Backs&Blacks@ChaletMargaritka

Xmas, New Year 2012 – Winter couldn’t have started any better!!

glynhughes — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:30:17 +0000

St. Petersburg; an Autumn visit or maybe your thoughts are drifting to Winter?

glynhughes — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:19:03 +0000

We’ve had a beautiful 10 days in Russia. The weather has been unusually fantastic for the second half of August (quite often you know Autumn is coming); non stop sunshine, mid 20s every day, evenings still warm enough to sit outside in t-shirts drinking a few beers. Rita and Alex (The Tsar) went to St. Petersburg for a few days to see their aunt. They had a great time visiting the Winter Palace, Peterhof – Tsar’s Summer residence and took a boat trip along the Neva River/ Baltic Sea. Please have a look at some of these fantastic links to get a feel for how beautiful St. Petersburg is:

Official site of Saint Petersburg - one of the MUST VISIT places in Europe

Beautiful Peterhof – Summer residence of Peter the Great

Hermitage – or Winter Palace, fantastic museum and former residence of Russian Tzars

Alas, in a few days they will be departing for France (The Tsar has to go back to school) to leave me moping around for a few weeks/ months until I see them again or I’m regularly back in France. Usually, at this time to cheer me up my thoughts drift to Winter and the fluffy white stuff. In preparation I throw myself into getting fit, working off the excesses of our long Russian/ Bularian Summer. I spend lots of time in the gym or on my bike when I visit France for the weekend. The important thing is to keep the fitness drive fun and relevant to skiing.

Have your thoughts drifted to thinking about your Winter wonderland yet? Here is an article which focuses on some tips to ensure you really enjoy skiing holiday/ experience:

It is not all about hard work, make sure you enjoy your training and have fun, read this article by Hugh Monney Director of the BASS Network, for tips on how to have fun whilst you train.

Why not try some slacklining to develop your balance…..

Our thanks to BASS/ Hugh Monney for these articles and content. The Tsar and I are off to see Spartak V CSKA today, the big Moscow derby. We are sooo excited!! Check out the pictures from last year if you want to get a feel for the atmosphere!!

http://backsandblacks.com/2010/08/09/every-great-city-has-a-great-derby-spartak-vs-cska-moscow/

Enjoyed it so much we had to return – Bulgaria!

glynhughes — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:39:19 +0000

This year Rita and Alex decamped to the Black Sea for over one month. I, of course, flew back and forth from Moscow (tell a lie I did go for two weeks non stop, as well – perfect!). We all had a great time. The villa Ralitza, Rita rented in St. Vlas, was only 100 metres from the beach with totally unobstructed views of Sunny Beach (10 kms, sandy bay) and Nessebar – across the causeway on the point of the peninsula/ bay. This ancient Greek/Byzantic/Turkish/ Bulgarian town; has incredable history and architecture which brings thousands of tourists to this part of the world every year.

St (Sveti) Vlas is a beautiful village built on the hillside overlooking the sea directly opposite Nessebar – on the other side of the bay. It is a lot less commercial than Sunny Beach, perfect for families and those who like a more gentle, sedate pace of life on their holidays. The village has a brand new Marina (claimed to be one of the top 10 in the world!) with lots of restaurants and beach bars surrounding, and an older part with narrow streets leading up from the sandy beaches to the old town square where there are also lots of restaurants, cafes and shops.

If you’re looking for somewhere different to go for your Summer vacation that offers sandy beaches, great climate and extroadinary value then we thoroughly recommend St. Vlas. It’s only just over half an hour from the airport at Burgas, along a beautiful coastal road that winds around the Black Sea. Beware though – it does attract a lot of Russians since the flight to Moscow is pretty short and the languages are very similar. Bulgaria was once treated as the 16th state of the old Soviet Union (they had 15 really!)

Since the family was there for over a month we invited various members of our Welsh/ Russian clans to come and spend some time with us enjoying the villa’s great location and all St. Vlas and the Black Sea has to offer. Daniel, our Scottish Brother in Law, particularly enjoyed the local bar where beers were less than 1 Euro a pint! The pictures below tell the story of our Summer adventure, off the beaten track in St. Vlas…….

Summer tips – How to be a better Skier

glynhughes — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:19:46 +0000

The influential ski website, PlanetSKI, reviews Ski Performance Breakthrough. A book which this blog has referred to many times in the past and can definately help improve your skiing; by the Director of the BASS Ski School, Hugh Monney.

