Europe 2019 - Day 6

Our destination for the day was Chamonix and Mont Blanc (the tallest mountain in Europe).  As we were leaving town, Chris missed the exit in the roundabout and joked, “The advantage of a roundabout is that I get multiple tries to get it right.”  We circled around again.

We stopped at a rest stop after an hour or so.  Chris and I got out to use the facilities and check out the view of the mountains.  As we returned to the car, the girls were still sitting in the backseat.  Chris had activated the child safety locks and locked the car and they couldn’t get out.  Made for a good laugh.

Chamonix was packed with people.  We figured it was almost the unofficial first day of summer, it was a Friday, and the weather was improved from earlier in the week.  We parked close to the base of the ski resort.  Chris got in line for tickets for the funicular up the mountainside and the girls and I looked for lunch food.  We found a bakery for bread and chocolate-filled beignets as a special surprise for Chris and then a grocery store for sliced deli meat.  We wandered in to a butcher shop and quickly exited when we realized they didn’t have cooked meat and it was stinky!

We found a cute city center where Misha and Kristen bought some postcards and art, lucky for Misha, the art fit in the back pocket of my backpack.  We met up with Chris as he finished purchasing the very spendy tickets for the funicular and headed up the mountain to enjoy a picnic lunch.  Unfortunately, the ice cave, Mer de Glacé, was closed for the day along with the gondola.

It was a little cool in some spots, but not as cold as we thought it was going to be.  We brought our puffy jackets but ended up not needing them at all.  Likely if we had gone in to the ice caves we would have appreciated them, now we just tied them around our waists.

We enjoyed the lunch that was becoming our daily habit—bread, cheese, drinks, and sliced meet.  We enlisted Misha’s new knife (much to her chagrin) to slice apples and spread cheese, but it cut like a charm.  The beignets were a new favorite treat for all of us.

I had no idea that a hotel sat at the top of the mountain.

Would have been a cool place to stay.  We toured a small museum on crystals and watched a short film about glaciers and how they are receding.  Amy bought a cap in the souvenir shop before we set off on a hike down the mountain.  As we hiked, we watched the gondolas going up and down as workers tried to fix them.  We were pleasantly surprised upon reaching the bottom when the staff were allowing guests to ride the gondola back up the hillside.  My feet were particularly grateful.  While the cortisone shot made a huge difference, they were still tender and I did my best to stretch them as often as possible.

We marveled at the hang gliders so high in the sky.  Not my cup of tea, but Amy and Chris both expressed an interest in trying hang gliding some day.

We boarded the return train to Chamonix and enjoyed some ice cream on our arrival.  We had debated about driving to Aosta, Italy just so Amy could say she had been to Italy, but the Tourist Info lady recommended against it because of the line of cars waiting to go through the tunnel to Italy.

Chris wanted to drive back to Evian via Martigny, Switzerland.  It ended up adding a lot of extra time to the drive.  The road from Chamonix was full of twists and turns and hairpin curves.  I was ready to be down the mountain when all was said and done.

The traffic onto the freeway was quite backed up and soon emergency vehicles were trying to make their way around all of the cars.  Turns out a car in the tunnel lost its entire wheel on the driver’s side.

Misha opted to return to the hotel for some quiet time while the rest of us drove about the town of Evian towards Thonon-les-Bains to find a place for dinner.  We found a kabob shop which we could have found just as easily in Evian, but the view of sunset was a nice bonus.

We were leaving Evian in the morning for Vienna, Austria and packed up from our enjoyable stay at the Hilton in Evian.

Europe 2019 - Day 5

Today was Ascension day in Europe.  A Christian holiday celebrating Jesus Christ's ascension to heaven on the 39th day after Easter Sunday.  Most of what we wanted to do wasn’t affected by this holiday.

We drove in the direction of Interlaken again today toward Broc (pronounced Bro with some throatiness) for a chocolate tour of the Cailler Chocolate Factory.  The girls were all for this factory tour and the option to taste the chocolate at the end of the tour was a huge bonus.

Chris and the girls purchased some chocolate to take home.

A cute shot of Amy.

We toured the Gruyere Cheese Factory next as it wasn’t too far from the chocolate factory.  Sadly the tasting here was not met with as much enthusiasm.  It was not my favorite cheese.  We got samples that were 6 months, 8 months, and 1 year old.  The older it was the harder it became.  I prefer a softer cheese.  However, we did buy a loaf of bread in the store and made a nice lunch of bread, cheese, soda from the hotel’s lounge, and pizza leftovers.

