Chamonix and into Italy

At long last, the Benevolent Beasley Bloggers return!  After our two weeks in Paris, we were excited to be off to somewhere else, a place that I have wanted to visit for a long time, Chamonix.  Chamonix is a town in the Alps close to where France, Italy, and Switzerland meet and home to world-famous alpine skiing and mountaineering.  In other words, it is a Brannan-magnet, and beautiful to boot.

After our first bout with being sick and rain on Monday night and Tuesday, Wednesday was the day to make my mountain dreams come true.  There are two main summer attractions in Chamonix, a trip up to Aiguille du Midi (needle of the south), and a trip to the "Mer de Glace" (sea of ice) glacier on a cog-wheel train.

First: Aiguille du Midi.  It is an outpost built on the tip-top of a mountain, that is reached by taking two tram rides.  You start out in the valley of Chamonix at about 3,400 feet, and get off the second tram at just about 12,400 feet, and incredible 9000 ft rise.  This is the world-record holder for vertical ascent in a tram, and it was first put into place over 50 years ago!  So how long to make such a journey?  We figure about 20 minutes, to rise almost 2 miles into the sky.  Yes it is fast, yes it is steep, and yes it was scary.  The scary part was when the tram would roll over the wheels that support the cable, because the car goes from being suspended on a loose wire, to suspended by a solid support, to being on a loose wire in a few seconds, and when it comes off the support, the tram (with approx. 60 people on it) bounces and rocks quite a bit.  And you are several hundred feet in the air.  Gets the ol' heart a pumping, I can tell you that.

We were on the first car up for the day, filled with mountaineers and gear ready to conquer Mt. Blanc (highest mountain in western Europe).  Needless to say, I was jealous.

View from the car - up we go!  The white is glaciers.

Due to the height of the mountains, the sun doesn't actually rise in the valley until 9:00.

The view pulling into the top.  Made it!

Pulling into the station.

Once you arrive on top, there are a series of viewpoints that let you see over the Alps, into the valley, and of Mt. Blanc.  Totally astounding to be at that altitude and to see the mountains so close.

Melanie and the summit platform.  Chilly!  No idea why one of the buildings looks like a missile, maybe to intimidate the Swiss?

Us with Mt Blanc in the background

Us and the alps!

Mt. Blanc visible in the background.  The "Normal" route took them up the glacier in front and along the ridge lines.  The summit is still 3,000 feet higher than we were.

My sweet wife and some sweet altitude.  Life doesn't get any better!

 I will tell you, I've done some mountain climbing in my days, but this was on a whole different level.  All the guys going up with us were intense mountain guys, not kidding around about being tough.  They say that the route to the summit of Mt Blanc is only a two-day route...made me want to give it a whirl.  Alas, sometime in the future, maybe.  First I'd need a lot more technical ice climbing experience and training and have to begin eating flaming railroad spikes while wrestling and wrangling wiggling rabid alligators for fun on the weekends just to be tough enough.

 

Mountaineers exit from the outpost to the glacier.  Wow!

Mountaineers beginning their routes from the summit.  Made me want to grab an ice ax and some crampons.

Left- beginning of the route.  Right -View down onto the glacier from the top.  Can you spot the mountaineers?

Fun in the sun and snow.

Looking down onto the arrival station and into the valley.  That's high!

Not sure why they were there in shorts... it was 34 degrees!

Despite my suggestion, the French decided not to name this formation "The Thumb."  Wha???

So that was neat, and a great experience that I will never forget.  We then set off to WALK INSIDE A GLACIER!!!  I wasn't sure what to expect except that we were going to ride a really old train to see a glacier.  It ended up being Melanie's favorite part of Chamonix.  Check it out:

Us and the Mer de Glace, a huge glacier!  The part that looks like dirt?  It's dirt sitting on the glacier still.  This thing was huge!  Wikipedia puts it at 4.2 miles long and 600 feet deep.

The route down to the glacier.  It was easy enough going down (at altitude) but up was another story.