”There are many ski instruction books on the market but this is one of the best;
clear, concise and easy to read without too much jargon”.

”It is written by one of the best in the business and Hugh’s passion and knowledge
of skiing comes leaping out of the pages”.

Read this and put just some of it into practice and you will become a
better skier.” Read more here

James Cove,
ski journalist and content editor of PlanetSKI

Top Tips in Under a minute – Rhythm and movement. Click below

A study of short & medium radius skiing; ideal visualisation tool for aspiring and good level skiers.

Click here to see full-size video

A beautiful trip along the Moskva River and other great sites for Summer

glynhughes — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:17:40 +0000

What a perfect way to while away a balmy, lazy Sunday afternoon. These pictures were taken as we enjoyed a fantastic, leisurely lunch on one of Moscow’s best, all glass viewing river boats. It is run by the new Radisson Ukraine hotel and you can take it from the river port, close to the hotel and Kievskaya railway station.

The Tsar of Wales Birthday – June 2011

glynhughes — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:53:13 +0000

Alex (Tsar of Wales) reached the ripe old age of 9 recently. He had a great birthday weekend with the Russian side of the family in Moscow; and his parents, of course!

Some pictures of the celebrations are below:

It’s tough but somebody’s got to do it!!

glynhughes — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 10:36:32 +0000

Please find recent photos from a conference I attended at the Hotel Las Arenas in Valencia recently in May. I can highly reccommend Valencia, the hotel, etc. It was the fist time I’d stayed in the city (only passed through the airport previously en route further south) and you couldn’t fail to be impressed – great architecture; long, tree lined boulevards, excellent restaurants and all beautifully blended into the industrial infrastructure and port area. Pretty clean also as these pictures testify for Spain’s third largest city!

If anyone has been to Barcelona and seen their man made beach, constructed as part of the redevelopment of the seafront area for the 1992 Olympics? Well take a look at the pictures of the beach at Valencia – it’s next to the port and right in the heart of the city.

They were all taken either from or close to the hotel which is right on the beach front. But as you can see you still have a bit of a walk to the sea. They’re stunningly beautiful – look at the colour of the deep blue, azure sky. The shimmering Mediterranean could be so close you could almost reach out and touch it.

Hope you all appreciate them and feel inspired to visit. If your employers are looking for ideas of where to run a conference – you heard it here first!

Wonderful mountains, great views and some fantastic skiing tips!

glynhughes — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:06:41 +0000

Thought you all might be interested in a couple of great videos from BASS. The first is very instructive and talks about how to find the ‘holy grail’ of skiing – the sweet spot on your skis and why it is so important. The second shows some great views, wonderful conditions and just some fantastic skiing all put to beautifully subtle and appropriate giutar music – the reason we would all love to be proficient ‘powder hounds’.

Those of you who’ve had the privelege to ski with Hugh and BASS may recognise the shots of Hugh’s old office – The Mont Blanc Massif and some of his secret ‘back country’ trails on Mont Chery, Les Gets.

Check them out on BASS TV (You Tube) via the links below:

Thanks to Hugh, Jazz, Becci and the BASS team.

Simply a majestic place – ‘Les Portes du Soleil’; Morzine, France

glynhughes — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:43:50 +0000

We thank John (and Claire) for these wonderful photographs. No words, the pictures simply tell the story of the natural beauty the area offers and what we at Chalet Margaritka are all about and why we are here!

Thankyou John – Simply wonderful (Do give up the day job!). Please come again…….

End of March and finally we find some consistent OFF PISTE – Thankyou Glyn for the guiding!!

glynhughes — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:56:05 +0000

Matthew Wood and his friends came to Chalet Margaritka the last weekend in March. Matthew, Kevin and John had all ski’d a fair bit and Martin was as adventurous as the rest of them. (Alas, Andy lost his skiing mojo a tad but we do hope he will get it back; whilst Kevin rediscovered his with a vengeance). Moguls, tours, blacks, off piste the guys really did like a challenge and they really did have a sense of adventure! They didn’t even mind (too much) when we had to walk 500 metres (uphill) along a ridge on the way back from Morgins because they had finally shut the chair upto Pointe de L’Au above Les Crosets due to lack of snow. Yes, we had to walk along the ridge in order to connect with the route down to Les Crosets and home to Avoriaz -check out the video above to get a better flavour of what I’m talking about. There were one or two other places where we needed to take our skis off as well but all in all we did some great skiing across the weekend - Take a look at the pictures below!!