Zermatt: Day 2

For the second day of hiking I decided to hike up to Gornergrat and take the train back down to town. On paper this should have been an easier hike than the previous one, but that was before I decided to get a little too clever.

The first part of hike climbed up onto a bit of a plateau, after which it mostly levelled off for a while.

From Zermatt

Again, I chose not to take the direct route, and instead went for a path with a view of the glaciers.

From Zermatt

Once I was most of the way to the top, I stopped at a small lake for a while and then changed my trail plans.

From Zermatt

The original path would have gradually climbed the last couple hundred meters following the railroad tracks. I decided that was boring and took a different path that started by going down 100m gradually and then stright up at the end. But, it had the advantage of getting up close to the glaciers.

From Zermatt

When I reached the place where the trail started to go up, I met a woman coming down. She said she wished me courage for the climb. The thought that making the climb would require courage scared me a little and made me wonder if I was about to do something stupid. A litle while later I ran into a guy who told me it must be really hard going up, but that it's probably a great cardio work out. In other words, it was steep, really steep, really really steep. Little steps, frequent breaks, lots of time, and a lot of cursing myself for picking the trail, and I did make it to the top. It was hard, but worth it. It always is in the end. I found the highest rock I could to sit down, and sat and watched the glacier for a while. I didn't see anyone else trying that trail. So I sat on top of the rocks and relaxed on my mountain, it was mine,that day I owned it.

From Zermatt

Zermatt: Day 1

The goal for the entire time in Zermatt was to do some nice day hikes followed by an afternoon nap before dinner. In other words, no rushing, just some relaxing time getting out and seeing nature. I definitely succeeded.

The first day I hiked up to the top of the Rothorn and took the cable car back down. The views along the way were excellent, with nice views of the Matterhorn especially.

From Zermatt

Instead of taking the most direct path to the top, I took a longer path that went past a number of small lakes.

From Zermatt

From Zermatt

After the lakes, there was a long climb up to the top of the mountain. But, it was worth it for the views of the glaciers and surrounding mountains.

From Zermatt

From Zermatt

Once I reached the top, I found a nice, large, flat boulder and laid down for a little rest in the sun.

Dam fine day in Switzerland

After Chamonix, it was off to Zermatt for a few days. I took a day to drive there and stopped at few places along the way. First was in Grands Montets, where I took the cable car up the mountain for a view.

From Chamonix to Zermatt

From there, it was into Switzerland, where I stopped at a few impressive dams along the way.

From Chamonix to Zermatt

From Chamonix to Zermatt

I've since realized that I didn't take a picture of the last dam from the front. That would have shown that it was close to 1000ft tall. That's a lot of water.

Then to Zermatt, just in time for dinner. Zermatt is a car-free town, so you have to stop at the town before it and take the train. I was a little skeptical of how this would work with a lot of luggage. In fact, it worked out perfectly. Parking garage at train station, parked on the same level as the platform and close to the door, the trains put down little ramps when they stop to make it easy to roll luggage on, and there are large areas for storing bags for the short ride. If only the trains in the Netherlands were that easy to travel with. Here it is a real nuisance to take the train if you have luggage or worse, a bike, because you have to lift it up into the car and then there is no place to put stuff unless you stand in the doorway. From the station in Zermatt, it was a very short walk to the hotel.

Chamonix

After leaving Grenoble, I headed to Chamonix. You hear about Chamonix quite a lot, so I figured I ought to check it out while I was in the area. The town itself did not inspire me very much, but the scenery surrounding is certainly quite good. I took the cable car up the Aiguille du Midi,

From Chamonix

which is right next to Mont Blanc, and brings you about 1000m below it. The cable car to get up there is probably the steepest cable car I have ever been on. It was a little disconcerting looking at the tiny cable holding such a big car so high above the ground. The view from the top was excellent with lots of other peaks and glaciers.

From Chamonix

From there, I took another cable car across into Italy. This gave a really good view over the glacier.

From Chamonix

After that, I took the cog train up to the Mer du Glace. This is the bottom of the same glacier that was seen up on the Aiguille du Midi.

From Chamonix

After Chamonix, off to Switzerland.

