We got the email Sunday night that the Mountain Drop-off would be at the hotel at 6:10 am Monday morning to pick us up to take us to the airport. We had arranged an early breakfast. It was a 2-hour drive to the Geneva airport.
We saw this art piece in the airport.
Then we found that we were walking under it.
We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. It was a short flight to Zurich. We flew Swiss Air. We left at 10:50 am. The airlines seem to be stricter about the size of roller bags. We ended out having to check our luggage (both directions).
Our next flight was also Swiss Air, but it was an Edelweiss Air plane. It was delayed by about an hour. We didn't have time to buy a lunch.
We didn't get lunch on the plane until about 2 pm. I was hungry. The vegetarian lasagna was quite tasty.
They brought food or snacks quite frequently, but it was the first international airline I had been on that did not offer free drinks. Ugh.
It had a camera on the plane so you could watch. It was fun watching us land.
Even though we were delayed landing in Vancouver, BC we had plenty of time to catch our flight to Portland.
The Vancouver airport is a beautiful airport.
Our last leg was Air Canada. It was a short flight.
Ah!! Portland. Home sweet home.
End of the trip summary: Nathan walked more but I walked 100.9 miles with average day 7.2 (most 11.6, least 2.3), average high temp 87.5 degrees, highest elevation 11,371 feet, 7 countries, 5 hotels, 7 airports, more than 8,000 pictures between us, 3 performances, and 5 tours, vehicles: 2 cars, 6 planes, 2 airport buses, 4 shuttles, 2 tour buses, 13 city buses, 28 cable cars/gondolas, 1 ski chair lift, 1 row boat, 9 trains, 3 luge (I only went on 1 but Nathan had 3 rides), 1 paraglider, 1 cogwheel train, 6 funicular, and 7 Hugos.
We arrived an hour late. But I was home by 8 pm. It was a long day, but we are both home.
Morning sunrise. I like the way the sun lights up the mountain peaks.
Most people left today. Some went home and some went on to other places. I went down to the breakfast room to try to say goodbye to people. Laurel's flight was cancelled and she was rerouted to Rome. She is going home to Stockholm.
We caught the 7:50 bus #2 to le Tour.
The cable car didn't start until 9 am, and the ticket office didn't open until 8:45 am. We had to wait a little to buy tickets.
This was number #6 of Rick Steves choices of hikes to do in the area. We took a cable car up a hill to Charamillon and then we took a ski chair lift up further.
A paraglider landing on a mountain peak. That is what it looked like.
It was quite chilly, so I was glad that I had my jacket. This was the Autannes walk to the Swiss border. It was a short walk to the cafe, the Refuge du col de Balme.
This marks the spot. On Nathan's left is France, and on his right is Switzerland.
Nathan asked them to put some mint syrup in his hot chocolate. The waitress couldn't believe this. This hot chocolate was good. Nathan said that adding the mint was perfect. We started walking back to Charamillon. We would not be taking the chairlift down. There were a lot of wild flowers..
This was one of the few times I wore my jacket.
Mostly the path was smooth, but not always.
See all of the trails
While we were up there we saw a bunch of paragliders who must have been practicing or learning. They would take off, fly a bit, land and then the sail helped them hike up the hill to try again . It was fun watching them.
We got the gondola, then down to the beginning point. We did not have long to wait before the bus came.
By 12:30 pm we were back in Chamonix.
We got off the bus at the stop close to les Planards. I had agreed to do the luge with Nathan, since he did the paragliding with me. It was about a 15-minute walk. At least it had warmed up some.
Nathan was checking it out.
Yes, I recorded the whole thing. Paragliding is much less scary to me.
Nathan went 2 more times.
It was almost 2 pm before we had lunch. We picked someplace very close.
La Petite Blaitiere
There was a very cute puppy checking everyone out.
We each ordered different crepes. Nathan had a salmon one and I had one with nuts, cheese and egg.
I hadn't realized that a salad came with it. Again I had way too much food.
I also had a bush peach fruit drink, which was quite tasty.
We walked beside the river to get back to the hotel.
We had tried to fit in white water rafting but they were booked.
Later we ended out at the restaurant that this food delivery truck was connected with. I didn't know that when I took this picture.
They were working on making a climbing wall, I think. We had walked by earlier, and when we went by later we could see how much work had been done.
When we were heading back to the hotel, we sent a blast to the trip WhatsApp group to find out if anyone would like to join us for wine tasting. Cathy and Jim were interested. In fact, they were already heading over to Cha, Cha, Cha's wine bar. This had been recommended. We joined them soon after (around 3:30 pm). We tasted 6 wines. The woman talked about each wine and what region it came from. It was interesting . We did the Tour de France tasting.
Cathy and Jim are on the left.
The map she used to show us where each wine came from.
This is how they store some of the wine. Each container is temperature-controlled.
We walked back to the hotel until it was time for dinner. It was around 6 pm when we headed out to dinner. We chose another Rick Steves' recommendations. Rose du Pont. We sat outside. There was music playing very close. That was nice.
I had French Onion soup, and Nathan had pasta. Mine was better than his.
We had invited Cathy, Jim, Donn, and Beth to join us at a card game when they were through with dinner. We played 2 rounds of 8, 7, 6 in the dining room. We couldn't play 10, 9, 8 because of the number of people. I didn't get a picture.
Today was a 10.3-mile day, but at least it wasn't strenuous.
