y ogb europe 2006 page 4

Europe 2006
Page 4

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Days 11 & 12 - River Deep, Mountain High

It's 4 am, the bedsheets are a ragman's heap on the floor. I'm laying on top of the bed in a half slumber between sleep and awake, not fully conscious but aware that I'm soaked in sweat and very hot..... Camera flash! Who the hell is taking photos this hour of the morning? Now they sound like they're dragging a wheelie bin down the road! Another flash - bloody hell that's some powerful flash gun the boy's got there................ Then, a HUGE Crack right overhead of us and I jump up, now forced into a state of very much wide awake. Wee Jimmy sleeps on.

I love a good thunderstorm, so drag myself off the bed and walk over to the window, where the half open shutters are thrown fully back. To call this rain would be to drastically belittle it and it may get upset. It transcends rain, it's a deluge - a small Tsunami ! Coming down in buckets with drops the size of golf balls which make the street below morph into a raging, deep torrent of a river. I hope the hood on the Eunos is a good 'un, it's never had to keep the likes of this out before. It continues for ages, thunder cracks echoing off the surrounding hills, then lightning flashes and that rain - oh boy, that rain! I stand watching 'til it subsides, then climb back onto the bed where the sheets are still soaked with my sweat from earlier, not comfy and sleep is now a hard to come by commodity! In just a few hours we'll be on the road again heading east towards the French Alps, and Chamonix Mont Blanc.

Our first glimpse of the Mont Blanc Range.

Mid afternoon, we're driving into Chamonix and I've just missed our turning into the part of the town we need to be for our hotel - bugger! GPS man told me to turn there but Wee Jimmy and me are too busy looking at mountains and glaciers to care. Never mind there's a roundabout coming up where we can do a U turn.

We land at the Hotel De l'arve and thank God, it's a decent hotel, in fact it's more than decent it's terrific, but then again Ghandi's tent would be luxury after the place we've just come from! The receptionist is brilliant and has us checked in quickly. We just want to get out and explore this fantastic looking town but first we need a shower and soft white fluffy towels! That done we're soon out on the town and sat in a bar with a nice cold Leffe each.

Chamonix is a gem of a town, I was here a couple of years ago on a bike tour (2004) but we only stayed for the one night so never got the opportunity to look around it much. Pity because it's a fabulous place with lots going on. Wee Jimmy is loving it here, so much so, that to make it special for her I take her and buy a new engagement ring from a nearby jewellers. This will be her 4th one now, I've never known anyone go through so many bloody engagement rings, she doesn't lose them, she breaks them because she never takes them off - looking on the bright side it keeps the jewellery industry going I suppose! - and at least she's kept the same fella!

The River Arve running through Chamonix

Our hotel the De l'Arve

We're enjoying this hotel, it has a great bar and the rooms are just excellent. We pick up some info on the cable car from Mont Blanc to the Aguille du Midi. That's the main reason we've come here so I guess we'd best start sorting it, we're only staying 2 nights so the window of opportunity is very small. Isobelle the Receptionist advises us to go up as early as we can, to get the best light and to avoid the queues that gather later in the day. However we check the weather forecast on the TV and it doesn't look good for tomorrow morning, with low cloud and rain in prospect. It does say it will be clearer and brighter in the afternoon though so we may leave it 'til then. We go to bed, slightly inebriated but happy. we'll wait and see what tomorrow brings

The view from the De l'Arve Bedroom window,
this faces the opposite side of the valley to Mont Blanc

7- 45 am, Wee Jimmy is shaking me to wake me up and she's excited! She's been awake since 6am and it was a beautiful bright sunny morning then, she was waiting for the forecast clouds to arrive but they've not put in an appearance yet, and to be honest it doesn't look like they will. We're showered, dressed, breakfasted and now at 8- 45 we're at the cable car station, the "Telepherique" where we've just bought our tickets, they ain't cheap but I suppose they have to keep the riff raff out !!

Now the ground is falling away from us at an incredible speed and the cable car is swinging like a demolition man's ball !   As we accelerate away from the ever shrinking town below I'm thinking to myself, people queue for hours and pay a fortune at places like Alton towers for this kind of adrenalin rush . The sun is still shining and still no signs of the forecast clouds, I wondered where Michael Fish had gone - he's obviously now working for the French Met Office.  We're climbing up to the Plan du Midi at 7,500 feet where we have to change cable cars. Already the view across the valley is stupendous, what it's going to be like from the top we just can't imagine.