Trip to Chamonix, France and Mont Blanc

Today was a great day. We left this morning at 8:45am with Ann taking us into France, which took all of 15 minutes from her house.  We went to Chamonix, which is a town at the base of Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is the highest peak in Western Europe. The photos do not do it justice in terms of its height.  Absolutely breathtaking. We walked through the town, which was very quaint and actually looked quite a bit like Gatlinburg!! (quite touristy) Ha Ha. But it was alot nicer. It spanned the Arve River, which was not too wide.  We ate outside for the first time during our trip with the mountains towering over us.  There were many people there skiing.

 

We rode a large cable car to the top of the mountain, we thought. But once we got up there, there was another tram we had to ride. Totally frightening! Then when we finally got to the top of Aiguille du Midi, the central peak,  we rode an elevator another 1000 feet to the top of an observation deck  which was still not equal to the top of Mont Blanc. Mont Blanc is 4810 meters. We could see the town below, which appeared as small as from an airplane.  There were parasailers jumping from the tops of the mountains which was amazing to witness.  Can't even imagine skiing on it.  One wrong turn and you'd be of the mountain or in a crevasse (which are the cracks in the glaciers- depth unknown) On the other side of Mont Blanc is Torino, Italy.

 

The ride down seemed to go faster than the ride up and did not seem so scary. They 67 people, elbow to elbow on the cable car for the trip down.

 

The ride home through the French alpine countryside was so picturesque. Mountains towered on both sides of us.  The air was so clean and crisp. On the ground, the temp was in the mid-70 degrees. On the mountain, it was in the low 20s.

 

More to come tomorrow.

 

We've just about given up on posting photos. We did try again today and don't have other options. But we'll have lots of photos to show when we get home!