French Alps: Day 3

Today was a transition day between Grenoble and Chamonix, so there wasn't too much actual alps involved during the day. But, it gives me a place to put a few small things together.

Grenoble is a nice little city, not too big, and with convenient transportation links to most of the french alps (hence why I was staying there). Grenoble has it's own cable car, a little five car bubble thing that runs up and down from the center to the old fort above town.

From Grenoble and Annecy

On the way to Chamonix, I stopped off to see some cliffs.

From Grenoble and Annecy

There were a lot of people paragliding off of them. In fact, next to where I was standing was a launching pad for people jumping off the cliff.

The highlight of the day was definitely Annecy. The town sits on a big lake and has a nice old section of town with narrow streets. Half of it is built in the middle of the river for some reason.

From Grenoble and Annecy

From Grenoble and Annecy

French Alps: Day 2

So far on this trip, everyday has gone pretty much to plan. This day, did not. I only got through about half of what I planned to see (which in retrospect was probably too ambitious an amount). The reason is that I was driving along and saw this

From Vanoise National Park

a big fort right alongside the road. And I looked up and saw this

From Vanoise National Park

Another fort above it (and two more above it).

From Vanoise National Park

Well, the whole point of trips like this is to take time to discover stuff you weren't expecting, and this certainly qualified. There was no path to walk up to the upper fort (that I could find), so I had to figure out how to get to it. Fortunately, there was a road that could get me there. When I tried it, I got halfway and came to a construction sign saying road closed. There was no road, no ground, just a chasm where the next 100ft of road should have been. I guess that qualifies as closed. Strangely, there were no detour signs, so it took me a while to find my way up to the fort. From there, I saw another road leading even higher up into the mountains. I'm not the sort of person to not try to figure out where a road like that goes. The road went to here

From Vanoise National Park

Not a bad little detour. But, all of this had left me serious behind schedule.

Next stop would be Val d'Isère, but first I would need to get up the pass

From Vanoise National Park

From Vanoise National Park

Once in Val d'Isère, I took the cable car up to the top of the mountain for a good view. Rudely, the cable car stops a little ways below the absolute peak, so I had a very steep and tiring little climb in the thin air to get to the top. But, it was worth it.

From Vanoise National Park

The plan was then to go to Tignes and take the funicular and cable car up to the mountain and glacier there. But, by the time I had arrived it had closed. The cable cars all seem to close at about 4pm, even though there's two hours or more of decent light left at this time of year. Thwarted, I headed back to the hotel.

French Alps: Day 1

After the Tour de France, it was time to spend some time in the mountains. The first full day was spent driving to a number of places in and around the Ecrins National Park. The day started off at L'Alpe d'Huez. The drive up to the top was filled (even more so than most mountain roads) with cyclists. They had their work cut out for them. Once at the top, I found some nice lakes to walk around and explore.

From Ecrins National Park

Just look at those nice reflections! The sky and water were so blue, with everything mirrored in the lake. Had that been all I did for the day, it would have been worth it. The non-lake views were good too.

From Ecrins National Park

Next stop was a drive up the little valley to La Berarde.

From Ecrins National Park

From there it was off to the Col du Lautaret and the Col du Galibier. As a small educational service on behalf of myself, the french road traffic agency, and all the other cars stuck in line with me, I would like to remind all the drivers of RVs to think carefully before trying to drive giant RVs up steep, narrow, twisty roads to the top of mountains. When you can only manage 1st gear and are belching smoke, that should be a clue that it's maybe not a good idea, or at least that maybe you should let some traffic past. With that out of the way, now onto the views, they were good. First at the Oratoire du Chazelet

From Ecrins National Park

and then at the Col du Galibier itself. The air was so clear you could see Mont Blanc clearly in the distance (just not in a picture this small) even though it is quite a long distance away.

From Ecrins National Park

From Ecrins National Park

After that, the plan was to continue on to Briançon and the Col du Izoard before turning back. But, I'd spent so much time at Alpe d'Huez that morning that I had run out of time. Something for another trip.