Sniffing the different flowers that cows eat to that give the gruyere cheese its flavor.

Our next stop was Moleson, a mountain resort in the area.  Chris and the girls purchased a book of four tickets to ride the “Bob-luge”.  I was thinking it would be similar to the Alpine Slide that used to be in Golden, Colorado.  The ride up the mountain in Colorado took about twenty mountains, so when Amy came zipping down on her bobsled, I wasn’t quite ready to take pictures of her.  The other three came in quick succession, so I snapped some quick pics.

We rode the funicular half way up the mountain and from there explored that area.

It took about an hour and a half to walk back down the mountain, but it was a beautiful day and a delightful walk.

We happened to drive by the Old Town of Gruyere.  It was teeming with tourists, but I wanted to see it anyway.  Misha opted to stay in the car while the rest of us hiked up the hill.  It would have been much more delightful without all of the people.  We didn’t stay too long.

We drove up the mountain to Jungfrau, which was decidedly unthrilling when we arrived.  We had passed a cool waterfall on our way up the mountain, so we turned around at the top and headed back down for some pictures.  The mountainsides and valleys were so green and lush.  Perfect time to be touring.  After snapping a few pictures of a chapel and the waterfall, we returned to Evian.

The town was much more hopping tonight and we had a hard time even finding parking.  We tried to return to Le Robinsons for dinner, but the small restaurant was packed inside and outside on the patio.  We had to settle for BC Burger but lucked out in being able to find street parking next to the hotel after dinner.

Europe 2019 - Day 4

We told the girls we wanted an earlier start today and made sure they were up around 7 am.  They weren't delighted but found the two-hour drive to the Interlaken area a perfect opportunity to have a nap.

Chris drove through the mountains to Ballenberg where we spent the morning exploring an open air museum of a Swiss village.  The creators of this museum have been buying, carefully deconstructing, moving, and rebuilding houses from all over Switzerland.  The mountainside museum was covered with roads, homes, churches, cheese huts, and barns to show what life was like (and probably is still like for many living in the region).  We toured some of the homes, watched cheese being cooked over a fire in a huge kettle drum, smelled the wonderful smell of wood being cut at a saw mill, and watched a woman give a weaving demonstration.  We bought a loaf of bread and some cheese from the cheese-making shed and enjoyed a simple lunch outside on a bench.

Amy was particularly thrilled by the Air Force based located close by and the F18s that kept taking off and landing.  The sound was awesome and could be felt all the way to our toes.  The workers at the museum weren’t quite as enthusiastic about all of the planes and the noise.

The cows on this mountain enjoyed a lush diet of grass, flowers, and clover.  They each have a cowbell around their neck, which would get annoying for me to have to listen to all day but allows them to be found and identified by the cow herder.  And in case you wonder, the boundary line which really just looks like string, is really electrified.  Amy didn’t realize it as she backed up to it and gave her back side a bit of a zap.

We bought chocolate from the Chocolaterie before leaving the mountainside museum.  And unlike other European countries we have visited, our experience in Switzerland thus far offered an abundance of WCs (bathrooms)--at no charge even.

Some other fun pictures from the village museum.

My photobombers

Our next stop was at the waterfalls in Tremmelbach.  We were able to take a funicular up to the 10th waterfall.  The waterfalls were mighty and roaring down the inside of the mountain.  We were glad to have our rain jackets as the spray was like a shower at times and the moisture dripped from the ceiling.  I had to tuck my camera inside my jacket to keep it from getting soaked as well.

Instead of a return trip to the base on the funicular, we took the stairs and were able to see waterfalls one through five along with the whole valley.

We walked around the small town which was graced with waterfalls all around (and lots of flowers in bloom).  Misha found a sweatshirt and a Swiss Army knife to buy (which they engraved with her name for free).

Before leaving the Interlaken area, we drove a short distance around the lake.  Spying some picturesque vistas on the lake, Chris backtracked to a parking area so I could take pictures.

Chris searched for a place to have dinner while I took pictures and came up withThe Lakehouse restaurant.  It was located next to a camp ground and very busy.  We were glad that we arrived early.  I ordered a pear, walnut, and gruyere cheese pizza.

We drove back to Evian, enjoying a fantastic sunset along the way.