Avoriaz Shuttle

on skis or snowboards. Winter Sports are one form of travel most under threat from Climate Change. Lets take responsibility for our travel:

1. Choose a resort that makes the environment a priority. Mountain Riders publish a guide that rates each resort on a number of environmental criteria. You can consult it online when making your plans.

2. Try to avoid flying to the resort. You can go by rail, or even bus to most resorts in Europe. If you go by car, then it is best to take a fuel efficient one with 3 or more passengers.

3. Use public transport instead of your own car at the resort. Many resorts have free shuttle buses. Make use of them.

4. Don’t leave the heating on full when you are not in your apartment, chalet or hotel. Rooms are fast to heat up, once you return.

5. Short showers use less hot water and therefore energy than long baths.

6. Buy local produce when shopping for food. The energy expended getting exotic food to a ski resort can be huge.

7. Don’t litter use the bins provided. Get a portable ash can for cigarettes – one cigarettes stub can pollute a cubic metre of water.

8. In many of the French Ski resorts the supermarket chain Sherpa offers to take back unused tinned and boxed food. Preventing waste and saving money.

   waste and saving you money.

9. Try to purchase environmentally friendly, ski and snowboard equipment and clothes. Also use environmentally friendly waxes. Don’t throw away your gear at the end of the season. Sell it on ebay or give to others to help cut down the waste.

10. Segregate your rubbish and use the recycling facilities provided at most resorts.

I could add some more, like; share a shower with someone sexy, but this list is a Top Ten!

Charles Bridge, Prague

Prague is a wonderful city. It deserves more than to be “done”. Hearing this made me ponder why I travelled there in 2003.

It was a period of my life when everything seemed to be going wrong. I went because it had all but beckoned me through books, films and even pop videos. The experience was truly therapeutic.

I stayed in a cheap hostel with Soviet Era plumbing in the communal wash room. I walked, took the metro and trams all over the city. I ate with locals at cafés in the suburbs avoiding the tourist restaurants in the Old Town and city centre. I had many conversations with Czech locals and Russian Ex pats living in Prague. I even went to the Opera twice.

But did I do Prague?

My week in the city gave me a very small idea of what life was about in the city. The Museum of Communism gave another another insight. Inside in a display case were little lumps of lead and other heavy metals. The explanatory caption explained that the quantities shown were the average amounts breathed in over a year by a Czech inhabitant.

Shocking!

But is it any more shocking than flying out to Prague for a drunken Hen / Stag Party or flying there just to be able to say; “I did Prague”?

Only one problem – there are no public buses on the Isles of Scilly, just a few tourist only buses.

The island council was entitled to the money and claimed it and will use it to subsidise boat trips to the mainland, where the bus pass holders can use all of England’s buses for free. Now there’s a council that is looking after its residents.