Our holiday in France 2012

For the Christmas holidays my family and I went to Onnion, in the Haute Savoie region of France to visit some friends of ours. Their kids go to school, so that's why we had to go in the holidays.

This is the house we stayed at for our holiday

It seemed like every day of our seven day stay, our hosts had an activity planned for us to do. They took us to see fireworks, swimming, ice-skating, tobogganing, skiing and on lovely walks.

On Christmas' Eve we went to see fireworks. It was spectacular! I think it was one of the only times I watched it so close up. Really, we were so close; it felt like they were going to land on us. Luckily I wasn't scared. It was actually quite relaxing watching the sky because everyone went quiet while they were watching and the fireworks was so beautiful. The display was very varied but my favourite was the kind in the photo below. Quite obviously, it looked One Hundred times better in the sky but I want to show a picture anyway. 

Before the display, these ladies in dresses like really pretty Christmas trees on stilts did a kind of parade and threw confetti to the people. When they'd finished, a Papa Noel came on a carriage drawn by a horse! He waved to everyone from it, and there was a woman walking behind the carriage dressed as an elf, who gave sweets out to some of the children.

This is a picture from a walk we went on. The floating girl? She's not really floating; she's just jumping down a steep... I actually don't know what its called. Maybe a "Drop". Not a dangerous kind of drop though. A fun kind. It was great jumping because when we landed we actually slid down an extra bit. The snow was so deep, though, so it was hard to get back up.

One of the beautiful views over Onnion

Both the swimming and the skiing were amazing. I'd never been skiing before my holiday, but our hosts were good teachers so I learnt quickly. To turn Left you have to turn your right foot in slightly and lean it round to your left. And to turn Right you do the same but the other way round. If you want to go forward, all you have to do is lean forwards, and to stop, you lean both the skis inward and push out so they're digging into the snow. Travelling back up the slope without using the lift is possible if you use your skis like ice-skates, but you can get injured so I just used the lift. I fell off it once or twice, but otherwise using it was fine.

After a while, I could go down the slope smoothly, but our hosts told me it was important to practice zig-zagging so that if I get good enough to go on a steeper slope, I will have more control. After a little while, I was told I could go on the steeper slope with the host's daughter. She was really good at teaching me. The lift was harder to use because it went faster, but at least I didn't have to ski up the slope!

Me skiing uphill

My sister using the ski-lift

Tobogganing was great apart from having to pull the sled uphill. The sled was lighter than our one at home, but it was still tiring and I kept having to rest. Still, going downhill was great. I tried on my front, at the same time as my friend, and once from even higher up. Despite falling off a few times, I really enjoyed myself.

The toboggan slope

Around the middle of our stay, our hosts took my sister and to a swimming pool, or rather, about eight. There were a few warm mini pools with jets of water in them, and there was one large pool for playing in. It had some really large waves in it, but they weren't there all the time. There were also foam body boards to hold onto that helped you float.

Another pool had a diving board that my friends/ hosts and I jumped off. The queue wasn't too long, which was great. Next to that pool was another one, deep enough to dive into, and my friends taught my sister and I how to dive from standing up.

There was a different swimming pool, which had a slide. My sister had to go accompanied because she's under ten, and she was a bit scared. The slide was super long. I mean really, really long, and it was way better than the ones I've been to in London.


I was so sad when we had to go home! I definitely want to go back to visit Onnion again!