Stunning scenery and lots of lycra

Thursday 7^th July

I am sitting on the window ledge at the front of the hotel in my nightie as the fire alarm is ringing in the hotel. It seems like there is a fire in the kitchen so we’ve grabbed the valuable stuff (no clothes) and headed out the door. Now we wait for the fire brigade I guess.

In the meantime, a summary of the past 2 days.

Yesterday was a magic day and we headed for Chamonix. Probably for the first time on this holiday we found ourselves right in the middle of the tourist traffic. We heard all sorts of accents in Chamonix – and saw lots of tourist buses of Japanese and other nationalities. We headed for the tourist office to get the info on what to see and the first person we ran into (he heard us speak) was an Aussie from Sydney. He gave us some info on the best thing to do, and the tourist info desk concurred. We took the trip up to l’Aiguille du Midi which is a cable car ride up to 3800m where you get a great view of the surrounding mountains. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves but it is something that you really just need to imprint in the memory banks. Absolutely breathtaking.

The town is getting ready for the tour in 2 weeks time. 

More painted cows.

The colour of this river was quite strange - milky light coffee colour.

They have this 'thrill' - step into the void. A bit like Eureka Tower but it is 1000m below you to the 'ground'. Stepping out there I felt like I needed to hang on.

The smooth white bump is Mont Blanc - 4810m.

We thought we’d get in another cable car ride to another peak but we spent the whole day just at the one place. Unfortunately I got altitude sickness after nearly 2 hours up there so it was time to come down. A coffee and nice cake at the bottom and I started to feel better though still had a slight headache for the rest of the day. We had a great day out.

Today, Thursday, we headed back towards Annecy. It was only 60k so we took the scenic route up over a couple of mountain passes. Turns out we picked a couple of the roads that the Tour will use in a couple of weeks. One of the roads I am sure we have watched them ride over on TV. Brilliant scenery – sadly we didn’t stop for photos. When you watch it on TV you can see that it is a climb, but when you actually drive it, these guys are incredible. No wonder they have super muscles in their thighs. There are a lot of roadworks going on in the area at the moment – getting the roads ready for the Tour. One town we went through on one of the passes was really pretty and if we come back to this area we will go to the town again.

A panorama shot across Lake Annecy - taken at about 8.45pm.

This afternoon we have just rested and enjoyed the peaceful Lake Annecy. Peaceful until the fire siren that is. The pompiers are here now so we will see how things go. Hopefully they won’t need to soak our clothes and they won’t smell of smoke. C’est la vie.

And now we are sitting on the window sill with a complimentary drink. France has just won the football so there are a lot of cars driving past tooting their horns. Now they are in the final Sunday night.