Leaving Ols at the respectable hour of 10 am, we drove to Le Besset a Dutch-owned B&B just
beyond Thiers, about 350 kms away. It was a very hot drive and the B&B was
some way out of town so we were a bit disappointed to find that although they
had advertised an evening meal, that only applied in high season. So, after
having showered and changed out of our rather damp and sweaty clothes, we
climbed back into the car to go and look for something to eat. The centre of
Thiers is an old medieval town with narrow and winding cobbled streets an d
quite obviously a population that retires early to bed, but after some
wandering around we eventually found a pizza place to satisfy our hunger and
then went back to bed ourselves.
The next day we completed the drive to Les Houches where
Jenny and Ryan were to complete their run around the mountains of the Mont
Blanc area. Would you believe it, we arrived about five minutes after they got
in and had a happy reunion. They didn’t look at all tired and certainly didn’t
look as if they had been running for the last six days..
On Sunday we started our own exciting part of the Swiss tour
by joining them for a trip up to the top of the Aigueille de Midi. We started from
Chamonix by taking a large cable car, carrying 60 standing passengers at a time,
to the next level, at about 3200 meters. Then it was very speedy lift up to the
top at 3840 meters. Almost as soon as we stepped out of the lift I began to
feel very weird – light-headed and staggering all over the place. I also
couldn’t seem to breather which was quite a scary feeling. Leaving the others,
I went straight down to the previous level again, where I was sympathetically
looked after by the people in charge until the family found me again. I somehow
think this may well have been a sign that I shouldn’t attempt to climb Mount
Kilimanjaro!
The next day, Monday, we drove a couple of hours only to
Leukerbad which is in Switzerland. The attraction there was a fantastic uphill mountain
run which both Ryan and Jenny wanted to do. When one sees aerial photographs of
it, the whole idea seems crazy. The route is 4 and a half kms but in that
distance the runners gain about 1000 meters. An hour is the time allowed to
complete the run and anyone who manages to do it gets a free cable car ride to
the bottom again. We thought it hardly likely that either of them would manage
seeing that they had just completed the six day gruelling run around the other
mountains, but Ryan managed it in 53 minutes and Jenny in just over the hour.
We are SO impressed!
On Tuesday we drove a little further north to Grindelwald and along the way experienced a novel new mode of travel. After getting los several times, we asked advice from a roadside cafe and were told that there was no road to where we needed to go, but we needed, instead, to catch a train! We were somewhat aghast at this, but then our adviser told us not to worry, that the car could drive on to the train, and so we did and went through an endless (seemingly) tunnel right through the mountain. Now that was something really new! We had booked into a hotel for two nights and although our main activity
was planned for Wednesday, that wasn’t good enough for our two athletes who
went off in the afternoon for a run around the countryside which got them back
home again in time for a lateish supper. Meanwhile Neels and I drove into town
and had a look at the shops which were, unsurprisingly, very expensive.
The countryside around Grindelwald is picture postcard
beautiful. As I sit and type this on the balcony of our hotel room, I can hear
the tinkle of cow bells and the quiet rumble of cable cars which start from
numerous places and go to the ski slopes in winter, but run all year round
taking walkers and other tourists up to the higher areas. The weather has been
magnificent with clear blue skies every day and cooler nights than we have been
accustomed to lately. The snow-capped mountains all around us are clear and
crisply outlined against this amazing blue sky.
Back to the main activity for Wednesday. It was a trip to
the top of the Jungfrau by various means. We started by car, driving to
Lauterbrunnen which is about 15 ks away. There we caught the rack railway which
took us almost to the top, through some amazing tunnels . These tunnels were
hand-hewn in the late 1800’s and are a real tribute to perseverance and endurance.
Many people died during the 16 years that it took to build and we can only marvel at this
wonderful achievement. Once off the
train we found ourselves in a sort of gallery which runs around the mountain at
this level with arrows showing the correct direction to walk – very German! But
a good idea, none the less, as there were literally hundreds of people there.
We tried to work out how many people came up with us on our one train and
reckoned that there were about 500 on our train and they run every half hour in
both directions. A very smoothly run organisation.
At various places along the tour were caverns with exhibits
of one sort or another. One had a life-size statue of the designer of the
tunnel, bursting out of the rock-wall with his diagrams and sketches on the
floor in front of him. Another was a giant sized snow globe but instead of
shaking it, the little figures inside moved themselves. It was beautifully
crafted and was one of those things that the more you looked at it the more you
saw. Further along we came to the Ice Palace which had a number of smaller off
shoots but we stayed mainly on the main path. It was carved through solid ice
and was unbelievably slippery. One had to grip the handrail very firmly to stop
sliding off down the passage. Along the way we came to a hollowed-out section
with a family of bears carved out of the ice and a bit further along a similar
niche filled with penguins. There was also a place, not part of the Ice Palace,
where we could actually walk outside on the glacier, but the wind was blowing
so hard that we didn’t do more than poke our heads out. There was a lift which
we could have taken to a still higher level but after Sunday’s episode we
decided not to chance it. We managed to fill almost the entire day though as we
caught the train down again to the place where we had to change trains and
stopped off there for a bit of lunch. This was at Kleine Sheidegg, but we still
had to catch the second train back to Lauterbrunnen. Not so for our sporty
types! They decided to run back home again and completed the 17 kms in just
about three hours.
Thursday saw us back on the road again – together! Our
destination was to be a small place
called Les Deux Alpes which is roughly midway between Grindelwald and Ols.
Along the way we passed Bourg d’Oisans which is situated at the bottom of the Alpe d’Huez pass, a very well-known climb
of the Tour de France. A 12 km stretch or road with 21 hairpin bends, it rises
about 1000etres in that distance and is very demanding on the riders. Both of
the athletes in the car were suitably impressed, having only ever seen parts of
the hill on television. Then it was on to Les Deux Alpes for the night before
completing the circle and arriving back home again quite late in the afternoon.
Then it was a mad scramble to a load of very sweaty clothes into the washing
machine and hung up, so that it would be at least partially dry by the next
morning. And that was when I got a chance to put our own washing into the
machine. Thinking that it would stay breezy but not rain, I hung everything on
the outside line only to have the rain come down the moment I was finished. Oh
well, c’est la vie! In the end we left it hanging there even when we went off
the following day for a night in Rocamadour. Jenny and Ryan left here on Sunday
morning on the borrowed bicycles for their 3 day cycle tour around a small part
of the Dordogne, and we had arranged to join them for their first night. The
weather was a bit grey and drizzly but it didn’t seem to deter them one bit.
Sadly though, with such incredibly undulating countryside, the ride took much
longer than they had anticipated and it was rather late when they got in, and
the rain had got heavier so no time for sight-seeing. But the view from our
hotel was panoramic and wonderful and we can always go there again. It’s not too
far away.
Now we are home again and on our own for a day as they
continue with their cycle tour and will hopefully return safe and sound
tomorrow night.
There were so many photographs to choose from that I have
put them on to a separate page.
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