France 3 - Chamonix

Welcome to our 3rd post on our trip to France. In this section of our trip to France, we took the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse - which means "high speed train"), which was amazing. In 2007, one of the TGV trains was clocked at just over 350 mph. I don't thinnk we went that fast, but it was very fast. We took the TGV from Paris to Lyon, and then picked up normal trains up to the Chamonix area.

It was pretty cold and wet in Chamonix, as this trip was late September-early October. However, the clouds gave a beautiful atmosphere to the town. It is a definite "Alps" town with the appropriate architecture. We had a great room in a little "chalet", and just walked around the town. We went to a restaurant and had a fondue dinner, with raclette cheese which tripled our cholesterol numbers! It was so good, but so fattening!

Chamonix is nestled in a narrow valley between huge mountains on both sides of the valley. As you look down the valley, you see mountain after mountain fading off in the distance.

Another view of Chamonix in its valley.

We took a cable care up to the Aguille du Midi, about 3840 meters up. You could actually take a cable car all the way to Italy, across the top of the Mont Blanc Massif.

The Aguille du Midi.

If you go up to the top of the Aguille du Midi and look back at where the above picture was taken from, you see the picture below. The Alps are rugged!

NOTE: The picture below is NOT ours! I copied it from the Wikipedia article on Chamonix. So give credit where credit is due. It is a freely available picture taken by Paul Nash in March 2005. Thanks to Paul for making this photo available for the free use of anyone!

However, I wanted people to see what the valley of Chamonix looks like when the weather is nicer.

Thanks for reading. In our next blog, we go to Provence and the French Riviera.

New Zealand 4 - Wellington to South Island

We left Taupo on Tuesday, Sept 23rd and headed south to Wellington. Windy Welly lived up to its nickname!

Wednesday was Te Papa day. Te Papa is the national museum of New Zealand, the equivalent of the Smithsonian for the US. It was simply overwhelming. The building is as impressive as the exhibits, as you can see below.

Lots of beautiful Maori carvings and art. We took lots of pictures inside the museum, but not many are worth posting. Long exposures and focusing issues. I did have a lot of focus issues with the new camera. I don't know what it was focusing on many times. It would seem to pick out something on the very edge of the scene and make that sharply focused and ignore everything you were pointing it at!

One of the things we really enjoyed in New Zealand was all of the corrugated iron work. There were giant gumboots, statues, giant rabbits all made from corrugated iron. This station wagon even made it to Te Papa!

We took the cable car up to the Wellington Botanical Gardens. Short ride, but steep! It's a beautiful garden, full of tropical flowering plants, trees, and flowers.

From the top of the Cable Car platform, I took a nice panorama shot overlooking Wellington.

We only had a short stay in Wellington (2 nights). It clearly deserved more time. You would think that with 30 days to spend, we would have had more time, but it's surprising how fast it goes. On the 25th, we boarded an InterIsland Ferry to go to the South Island. The picture to the right is the ferry once it was docked in Picton on the South Island, but I couldn't get a good picture in Wellington when we boarded.

Here's the route we took from the North Island to the South Island. You loop out of Wellington's huge harbour and make a beeline for the fiords of the South Island. We were never out of sight of land. Once you get into the channels at the South Island, it's just a beautiful little cruise watching the world go by.

Cruising throught the channels between the islands.

We arrived in Picton Harbour, and as you can see, it was a gorgeous day.

We picked up our rental car, had a picnic lunch overlooking Picton Harbour, and then took off towards Motueka and the Able Tasman National Park. Below is a picture of the Queen Charlotte Drive from Picton to Nelson. You can't use the word "beautiful" enough in New Zealand.

Next, we tramp around in the Able Tasman National Park!