To the top and back.

 Thursday 5th June

Today was all about the mountain passes and snow. Our plan was to head east towards Briancon (visited in 2018) and drive up 2 of the mountain passes that are often used on the Tour de France. It was a miserable sort of day. Lots of cloud and raining on and off. Probably not the best day to be heading in to the mountains to have a look-see, but today was what we had. 

The road to the east is a good road though a lot of roadworks and a lot of speed changes (Rob hates all the up and down in speeds and is always impatient to be in the lead on the road. Grr!)

First mountain climb - Alpe d'Huez. We arrived at the turn off to find the road closed with bikes, walkers, motor bikes, marshals, and lots of traffic cones. There was an event happening fund raising for cancer, that was to see over 5000 people going up the mountain. So plan A thwarted.

On to plan B. Heading further east towards Briancon with the plan to drive up the Col de Lauteret, and the Col de Galibier. Both of these roads showed signage they were open. The Col de Lauteret was really a 2 way major road - wide and mostly in good condition apart from roadworks. Lots of motorbikes on the road having fun, and a lot of pushbikes pushing their way up the mountains and supposedly having fun. !?! Are you serious. And it was raining??? 

Driving along the road that basically followed the valleys and the path of the river Isere, and climbed into the clouds, we didn't always get a look at the mountains either side of us but some of the rock formations were truly amazing, and when we broke away from the clouds, and looked way up, the snow covered mountains rose high above us. Just magnificent and the sort of mountain territory we just don't see at home. No opportunity to take photos along the way as there was a fair amount of traffic and it rained on and off all the way.

Stopped at the top of Col de Lauteret 2508m and had a hot chocolate and pain au chocolate. Boy was it cold. Puffer jackets and beanies weather. We stopped here in 2018 also. Lots of the motor bikes also took a break here. 

This Bentley also stopped for coffee. I'm guessing they were pretty cold too.

The Tour de France finished here one year.

Odette and Alice wanted to get that winner feeling.

Turn left here and we moved on to the Col de Galibier, 2642m. The road from here was narrow and very steep. Lots of pushbikes to pass on the way up, and watch out for those coming back down. We got to within 200m of the peak and the road was closed to traffic. There is a tunnel at this point that takes you through the mountain, under the peak, to the other side. The pushbikes didn't stop at the road closed - their aim is to ride to the top. Talking to one pushbiker he said there was a lot of snow on the  road which is why it was closed. 

From where we came out of the tunnel, looking back up to the top.

And this is part of the road we travelled up.
The photo doesn't really give you a good feel for how steep it was.

I'm cold - time for a cuddle.

Throw me another snowball. We see this stance and intense concentration
from our girl when a tennis ball is involved.

Pretty spectacular hey Alice?

This was the tunnel we came through.
Only 200m long but the road up and over the top twists and turns and is around 2k.

Our car.

The marker at the top.

Looking back down to the hotel at the top of the Col de Lauteret
where we had hot chocolate. 

Time to head back to Grenoble via lunch in La Grave. There is a telepherique here to the top which we saw was operating.  When we were here in 2018 it was closed, due to open the next day. Unfortunately we had to give it a miss as the weather at the top was not great and the lady advised not wasting our time and money. 

As we got closer to Grenoble the rain had cleared and the cloud lifted a bit, and it was at least a few degrees warmer.