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| Us atop the Gondola at Chamonix |
What were we thinking? The sight of snow perhaps? The dizzying height of Mt Blanc? Don’t know. Whatever it was, we donned jumpers, scarfs and jackets at the top of the Chamonix Mt Blanc gondola and marched out into thirty degree sunshine.
In moments we were sweating, by the top of the short walk to the viewing platform, scantily clad sunbathers looked on strangely as mr and mrs Michelin, stumbled red faced and sweat drenched onto the deck.
We sat up there for ages enjoying a few wines the view and the sun (sensibly stripped to Tshirts – with a sack load of spare clothes in case of sudden blizzards). There were people and dogs of all persuasion’s sitting in awe at the site of Mt Blanc rising straight 3810m from the valley below already at 1000m.
Later we caught the rack railway up the other side of the valley to the “sea of ice” – Mer de Glace. Tiny specks on the ice turned out to be day trippers out walking. I think they’re too small to see in the photo but for us they highlighted how unbelievable large the valley and the glacier were.
We watched a thunder storm come up the valley later in the day and dropped down from Montevers just as the lightning struck and the thunder rumbled through the mountains.
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Later that night, after our day trip to Chamonix, we went to the actual (and delightful) Annecy old town. The lake runs into a river at the garden we’d walked in last night and into the town. The glacial-blue clear water is divided by an island comprised of a small castle-like building and a conglomeration of stone houses, shops and passageways. The isle is joined to the rest of the town by many beautiful arched bridges and along the rivers banks are more restaurants than you can poke a good many sticks at.
We had booked to eat raclette at one of these premises, a swiss restaurant – and what a raclette it was. I reckon about a 600g wedge of cheese with thick rind is jammed under two radiators (one for each exposed cheese face), and we scrape the melting cheese onto boiled potatoes (a 20kg sack worth), cold meats and pickles. We’re advised a good local red is best with this dish and take on the challenge of half a bottle of that as well. By the end I can scarcely walk and it takes a good while to get back to our hotel (right in the old town), resting frequently along the way.
Unbelievable, our waiter for the night, born in Northern France, living near the boarders of Switzerland, Italy and France and fluent in as many languages, is named Kevin.
Tomorrow we head back towards Paris.