The Road Goes Ever On

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Chamonix

Our favorite place in the French Alps (but, of course), site of at least six previous visits, many adventures (the telepheriques and hiking in 1979, 1986, 1989, etc., parasailing in 1993, the Tour du Mont Blanc in 2005) and memories...is Chamonix. We stayed more than a week this time (including two days of wretched camper repairs, one day of sickness), camped with dozens of other RVs in the aire that is part of the Telepherique d'Aiguille du Midi parking lot, a block from central Chamonix. More adventures, memories, and...pix.

The Glacier des Bossons and Mont Blanc, from our aire

Part of the aire

Part of the lower glacier, from the trail above; and the

summit of Mt. Blanc, 15,700'

The Aiguille du Midi; we are parked right below it...it is

about 9,000 feet above us!

East of us, Dru, the Grand Jorasses, the Mer du Glace

(more of all later)

Festivities near the Office du Tourisme

More Beautiful Annecy

We ventured into town our second day there, taking the ferry from Jorioz up the lake to Annecy.

The old chateau overlooking the town

Quay-side and street scene; we had lunch somewhere along

here, a formula lunch so large neither of us could finish; in

my case I simply tired tweezering the tiny French moules
from their shells...

We located the marzipan shop we both had been impressed

by in 1993; of course, having seen the one in Lubeck, five

stories and marzipan museum, we are no longer quite so

impressed

But we were impressed with the cookie shop

Very impressed

The harbor and international park; Annecy is a finalist for

the coming Winter Olympics

A beautiful setting and place

Beautiful Annecy

One of our favorite memories from previous visits is the beautiful Alpine lake-side town of Annecy. It is a favorite resort among the French--or anyone else who has been there.

We checked into a campground on the lake between Annecy

and Albertville and watched the parapentes (parasails)

drifting by the Bauges...

And sailing lessons on the Lac

The Sausage Guy visits the campground on Wednesdays;

we bought a normale (pig, we think; he had several

varieties, including from some animals not normally

associated (by Americaines) with sausage), a smoked,

and a walnut sausage...

And enjoyed an afternoon snack of sausage, cheese, wine...

Dined, and then watched the alpenglow on the Bauges;

OK, we also dumped, did the wash, cleaned the camper

out a bit, took a walk....

Still More Route des Grandes Alpes

Still more of the Route des Grandes Alpes...

White-water rafting on one of the upper tributaries of the

Var; actually, the water is kind of a milky-gray, glaciers

not far away; it is not warm...

Beyond Briancon (I think), an over-sized metal statue of

Edward Whymper, pointing the way...his Scrambles

Amongst the Alps (1869), chronicled his many adventures

and first ascents, including his seven attempts (and

ultimate triumph and tragedy) to scale the Matterhorn;

it initiated the great age of (largely British) Alpinism

and the literature of mountaineering

OK, so now we're in the Hautes Alpes

The pass not taken (the driver over-rode the navigatrix);

at this point, we turned left and headed for Grenoble, on

real roads

Typical scenery along the way

Later June, the Alpine wildflowers are in abundance; me

assembling a bouquet

More Route des Grandes Alpes

More pix from the Route des Grandes Alpes...

Beginning our ascent of the Col d'Allos, north of

St. Andy of the Alps

Ever upward, almost past even the ski-lift

The Col; not all that high actually

View from the top

The road down the other side

Nice scenery along the way

We made it; 40 km of single-lane (with occasional passing

bays), great exposure, guard-rails that seemed designed to

show where you went over rather than restrain you;

hair-pin turns we could barely make on one go; the good

news is that there are no heavy goods vehicles nor tour

busses on these roads; Vicki handled it all fairly well,

taking hundreds of fuzzy pix, later deleted...

Interesting features near the Lac du Serra-Poncton

Route des Grandes Alpes

The Route des Grandes Alpes is a patch-work of roads, mostly secondary, tertiary, leading from Nice into the high country. We spent three days driving various sections of it, a couple of the high passes, spending a night at an aire in St. Andres des Alpes, another on a scenic lay-by near Savines les Lac, seeing bits of Barcelonette, Briancon, Grenoble, Chambery, another night at an RV dealer near Chambery, and then a couple more nights in a campground near Annecy. All this in the Pre-Alps, the Maritime Alps, the Dauphine Alps, the Bauges...lots of mountains around here. This and the next couple of posts provide some views.

The road passes through very deep and
narrow limestone canyons of the river Var;
note (click to enlarge) the netting devised

to protect from stone-fall

A tree-lined, telephone pole-line, railway-lined road, with a
car passing another, approaching us; the main point of
which photo is the hill village on the right

Castle on the crag

One passes through innumerable villages along the way;

we were particularly taken with a little place called

Colmars, a walled-town that had been from the 16th

century a French border guard castle keeping an eye

on unfriendly Savoy; had lunch there

A portal; the town all spruced-up for tourists

Square and trough; the cute, colorful

pennants really add a touch class, no?

Church tower and exterior wall

One of the neater little Alpine shoppes I have seen; Vicki

stimulated the local economy here

Bike art

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Corniches, Lower, Middle, Superieur

And, the next day, we drove from Nice to Menton, on the Italian border, traveling a bit of the lower and middle Corniches to Menton, then the superior Corniche back to Nice. We really like this part of the world. Who wouldn't?!