Col de Something - let's not go there!

Sunday 10^th July

I seem to have got into a bit of a habit of only getting to the computer every 3 days or so. The past few days have been all about the scenery.

After our exciting night at the hotel at Sevrier near Annecy (and free breakfast – sorry for the fire last night) we moved on the next day to Chambery which is further south but still close to the mountains. Rather than do just a straight drive down the motorway we picked a bit of a circuituous route that took us up and over a few different mountain passes. The scenery was just stunning.  

Another view of Mont Blanc

Along the way we stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch – not even a dot on the map, just marked with the collection of tradie vans out the front. Plat du jour was fish which was fairly bland but quite nice. As we were eating lunch a group of pushbikers pulled up and when we heard one of them speak we knew they were Aussies. There were 6 of them, about our age, from Canberra, and they were on a cycling holiday (their 6^th year). Sorry – in this part of France, cycling is no holiday. There are some really serious climbs and we saw lots of bikes out on the road, especially on Saturday and Sunday. These Aussie cyclists find a central town and train it with their bikes, then do rides from there, often taking a train one way or the other so they do mostly downhill rides.

The past 2 nights we have stayed at Chambery which is close to a beautiful lake – Lac de Bourget. We did a bit of a walk around the town on Friday afternoon and saw some interesting old medieval lanes which wound back and forth off a main street. We didn’t spend too long walking as it was very hot – the past few days have been in the 30s.

Chambery - One of the only medieval overhead footbridges left.

Part of the palace walls of the Ducs du Savoie palace in Chambery.

The famous fountain in Chambery - they call it the elephants with no tails though a bit less polite than that. Apparently it honours the exploits in India of some general from Chambery. 

Yesterday we went for a drive around Lac de Bourget. The tourist office had told us of a couple of places to see and the lady at the hotel told of us a couple of others. We first headed to the town of Aix-les-Bains which is on the lakeshore but there was a big music festival for the weekend and a lot of roads were closed so we just kept moving on. First stop a place called Le Revard where we got fabulous views of the lake and views back to Mont Blanc and the mountain range. Next stop La Chambotte, where we got a different view of the lake, again pretty spectacular. I’ve finally worked out though that ‘Col de something’ means steep, twisty, narrow, scary road. The one up to the second place was a nightmare such that we decided to come back a different way (not much better I might add).

View from Le Revard over Aix les Bains. Unfortunately not a great photo as it was early in the day and the sun was behind us making everything hazy. This is only half the lake - it continues around to the right.

An  abbey we could see on the other side of the lake.

The view of the lake from La Chambotte - this is the northern end of the lake.

At the northern end of the lake is a canal that joins the lake to the Rhone River and canal. At times of high water in the river the canal flows back into the lake. Our final stop was the town of Chanaz on the western side of the lake and we had lunch here and visited an 18^th century Moulin d’huile which grinds nuts to make oil. Quite interesting though it was all in French – I asked one question in French and the guy continued to talk to me in French. I picked up every 5^th word or so. No food handling certificates here – dip your finger in this little saucer of oil for a taste, after everyone else; have a taste of the ground hazelnut meal; here, taste the ‘nutella’. We’re still standing today so all good.

The canal at Chanaz.

The Moulin d'Huile.

Today we moved on south and into Provence. We weren’t going to come this far south until we found that the exhibition on at Carrieres de Lumieres is Marc Chagall. We have seen quite a bit of his work throughout France so decided it was meant to be and here we are. The drive down started out as travelling through the lower alps which were still really spectacular with views of mountains and snow from time to time. The second part of the trip was westwards across into Provence and this took us through some stunning gorges. Finally we found ourselves entering Provence and the landscape changed. It is a lot drier, a lot browner and less deep green colour, and the light seems to be a lot softer. We started to go through more villages with medieval centres (hardly saw any of this in the alps area) and see more castles on the hill tops. We stopped in one small village for lunch but didn’t go into the old ville. We have left something for next time.

Castle we could see from the village of Vaison le Romaine where we had lunch.

We are in Salon de Provence for tonight and tomorrow we go to the Marc Chagall exhibition, then moving northwards again towards our gite accommodation and the Tour de France.