Jax and the Tour de France

While going to the Tour de France wasn't originally on my plan for this trip, once I found out that it would be passing nearby, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to say that I had seen it. Not knowing what to expect in terms of crowds or closed roads, I found an obscure spot along the route that could be reached by a long series of backroads that probably few people would know about. The plan worked to perfection and I was able to park in a shady orchard a few yards from the course and with only about 20 other people around.

The first thing that happens when the Tour is coming is that about an hour and a half before the riders come through, the caravan as they call it comes by. This is basically a big parade made up of advertizers' vehicles that goes to the start and finish towns (and probably stops for a little bit at the bigger towns along the route). This was by far the best part of the day and took me by complete surprize. It is a lot like watching a parade. The cars and trucks are painted up and modified to look like things, there are girls waving and throwing little bags of candy and things.

From Tour de France

The difference is that they are driving by at 80 km/h and passing each other while doing all this.

From Tour de France

It was a riot and, because I was in a spot with so few people, I got a ton of goodies as they got thrown out.

After a while, more cars came by and we could tell that the first riders were close. There was a pretty big breakaway group.

From Tour de France

A few minutes after that, the peloton arrived.

From Tour de France

I managed to snap a picture with Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong next to each other. The picture isn't that good, but it's still cool.

From Tour de France

And, as fast as it had started, it was done. The first riders were by in a flash, and the peloton was past in just a few seconds, off down the road.

From Tour de France

I had expected that this would be one of those things where you do it to say you've done it and then never feel the need to do it again. In fact, if I got the chance to see it again, I would do it, though I might skip the actual race next time.

From the Loire to the Alps

After leaving the Loire, I took an overnight stop in Beaune on the way to Grenoble. This allowed me to get off the autoroute for a bit and to see some more sites. Beaune itself is a nice little town and seems to be a bit of a hub for the wine industry. It has more wine shops per squre inch than any place I have seen It also has a very interesting old hospital.

From Burgundy

Visited Vezelay, which has a famous basilica. The basilica was nice enough, but there wasn't that much else to see in town.

From Burgundy

The same could be said of Cluny, which has an abbey that is merged in with the town. But that means all the buildings are now stores and offices and such, so the walk around to look at the historical buildings isn't very satisfying. The undisputed highlight of the drive down was Perouges. This is a compact, walled town on top of a hill. It is almost entirely intact, making it a pleasure to walk around and explore. Surprisingly, it was fairly devoid of other tourists.

From Burgundy

From Burgundy

Next, the french alps.

Châteaux of the Loire

Seeing the castles of the Loire was one of the things I had been wanting to do since coming to Europe. It is one of the most famous collecitons of castles anywhere. The few days in the Loire were spent going to as many castles as could be seen in a day. There are a lot of castles there, a lot of castles were seen, a lot more were not seen. The surrounding scenery itself is not all the exciting, mostly level ground with corn fields, trees, and the occasional river. I think the real reason so many castles are located here is that it was a convenient place for hunting, and all the royalty wanted to be near eachother.

Here are some of the highlights
Amboise (where Leonardo da Vinci is buried), which was better from the outside (also because the town was nice)

From Châteaux of the Loire

Ussé, which was hard to take a picture of because of the layout of the grounds

From Châteaux of the Loire

Chinon, which was one of the most fortress-like, and so one of my favorites

From Châteaux of the Loire

Fontevraud Abbey (where Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitane, and Richard the Lionheart are buried)

From Châteaux of the Loire

Chenonçeau, built on a bridge across the river, and one of the must sees

From Châteaux of the Loire

Villandry, which itself is not that impressive, but has very elaborate gardens. Unfortunately, they are best view from above, which is difficult to do.

From Châteaux of the Loire

And finally, Chambord, which is also one of the must sees because of it's size

From Châteaux of the Loire

and because of its double helix staircase

From Châteaux of the Loire

While the Loire is famous for its castles, I think I was a victim of high expectations. The castles were good, and some were very good, but I found the landscape between them to be lacking. In my mind, the castles of the Rhine-Mosel are more engaging.

After all of that, there is a transit day in Burgundy on the way down to Grenoble where the French Alps Phase begins. No doubt there will be even more castles along the way.