Charmonix Mt Blanc

10 June - Day 86

The plan was to go up Mt Blanc sometime this week. I knew that it would not be worthwhile going up Mt Blanc if the visibility was poor. This Sunday was very sunny, though not as sunny and clear as Thursday to come - but I didn't know this then.

I'd run into a guy from Bombay the night before, and he sold me a couple of his multi-pass smart card for Mt Blanc for 6 euros (the value of refund if you return the smart card). This pass allows you to recharge for the incremental cost of about 12 euros per extra day once the initial 52 euros for day one was paid. He said he only used one of the two days as well, so I thought how fortuitous.

So at 11am we were down at the Charmonix Telecabin (cable car) station.

At the gate, we waved our cards at the reader panel on the left but it didn't work. The attendent tried too but no go. He suggested they might have expired. So back out to the ticket office for a cheap recharge. The lady at the office said we could only recharge an unexpired card, so we had to do that last night. So after all that we had to stump up the 55 euros each. The good thing though about the multi-pass is that you can use it all day (or however many days you buy) on all the cable cars and mountain train in Charmonix without having to queue for tickets and pay all the single ride fares.

The highest point of this route is the cable car station Aiguille du Midi at 3,842 metres. The trip take 2 stages, from Charmonix (already 1,035m) to Plan De L'aiguille (2,317m) then Aiguille du Midi.

Once on top, there are multiple viewing areas and platforms. I think we did all of them. The air up here is thinner, so I did feel a bit light headed and was breathless when we ran up some steps.

There was a whole bunch of Japanese guys singing loudly in the cafe. I guess the beers they were drinking and lack of oxygen may have produced the spontaneous karaoke.

You can see Charmonix in the valley below.

The clouds are below us.

We managed to find a seat in the cafe near the window.

There were plenty of hikers walking around the mountain top carrying their very dangerous looking pick axes, crampons, tampons and croutons.

The Aiguille is one of the few places in Europe that is dog free, because no dogs are allowed in the cable car. So if you are blind, you will have to walk up with your guide dog. The cable car are packed quite tight especially when the paragliders bring their parachutes into the cabin.

The pylons are very far apart, and in some places the cable is almost vertical. Here is a shot of the cable disappearing into the clouds.

From Aiguille, you can, for extra cost, take another Panoramic Telecabin to the Helbronner peak on the Italian side of Mt Blanc. It would have been a 40 min ride, but it was closed for maintenance. From Helbronner, there are two more cable cars taking you down to Courmayer, in Italy. Maybe next trip.

After Aiguille on the way down, we stopped at Plan de Aiguille and walked around a bit. You can actually walk down to Charmonix from here if you are geared up for it. The cable car trip down was a bit spooky when we were at the vertical cable bit. We were standing by the window on the downward side. I guess you could say Mt Blanc is the high point of our trip.

Upon disembarking in Charmonix, I was determined to fully utilise our day pass. We then walked the 500 metres down the road to the Montenvers-Mer de Glace station to take the train to Montenvers where the Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) is supposed to be.

The train itself is rather interesting. The gradient is too steep for normal traction, so they have put the drive wheel under the train called a rack and pinion system. This wheel claws the train up the hill along a third rail of gear teeth running along the middle of the track.

The seats in the train are more inclined than normal to stop you sliding off. The views on the way up were pretty good. It was a 30 min ride up.

At Montenvers, all we could see was a huge valley carved up by the glacier, but no glacier. The tourist information also claims that there is an ice cave excavated into the glacier. The cave is there but with no glacier around it.

We took the 20 min walk down anyway just to get a closer view of the glacier valley. And a bit longer back up. Along the way, there were three plates indicating the position of the glacier in 1820, 1860 and 1920. Even the French can't avoid global warming. I looked for the 2012 plate, but we didn't get to the bottom of the valley. Hope it comes back in winter.

The authorities must take this off-season time to do maintenance. The cable car that would have taken us down to the former glacier was closed "for maintenance". I'd rather think it was closed for economic reasons.

It started raining, so we quickly took the rack and pinion train back to Charmonix.

 

14 June - Day 90

It rained (Wellington type rain, drip drip drip), so we slept late, ate breakfast slowly, took our time doing abolutions and were not ready for action till about 3pm, for 3 days.

I need a break from planning exciting adventures every day anyway.

Yesterday was another GPS merry go round day. I'd booked an apartment for us near Geneva, but in France a small village called Segny. 14 km outside Geneva, heaps cheaper than staying in Switzerland. And we can use Park and Ride, you park the car and ride into the city on a bus or train. As it was raining, we decided to take a drive there for a recce. This is a 100km drive each way on the A40 which cost 12 euros in tolls return.

On the way to Segny (or so we thought), I stopped to pick up a hitch-hiker. He was a high school teenager from Charmonix needing a ride back to school about 10km outside Charmonix. Turns out, his mother is from Dunedin, yes NZ. He speaks French with dad and English with mum. Been to NZ 4 times to visit grand parents and has kiwi and euro passports. Mum named him Liam, and she is not even Irish. He gets a hard time about his name, cause the French don't understand and can't pronounce Liam.

So the GPS decided to take us through 4 border crossings, through Suisse, then France, and on the way back France then Suisse. Forget it, I asked the Swiss Police to send me back to France, and he said go ahead and turn gauche (left).

Home and Marcus cooked dinner under supervision.

Getting on to today, this is the Thursday I mentioned above. The weather was perfect, we were both in shorts. Marcus was wearing his last undies. So we find ourselves in a familiar place, laundromat.

After that, making the most of the perfect weather. We walked around Charmonix.

They have a glacier, des Bossons.

A river, l'Arve.

Shopping streets, including an Ice Breaker shop.

Expensive real estate 1.4M euro for a 5 bedroom place with a 48 sq m deck (hah! mine is 100 sq m - big deck!!).

A shopping mall with a Supermarche.

Statues, plazas and fountains.

A leisure park with luges, kiddy rides and so on. It appears to be open in the weekends only.

As in most cities in Europe, there is no house rubbish collections. You have to put rubbish and recycling into these roadside bins.

We then went to Super U for 1.2kg of chicken and 500g of beans for dinner - to be cooked that is.

TV in the evening was Un Gars Une Fille, very funny despite missing 86% of the spoken content. This is about a French couple learning English, visiting Hong Kong etc and getting into funny situations because of language and cultural differences. Hmm feels familiar.