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.

France 1 - Introduction

Hello and welcome back to our photoblog. Since our last two trips were in the Eastern Hemisphere, we decided to go to Europe with this next few blogs. In 1999 we visited France, one of John's life goals. John has dreamed of going to Paris since he first read about Paris growing up. He had hoped to get there in the 1980s, even taking conversational French courses when he was living in Longview, TX.

So just to set the mood, here's a picture of a Paris icon. We decided to go up the Eiffel Tower at night to see the City of Lights.


Below is a map of France showing where we went. We landed in Paris and stayed there for a few days. We then took a train trip to Chamonix in the French Alps, where we stayed for 4 days. We then traveled down to the Arles where we picked up a rental car and drove to the French Riviera. Then back to Arles for a few days of ancient Roman culture. Finally we went back to Paris for a few more days before flying home.






Of course, in Paris you have to see the tourist standards. Hey they are touristy, but they are also breathtaking. Below is Notre Dame.

Here is I. M. Pei's Pyramid in the Courtyard of the Louvre. We thought is was pretty cool, not a "scar on the face of Paris!" as Jean Reno said in "The Da Vince Code". Unfortunately, our trip was way before "The Da Vinci Code", so we didn't get to look for the Holy Grail!

One of the great things to do in any European city is to take a boat trip on a river. We enjoyed a great trip on the Seine.

In Provence we stayed in Gordes, a great town on a hilltop. When we get to that part of the photoblog, we will tell you about a great dinner in Gordes.

In Arles we saw ancient Roman ruins and visited a great museum showing what Arles looked like in Roman times. For any fans of Lindsay Davis' series on Marcus Didius Falco, here is a picture showing what Silver Pigs look like! These are probably more lead than silver, but this is what they looked like.

So we will have different photoblogs on Paris, Chamonix, the Riviera, Provence, and Arles. We hope you enjoy them. As always all comments or suggestions are welcome.

John & Annie