lumpy it was still good just being there. Alex and Kate really improved their skiing and by the end of their day were skiing quite confidently from the gondola station at the top of the mountian to the village at the very bottom - a total distance of about 6km which they did over and over!

The next day was not too great weatherwise, so the girls and the kids decided that a day of shopping sounded like more fun than skiing. Never ones to knock back a day on the snow, Sean and I went up the hill and had a great day of skiing the North side of Tremblant - apart from the very top of the mountain it was much more protected from the wind than the South side, and the threat of rain instead turned to beautiful falling snow which provided a new carpet of white to carve through. We skied our "last run for the day" about twenty times... each time we said we were going to call it quits for the day we had to squeeze in "just one more run". By the time we eventually went back down the South side of the hill back to the village, our legs were like jelly and we could hardly walk! A few beers at La Forge was just the ticket while we waited for the girls to turn up.

Our last day at Tremblant was great for skiing, although bloody cold! The temperature at the top of the mountain was about -13C, but the howling windchill lowered that considerably! Donna, Kim and the kids only lasted a run or two before going back to the village to sit in a warm cafe! Sean accompanied them to the bottom, so I skied on my own for a while doing a few top to bottom runs under the gondola track. It was great skiing, with fresh snow falling and really nice conditions once you got out of the wind. Luckily I found Sean after my fourth run and we spent the rest of the afternoon just going up and down the mountain until again we could hardly walk!

A word of advice to anyone else coming to Canada and wanting to ski... Skiing is not a cheap sport, not in any country, so anything you can do to reduce the cost is a good thing. We discovered that Grade 5 students in Canada are entitled to apply for a Snowpass, available from the Canada Ski Council, which enables them to ski for free at nearly every Canadian ski resort. Kate and Laura are both in Grade 5, so we applied for their Snowpass in advance and so they got free lift tickets. We also discovered that there were websites you could go to and print off 2-for-1 coupons, effectively halving the cost of lift tickets for adults. These two things made a huge difference to the cost of skiing here in Tremblant!
Finally, it was time to say goodbye to Mont Tremblant, so we packed up our cars and took a very scenic drive through the back roads and small Quebecois villages on the way to our next stop, the Canadian captial of Ottawa.