Via Italy to Haute Savoie!

Time to head to the Alps then, for our dear friends’ Flore and Christian’s wedding. We decided to spend a few days in Chamonix before the great occasion, passing by Italy…

Our first stop on the way to Chamonix was Andora, a small town on the Ligurian coast, where we stopped for lunch (pizza in a Chinese restaurant in Italy – that’s a first! No complaints about the pizza, though!). Our next stop was at Alessandria, a rather big town in the Piedmonte region. The main sight at Alessandria is the citadel – a rather imposing construction, which reminds me a bit of Suomenlinna at Helsinki (architecturally speaking, the setting is rather different…). The place could do with a bit of a revamp – interesting challenge for Alessandria to find a use for the place as it’s absolutely huge. There are already a couple of museums there, which we didn’t visit though… After a short walk in the town center, which is rather typically northern Italian, we carried on…

We stopped to sleep at the picturesque town of Ivrea, which is the capital of the Canavese area. It’s a pretty interesting place to stroll around, with a rather impressive medieval castle overlooking the old town, with an equally imposing cathedral nestled next to it. Today was actually an important catholic holiday in Italy – Assumption. Well, to be fair, it was actually the day after, but seemed that pretty much all the restaurants had decided to close already the night before… Thankfully, we found a very nice little Enoteca to sate our appetite…

After dinner, it was time for the big spectacle. Next to the cathedral, they had put up a big wooden frame of a woman (in the Blessed Virgin Mary’s honor, I suppose?), which they proceeded to cover with flowers. It was quite an operation, involving ladders, firemen, carts brining in flowers, an orchestra providing the music, and the townspeople cheering on the work. Nice little tradition – but we did decide to head back to the hotel before they finished…

We hit the road early in the morning, to tackle the Mont Blanc tunnel as early as possible (we were afraid of traffic jams…). The last leg of our voyage was surprisingly painless, and we arrived in Chamonix well before lunchtime… We were staying at a rather nice hotel, with an outdoors swimming pool with a view of Mont Blanc and the Aguille de Midi. Not bad… Our dear friends Chie and Geoff were also staying at the same hotel – the plan was originally to wait for them at the hotel and then do some stuff together. Unfortunately, they had some trouble with their flights getting to Geneva, so we ended up heading out on our own.

After a tartiflette (potatoes, lardons and cheese – that’s Savoyard cuisine for you!) for lunch, we took the Aguille de Midi cable car up the Plan de l’Aguille (which is kind of half way up to the Aguille – at 2317 meters’ altitude). It’s a rather stunning cable car ride, that’s for sure… From there, we first hiked up to the blue lake, an easy 15 minutes’ walk from the cable car stop. After that, we tackled the legendary walk up to the Mer de Glace (which is, at 7 kilometers, the longest glacier in France). The hike was pretty amazing, the views over Chamonix and the surrounding mountains were just absolutely stunning. No other word for it.

La Mer de Glace, of course, is equally stunning. The view of the glacier, creeping down between Aiguille du Moine and Trélaporte, is absolutely amazing, as you approach it from above, on the hike… I was quite busy with my camera for a few minutes, I can tell you that. The walk then took us down past the Montenvers hotel (yes, those crazy Frenchmen actually built a hotel next to the glacier), to the train station! Yes, there is a cogwheel train up to the glacier as well! All the modern comforts provided, eh… As we’d have enough hiking for one day, we took the train down to Chamonix…

For dinner, we met up with Chie and Geoff. It was absolutely fantastic to see them – we hadn’t seen them for a couple of years, which was when they were suddenly sent over to Malaysia on a construction project with very short notice. So we were very eager to hear about their adventures! We picked a very nice French restaurant for the occasion (thanks Tripadvisor for the good advice!), and spent a very nice evening catching up and hearing about those adventures (it seems Chie and Geoff spent a couple of very interesting and busy years over in KL!).

The next day, we were meeting up with Mathilde’s colleagues from her school, a large number of whom had decided to spend holidays in Haute Savoie for some reason (I don’t know what it is – but we always seem to run into Mathilde’s colleagues on our holidays!?) . Anyways, we decided to meet up for a picnic at Lac Leman (a.k.a. Lake Geneva). Before the picnic, we decided to pay a quick visit at Yvoire, a rather famous historic village located on the lake. Yvoire is undeniably a very picturesque medieval village, and stunningly located, but unfortunately it seems a bit overrun by tourism.

After our brief visit, we met up with the gang at the lake, near Thonon-les-Bains. Our dear friends from California; Gilles, Valerie, Celian and Hector where there (very well stocked up for the picnic!), and we were later joined by Vincent (who’s a real Savoyard) and his family, as well as Bruno and his girlfriend. We spent a very pleasant day at the lake indeed, eating, drinking wine & pastis, chatting away, swimming, and playing tarot cards! (the kind of game I could get into, methinks!). Very nice to meet up with everybody again.

We had dinner back at Chamonix – Chie had picked a place with the rather interesting name “Moustache et ses filles” in one of the back streets. And it was an excellent choice indeed – I really liked the food they served there (and the company was of course top-notch as well!). We even spotted Mr. Moustache having his food towards the end of the meal as well (I suppose the waitresses must be his daughters then?).

The next day, a bunch of friends were coming over to Chamonix, the plan was to head up to the Mer de Glace (yes, we had already been there, but hadn’t really had the time to properly check out the glacier). Aldo and Dorine came with their two little ones, as well as Nathalie and Patrick with their clan (including, of course, my dear godson Florian!). After the train journey up to the glacier, and a quick picnic lunch, we started exploring… We first made our way down to the ice cave, which is carved each year into the glacier. It has to be redone every year, as the glacier moves about 90 meters down the valley each year… It’s pretty cool, the ice cave, with the light effects, and various statues carved out of the ice (a pity they don’t serve any drinks at the bar, though…).

We then made our way back up to the train station, and checked out a couple of rather interesting museums. All in all, it’s a very interesting place, well worth spending a few hours at. We then made our way back to Chamonix on the train. After an hour or so of strolling around Chamonix (and trying to meet up with Chie and Geoff – we managed eventually), we decided to have dinner at one of the touristy restaurants in the town center.

For the evening, me, Chie and Geoff made our way over to the Roche-sur-Foron, where we were meeting up with the rest of the “English gang” going to the wedding, for a couple of drinks. Almost all the usual suspects were present: Nick, Sinhung, Olivier, Raphaelle, Philippe, Aniko and Isabelle (and of course Flore and Christian). Apart from drinking beer, we also tried the local rodeo – fortunately the bull wasn’t a real one though… I was quite pleased with my 19 seconds on the mechanical bull (which entitled me to a 3rd place behind Philippe and Ollie, I reckon).

What a fantastic reunion, and pre-wedding celebration!