539An Account of the Early Catered Chalet Holidays
posted on August 11th, 2009
In 1770 the very first hotel was opened in Chamonix.
Prior to this Chamonix Haute Savoie embodied a wild and craggy agrarian hamlet where the populace hunted their own animals and produced their own barley.
Farmhouses at that time were used to farm herds over the spring and summer.
Their milk was conserved by changing it into cheese and butter and kept down in the valley for eating over the hard winters.
Throughout the winter season the farms were secured, and any valued possessions were secured in a liitle shack.
Quite who invented catered chalet holidays is unknown, it was probably several spirited folk who realised a formula that people liked.
With Erna Low it all began when she was a homesick student and could not see her parents in Austrias often as she would like to.
Therefore in 1931 she took a gamble and took out ad in the broadsheets to tempt punters on a skiing break. The cost was £15 and they journeyed to and from resort, were provided with dinner and lodging in the sole hotel, and paid for skiing equipment and instruction.
The trip was hard, there weren’t any lifts, no safety bindings, only leather boots, however it was such a hit that Erna Low carried on taking people on vacations, seeing to it that she employed superb lodges and instructors.
Chalet holidays during the early years were very different from the luxury ski accommodation we can get nowadays.
In the early days hot water was in short supply, washrooms would be shared out by all of the customers, and there wasn’t a chef; all the punters were expected to help out with the chores.
It was a real gamble who might be in the chalet for the trip, one may be surprised to encounter brand new allies, or spend a week of hell with people you didn’t get on with.
