La Plagne Apres Ski Report: 3rd April 2013

Situated in Belle Plagne and inventively named “Le Bowling” the alley has four lanes, retro black lighting and a well stocked bar, sound good? Throw in some air hockey, arcade games and one of those machines that you hit with a hammer that tells you whether you’re a strongman or a wuss, and you’re in for some guaranteed F.U.N.

In all seriousness it’s a great venue - the staff are friendly and very relaxed, we booked two lanes for ten people at ten o’clock and when our pre-bowling dinner ran late we called to push it back until eleven and were accommodated cheerfully. Since they open every night until 2am we were not rushed in any way and left to enjoy our game even though it went on for a while – none of us being particularly talented in the bowling department!

So....a few bits of advice, when you hand over your names to the technician make sure they are spelled correctly and clearly as he will type them into the machine as he sees them and we had a Brian who became a Brad and a Rosie who became Rostie for the evening, which granted did cause us some drunken hilarity and lots of loud shouting of “go on Brad!” and “ Good bowling Rostie!” but if you care about your moniker; write legibly.

Also as relaxed as they are about timekeeping and bowling skill, they do not appreciate it if you try to cheat - as one of our party did - by bowling two balls at the same time. It did not go down well, he got firmly told off and his team subsequently lost. I think he learned his lesson.

Also worth noting is that although the alley stays open until 2am the Roche De Mio bubble which you must catch to access Belle Plagne from Bellecote stops running at 1am and although walking back down the piste is do-able and actually quite pleasant on mild nights, the shuttle buses connecting Plagne Centre, Bellecote and 1800 stop between 12.30 – 12.50 am and the trek between towns isn’t so nice. Plan your exit strategy!

In other news at high noon on Wednesday La Plagne was the site of a Harlem Shake! Know what I’m talking about? Nope me neither, had to Google it after I saw the poster, apparently a Harlem Shake is a phenomenon sweeping the internet, whereby multiple groups of people are posting videos of themselves ‘dancing’ – I use the term loosely - to about 30 seconds of the 2012 Baauer song ‘Harlem Shake’. Traditionally the first 15-second intro of the song accompanies one person in a crowd dancing alone whilst the rest of the crowd are seemingly unaware, then when the bass drops at 15 seconds the video cuts to the rest of the crowd dancing convulsively generally in fancy dress. Sounds good right? Hmmm.

Well one of them happened today at the base of the Grand Rochette in Plagne Centre and around 30 – 50 people turned up to gyrate in the name of Harlem. Fancy dress was optional but many took the opportunity and there was a Marmot, a Yeti, a brave soul in a mankini and one group of seasonaires with toilet seats on their heads, classy. Any one who didn’t have an outfit was swiftly kitted out with a La Plagne Dave mask – you know Dave, red hat, black sunnies, coolest dude in town? Then the deed was done in three takes amid much hilarity and we were told the final cut would be appearing on the La Plagne You Tube channel shortly, keep your eyes out for that one, I shan’t tell you which outfit I’m wearing, but it’s definitely not the mankini!

Shake it baby!