The entrance to the glacier cave

 On the hike down, you saw various markers that showed the height of the glacier at different years.  It was kind of depressing because the glacier is rapidly shrinking, and even in the last 15 years or so, it has retreated a really long ways.  Politics and science aside, it was sad to see such a natural wonder shrinking and disappearing for whatever reason. 

They rebuild the ice cave every single year, and it has to be extremely well planned because they are tunneling into a glacier that moves 300 ft a year, or 1 cm per hour!  It is essentially a loop inside the glacier, and they put colored lights into it to make it feel more glacier-y.  It was a spectacular experience though somewhat terrifying as a moving, warming glacier makes quite a lot of popping and groaning sounds as it expands and pressure builds and shifts.

Wow!  We're inside a glacier!  Awesome!

Dark?  Yes.  Cold?  Yes.  Awesome?  Yes!

For some reason they carved out rooms and put mannequins in them.

Ta-Da!!!

I had to do it!  Yes it tastes like ice and yes my mother did raise me better than to go around licking random surfaces.  But I'm OK!

The entrance/exit, lit by natural light

Glacier and the Lonely Mountain

A day I will remember for the rest of my life, for sure.

We have since traveled south, to Genoa, Italy, where we holed up waiting until monday when we head to the Cinque Terre.  We'd never heard anything about Genoa, so we weren't too sure what to expect.  It has actually turned out to be a pretty neat town, a big seaport town on the Mediterranean sea, with lots of character and charm, and is very old, just no huge famous sites or museums.  What we've determined is that there is a lot of competition for tourist's time in Italy, so places like this, though neat, are impossible to put in a guidebook for tourists because there is nothing to write besides "walk around and be impressed by old stuff."  It's been a fun find for us though, and the only other tourists we've seen have been Italian.  A fun, delicious weekend though, as this is the birthplace of both Focaccia and Pesto.  Hmmmm..

A cool church we just wandered into.

In this random, impressive church were tombs from, ya know, the 1500's!

They had random old stuff just around town, such as walls and fortifications from the centuries past.  Also colorful pastels on every building.

View of the coast from a 6 euro cruise.  Some good views, although a lot of industrial shipping sightseeing.

Typical old-town street, lots of walking, uphill

Home of Christopher Columbus.  Just stumbled upon it while walking, which means they need a better PR person.

So we're excited, Cinque Terre and Venice are coming up this week, so stay tuned!

The French Alps!!!

We are FINALLY outta Paris, and couldn't be more excited about it.  After a 5 1/2 hour multi-train journey, we have arrived in Chamonix, someplace that I have been looking forward to seeing for a long time.  It is even more magnificent than I imagined.  Having just arrived here a few hours ago, we don't have many pictures, but here is a tease of what we are going to be seeing this week:

From the train...getting excited!

The view from the french doors in our room.  That technically doesn't explain anything, as all doors here are french doors...weird.

 Here are a few last pictures from Paris that we managed to take:

Our favorite French cookies...ah sweet bliss

We went out for fondue and it was AWESOME, the best meal so far

The Latin Quarter of Paris, our favorite place to get food.  There are 98 (!) restaurants vying for your dining dollars in area so small that it takes approximately 2 minutes to walk from one side to the other.

The "Thevenin" where we had breakfast practically every day.  The quiches were phenominal

Create your own joke!  I couldn't think of anything appropriate

 In conclusion, because I'm tired, Paris was great but we were there about a week too long.  We're really excited to be in Chamonix and ready for new challenges, experiences, and pictures, all of which we will share with you.  Stay tuned, tomorrow we travel to the top of the Alps!

Versailles

Yesterday we went to the chateau at Versailles, which is where some of the King Louis' lived, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. They were living there during the French Revolution when the people (do you hear them singing the songs of angry men?) came and took them to Paris to the guillotine.  Quite historical and fun to see. 

The palace was HUGE  and ornate. We figured if we were peasants living on the slums of the street, we would be upset too that the King lived in such a place.  

Brannan taking a royal rest. How natural!

One unfortunate thing was that there were some modern art pieces on display there for some reason. So you’re walking along looking at 17^th century décor, and BAM here’s some weird modern art taking up the whole corner of the room. Very strange.

