Pic Spocket

It’s been a while since we’ve been back, but I just never had the time to write about our trip to France last September. My volume of training, few weeks away from Ironman Florida has just taken all free time away.

In the last days of August, we went to France to see Corinne’s family. She had not been in France to visit her family in over 3 years, 4 years for me. Soon after landing in Paris Saturday for our connection after an overnight flight, goodies were waiting for us to taste! Within 15′ on the ground, my mouth was full… hehe

We also had to try the famous “Macarons” from “La Durée”… Very tasty, but not necessarily worth their crazy price (couple Euros a piece if I remember correctly).

After our second flight, we landed in Lyon, before driving our rental car to Grenoble, where Corinne’s mother lives. The city is at the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains. Corinne was so very happy to see her familiar mountains when we got close. So much a change of scenery for her, when we move in the southern part of Canada, where everything is FLAT!

I was afraid training in France would be difficult as I did not want to burden Corinne with that, but opportunities presented naturally. The day after our arrival, the weather was just gorgeous and Corinne mother’s proposed that we go to “Les Bois Français”, and area with 5 artificial lakes dedicated to different activities, one of which was made as a beach and swim location. We arrived at lunch time, and had amazing Prosciutto Salads on the patio.

You know you are in Europe when you encounter these type of toilets… better work on your aim!!

The lake was perfect for swim training: about 120y on the narrow side, and 300y on the long side. Not many people were venturing outside the buoy line, and pretty much all of the people outside would cross the lake on the narrow side. I put my swim cap, swim goggle, and tackled the lake crossings on the long side. In addition to 2 short crossings, I did 6 crossings on the long side for a total of 1800y. Not bad for an unexpected open water swim practice!

Here is a picture of one of the other lakes, showing a perfect reflection on this beautiful day.

The Sunday evening, we met with Helen, a good friend of Corinne, for nice diner.

Monday, we took the road for the Alps, to go visit Corinne’s sister, Fred and the kids. This would be a surprise for the kids as our visit to France was kept “secret”. Few pictures of the drive to the Savoie area…

The kids changed so much that I barely recognized them (I did not see them in over 4 years… amazing how fast they grow!!!). Corinne has 2 nieces and one nephew: Deborah, Wynona & David. Wynona seemed quite happy to see us..

The light emitted by the setting sun just makes the whole area beautiful..

Tuesday morning, I eloped on my rental bike for pretty much the nicest ride I have ever done: Col du Petit St- Bernard before crossing in Italy. I have made a detailed post with many pictures about this ride. (LINK : “Epic Riding in France #1 : Little Saint Bernard Pass“)

As soon as I got back, took a shower, changed, and the whole team jumped in the cars to go the same route I just did with the intention to go have a late lunch in Italy, in the village of La Thuile, a big ski station in the winter. Pretty area!

The plan was to eat at “La Grotta” restaurant, but we arrived 10 min too late: the kitchen had just closed (near 2 pm). That really sucked because it looked AWESOME! I felt bad a bit because I did come back from my ride a bit later that I said I would…

Still, we had a very nice lunch on the terrace of that nice hotel, just by river.

Walked a bit though town…

And got desserts (I had TWO! Ice cream AND cake hehe!) from one of the local bakery. Mioum.. We ate our sweets outside.

Of course, on the way back, we stopped at the border between France and Italy to take many pictures. This time around, I had the big camera, so I could take better pictures than I could when I was on my bike ride with the pocket camera.

Wednesday morning, we went for a walk in Bourg St-Maurice’s nature park just at the bottom of the hill from Corinne’s sister house. Kids had fun on the rotating swing.

The afternoon, we all went to Val D’Isere where Carole (Corinne’s sister) works to try the new swimming and recreation complex OXYGEN they just built there. Again, nice opportunity to log some training while having fun and staying with the family during our vacation. They had a nice 25m lap pool, a lazy river, a gym, hot tub, sauna, steam room, cold showers, etc. It’s very upscale. The French National Swimming team was actually in town, doing a training camp at that place. I am just happy I came out of the lap pool before they arrived.

The car trip to Val let me evaluate the route that I would use the following day for my bike ride. It was not recommended because traffic is much higher in this area, there’s a bunch of dark tunnels and cars are driving fast. But after driving it, I thought it would be OK if I had a tail light on my bike. So I bough one when we were back in town.

We closed the day with an amazing meal typical of the area: Cheese Fondue! You dip bread chunks in a special mix of melted cheese, white wine and garlic. Awesome. Pretty heavy meal though!! Hehe!

Thursday morning, I did my second EPIC bike ride: Val d’Isere and Col de l’Iseran. Again, I made a long post about this ride with many pictures.. (Link : “Epic Riding in France #2 : “Col de l’Iseran” Pass“)

I came back late once again from my ride, just in time to have lunch with everybody and sign for Deborah’ birthday!

In late afternoon, Corinne and me left using treacherous but beautiful mountain roads for the next stop on our trip: the area of Chamonix Mont Blanc. The road was SUPERB, even if scary at times: small narrow roads on the flank of mountains, many of which are not even wide enough for 2 cars to cross. Lots of sharp blind turns, crazy descents and climbs. The pictures below are from the wide opened areas we also encountered.

Saw some goats on our way…

Cows and nice landscapes…

In Chamonix, we met Corinne’s mother and her boyfriend in the evening, just in time for a nice meal outdoor. MORE CHEESE! Look at this… This is out meal for two: Raclette. A Huge piece of smelly cheese in a special rotating fixture so that you can bring it really close to a heating element, before swiveling back to scrape the melted cheese onto baked potatoes and delicatessen meats. Very typical from the area.

To be honest, we were saturated and feeling pretty heavy afterwards from all the recent rich meals.

Rather than staying in your typical hotel, Corinne found us online a very charming room in a small cottage (kind of a bed and breakfast place): CHALET SUOMI. The room was all pine wood.

The view from the windows and the balcony was even better: it gave on the Month Blanc. Here it is, a bit before sunset, then a bit after sunrise the following morning.

Chamonix is a SUPERB little town, right by the “Massif du Mont Blanc“, a mountain range of the western Alps. Mont Blanc is the highest summit of the Alps, sitting at 4810m, with eternal snow on the top. To see it from up close, we can go up to the “Aiguille du Midi” using 2 cable cars, up to 3842m of elevation. After a big breakfast on Friday morning, we headed to town to go up there.

The second cable car you take looks kind of scary…. 2867m long, 1470 m of elevation gain, BUT NO PYLONS between the start and end point!!!! You really hope that cable does not break!

Up there, the view is STUNNING. I took hundreds of pictures.

For the adventure lovers, you can go up on your own hiking/climbing. We saw many alpinists out there.

An ice tunnel took you to one of the hiking path…

The place was perfect for portraits with nice backgrounds.

Friday afternoon, we got back down to Chamonix, and just took a nice walk downtown. Beautiful area.

We drove back to Grenoble in the evening, and passed our last day in France meeting with friends that we have not seen in a LONG time! We had an awesome time with them as usual.

Many pictures in the online album. Here are the ‘general pictures’ and ‘chamonix/Mt Blanc’ albums…

France 2011: Misc.	Chamonix Mt Blanc

This entry was posted on Friday, October 7th, 2011 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Travel, Album update, Our news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.