Wednesday was our last bus day as we drove from Switzerland to France. This whole trip we'd been riding in one of those big, long tour buses you typically see in tourist spots. It was nice and roomy for 28 people, but it was a bit hair-raising on this last leg of the journey. Chamonix is in a valley next to Mont Blanc - the highest mountain in all of Europe. The only way to get there was to drive up over the mountains and then down into the valley. The drop-offs along the road were very steep. Not too many people were running to the windows to snap photos on this leg of the journey.
We got to town in the rain (typical). We headed out to do our last geocache, which turned out to be right next to St Michel's church. Of course, I had to go in and light a candle. We had dinner at a quirky little restaurant filled with cuckoo clocks, copper pots, and assorted antiques. Since this was France, we got a break from the beer and cheese noodles. Bruce had the beef bourguignon and I had the chicken in wine sauce.
Chamonix was much larger than the other towns we'd been in. It reminded me a lot of Vail, Colorado, because everyone was there to either hike or ski. Bruce and I decided to hike the mountains on the opposite side of Mt Blanc, mostly to avoid the ice and extreme elevations (12,000 ft), but also we figured we'd get a better view of Mt Blanc if we were hiking across from it rather than on it.
This was also our most rigorous hike yet. I'm not sure if that was because of the rocky trail or the fact that we hadn't really recovered from our Switzerland hike. We took a gondola about halfway up the mountain and started out on a really pretty, flat trail that was edged with wildflowers. The views of the mountains and the glacier on the opposite side were really amazing.
We were so high up, however, that at times we were looking down or through the clouds. Good thing, because it helped disguise how high up we were and how narrow the trail really was.
There were quite a few people out on the trail - mostly French, but we also kept passing an Asian girl dressed all in red and hiking alone. She looked like she might even be heading to a camping spot, because she was carrying a lot of gear, including a sleeping bag. At one point, we came to another "yellow brick road" moment (like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz)... a 4-way junction with no idea which way to go. The French family went right, but the Asian girl went straight. We opted to follow her, since she had a map.
When we got to the end of the trail, we stopped to watch all the people paragliding. Paragliding is that sport in which people hold onto a wide, parachute-like canopy and then jump off the side of a cliff, and glide to the bottom. They were jumping off right in front of us - 2 people in tandem. The rookie was in the front and the instructor was in the back. I doubt I would have had the guts to run off that cliff.
But all good things must come to an end. We took a shuttle back to Geneva, Switzerland on Friday and flew home. Luckily both our suitcases arrived with us, though mine was missing its handle. I'm going to take the next few days and just relax, but I'm already planning our next adventure for 2015. Hiking the El Camino Way in Spain sounds fun, don't you think?!!