This one was called "Mary Poppins" (?)

This was the queen's bedroom, with some strange modern art next to it. And an Asian guy who photo-bombed us.

These shoes were made out of pots and lids. I don't know why.

This was a black heart hanging from the ceiling.

Louis XIV was the one that built the place, and you could see that he loved himself a little bit. He called himself the Sun King because everything he did was like the sun; warming it and bringing it light. My favorite thing was the chapel which is where you go to church, right? Well in this chapel, the king would come out and the people would bow and praise him. They had some painting of Jesus on the ceiling that gave a minor acknowledgement to that “other” God.   

He was also a merry fellow and loved games and parties. In the most famous painting of him, he had the artist show off his “dancing legs” because he was such a good dancer. 

Woo woo! Nice stems!

A sculpture done by Bernini, with the wind blowing in the King's hair

The Hall of Mirrors was also a good example of his vanity. Back in the day, mirrors and windows were very hard to make and hardly anyone had them. But the king built a whole hallway of windows on one side and mirrors on the other side and people were pretty astonished when they came in. It was very beautiful, even today, so I can only imagine how mind-boggling it was back then.

One thing we found astounding was that everything the king and queen did was public. They had a royal ceremony for getting out of bed in the morning, as well as getting dressed, going to sleep, eating, etc. They even gave birth in front of the public so that the royal bloodline could be verified.  I think it would drive me nuts.

The king's bedroom. The railing sectioned off the on-lookers

Seems they would get tired of the chateau sometimes, because in the gardens they built a home away from home; a palace away from palace. It was smaller, but still huge and ornate, and they could go there to get away from it all, I guess.  The king built it for his wife, and it was all pink marble. We named it the Pink Palace. 

This room was very 1970's yellow. Money can't buy good taste.

The best little gem was what we discovered at the edge of the gardens. Apparently Marie Antoinette dreamed of being a peasant instead of a queen, because she had her very own fairy tale peasant village. It even had a working farm and dairy and mill. She had her own house out there that she would go stay in, called the Hamlet.  

Thatch roof and all

Field trip! These kids were set free to harass the goats.

Almost got it, frenchies. Almost.

Fine swine!

The whole place felt like the English countryside, and that any moment, a Jane Austin character would walk down the lane to bid us good morning.

And then there were the fish who had the easiest life on the planet. Nothing to chase them, and apparently every visitor fed them, and they expected it.

Sorry Brannan, I don't have any bread crumbs for you either.

There wasn't even food in the vicinity! They just saw us standing up there and came over with mouths open. I've never seen fish do that.

Marie Antoinette also had built a few gazebo type buildings that they could host garden parties in, and she had a puppet house where they could put on puppet shows for an audience.  If you’re the queen, you can do whatever you want.

This was a fake mountain, so their guests could feel like they were in the Alps or something.

The gardens were enormous and immaculate. All the tree-lined paths were trimmed so all the trees were square. We even read that one of the Louis’ had them change the flowers in the beds daily outside his window so that he could have something new to smell every day. Unfortunately, the minute we walked outside to go walk around the gardens, it started pouring. Thankfully it only lasted about 15 minutes, but it was pretty wet and cold. 

It was wet, but at least Melanie had a good attitude and didn't complain at all.

Then the sun came out, and we got to walk around the beautiful gardens. 

I think I hear angels singing.

The gardens go back as far as you can see.

This cat came out to enjoy some sunshine too. I tried to say hello, but he only spoke French.

 

There were many beautiful fountains and statues. They only turn the fountains on over the weekends, so they weren’t on when we went, but you can imagine how beautiful they would be. They were mostly Greek Gods or some type of myth. 

I ripped this one off the internet. It's the same fountain as the one above, but shows what it's like when it's turned on.

Here's another one that's the same as the picture above it, with the water on.

Such a beautiful place! We certainly didn't anticipate how enormous the place was, and were dismally unprepared in the snack department, but still enjoyed the day seeing how royalty lived.