Park Hotel Suisse Chamonix

Destination 405

km197'555

Not entirely shure, if I spend my last day in a foreign country, I head towards north. A stopover at Novi Ligure provides me finally the opportunity to send a notification to all family and friends about my remaining itinerary before return back home. The date has been fixed to the 29.
The ride up to Vercelly in the low lands was not that exciting like the sighting of the mountain of Mont Blanc in the far. Since my ...

Rainy and cold has replaced sunny and warm in France but it has not curbed ambitions... Well, I guess any ambition to exercise has been exhausted but we saw that one coming.

Travel is still high priority. Last week the GEP cohort was treated to a day trip to Mt. Blanc in Chamonix. A three hour bus ride west took us into the steep peaked, deep valley-ed Rhône-Alpes. The landscapes only got more impressive as we wove through the valleys and eventually reached the base of Mt. Blanc. We ...

... worn out.



Friday


< br>Friday turned out to be a
****** day and the clouds were hanging in the mountains just above
the city buildings, so therefore I knew that sightseeing would be
wasted effort. I got up lazily and went down to the reception to
read the International Herald Tribune and around noon headed downtown
to see what was happening. I did some shopping (it had to be dreary
out for me to do some shopping) and then was getting hungry ...

... up to
me and I was ready for the bed.



Wednesday 10-21



I got up to a cloudy day and
headed to the town center to go to the Tourist Information (TI)
office to pick up some maps for my travels in the area. The wind was
howling and the TI rep told me that all the lifts were closed due to
the winds, so no travels up the mountain today. I picked up the
maps, headed to the town center to pick up a sandwich and then
headed back to ...

... and that if he fails, he will have to spend the night in jail. Awesome... So I wait with the car for about 20 min thinking crazy thoughts in my head.... Jon finally comes back and had only blown 0.007. The cops finally admit that the balloon is never accurate and yes, the construction is blocking the sign, so they didn’t even give us a ticket and told us we were lucky they liked Canadians! Still, it wasn't a fun ...

... that 120 mile length doesn't count the thousands and thousands of meters vertical involved. On one day this week, we climbed 1,700m, over a mile, up. It's roughly the equivalent of climbing the Empire State Building almost five times. For some, namely my brother and sister, this is a peice of cake. Sure, they get a bit tired, but after all, these are people who know the comparative nutritional values of five brands of energy bars ...

... drink and to decide on what to do next. Now if you are ever in Chamonix and someone offers you a locally brewed green beer don't make the same mistake I did and buy one that is of course unless you are looking for a substitute for a blueberry vodka cruiser! Dinner was fun let's say. Jason had suggested we try Raclette which sounded interesting and hey when it comes to food we are up for most things that don't involve Mackrel! So we headed in to one of the ...

... the first winter Olympics happened in 1924 and is also the site of that crazy ski chase in James Bond 007 "The World Is Not Enough". It is "the Alpinism capital of the world", and rightfully so. Chamonix is about 1000 metres (remember metres, not feet here) above sea level and many of the peaks in the surrounding Alpes top 4000 metres. In between the peaks are glaciers that will take your breath away. One of the biggest is the "Mer de Glace" (sea of ice ...

The reason I went to France was to go skiing at chamonix/Mont Blanc, which i did and it was fantastic and i will be doing again very soon before i get tied up.. while i was there i did the world famous ski run Valley de blanche you ski over a glacier. which is amazing, the veiws you get on theis run are spectacular. definately take a camera.
to start this run however you take a gondola up to the summit of Aguille de medie (i'm unsure of the correct ...

... over their faces. And then would they shut up about it? Great day and a welcome break from the activities, but not for long.... Day 6: The glory climb - L'Aguilette D'Argentiere Leafing through the climbing guide a couple of days back I spied this great pillar of rock standing by itself amongst the cliffs overlooking Argentiere. It is about 25m high and Narrows to a small 1mx1m platform at the very top. Simply put, it's spectacular and we can climb it. Also, it ...