Chamonix (France) to Brussons (Italy)

Today's route

We did reasonably well this morning – up at 9am and out for a trip up Mont Blanc, or at least part of the way up it.

We walked from the campsite, via the boulangerie for a pain au chocolat (2 stone heavier when I get back!) to the Telepherique l'Aguille du Midi. Basically this is a cable car that takes you – via the lower level Le Plan de l'Aguille – to a rocky pinnacle 3,842m above sea level and with a fantastic view of Mont Blanc.

The painful bit is at the bottom – the price. Please, look away now if you are of a northern disposition (George, you particularly won't like this!) - it is €36 EACH for the return trip – that's about £25!! Talk about living on bread and water for the rest of the month :)

Still, it was worth it, and once we got back to the bottom, we agreed that having been up there we would still have done it – if you see what I mean, so if you get the chance – do it!

What's up there? Well, the view of Mont Blanc (4,810m) and other peaks – all above 4,000m (and when you think that the highest mountain in the UK is just over 1,000m high, that kind of puts it into perspective), the Bosson glacier, snow, not much in the way of oxygen, blue skies, cool temperatures..... it was really nice.

You can't get off the 'base station' so there is no wandering about in the snow or on the glacier – which is a bit of a disappointment, but not all that suprising really. There did seem to be quite a few groups down on the snow – organised trips I guess – and we said that we would like to come back and walk to the top of the mountain. Would be very hard work mind you – especially because of the thinness of the air.

Don't know how many of you have been up to that height. Years ago I went on a trip to Venezuela with some chaps I worked and lived with and we took a trip on the highest cable car in the world (not that I am showing off or anything) and walked from the top, over a little bit of a hill and down the other side (we were in the Andes). I remember we walked about 100m – we were at 4,000m altitude or there abouts – and I was finished. But, I was very unfit at the time – so this time around..... well, of course I had to try sprinting up 3 flights of stairs – just to see what happened. I can assure you, the fact that I didn't fall back down the stairs is a miracle. It was so hard. More the lack of 'go' in your muscles and the incredible dizziness than not actually being able to breath. Very interesting :)

After about an hour of wandering about and taking too many mountain photos we headed back down, stopping for a bit of walk at the next station down (a mere 2300m) and then all the way to Chamonix.

By then it was lunchtime – obligatory baguette/ham/cheese purchased, back to the van for that – shower, packed up and on the road by the 2:30pm camp site kicking out time.

Onto the next phase of the adventure.

One week after setting off from Camberley we headed to the Mont Blanc tunnel that would take us from France into Italy for the bagainous sum of €42 one way!! Today was not a good day on the money front!

It was a good tunnel though – if that's your kind of thing.

So, Italy then. Well, the Italian side of the Alps is much like the French side, but we both decided that actually (and against all expectations) we had preferred France. I think because Chamonix was so nice and because we at least had a bit of French language that we could use, we felt more comfortable, in Italy it was a totally different story. Aside from anything else, the surroundings – whilst largely mountains and wooden chalet type buildings – had a lot of building work and a big motorway running right through it. Not very scenic.

Trying to navigate from our large scale atlas of Europe and copping a scan at the rough guide to Italy I decided to take us to Bossons – apparently a really lovely place in a nice valley and with a view of the Matterhorn.

Well, it was a nice place – but it was 1,000m up a windy mountain road.

For anyone that has never driven in Italy – you won't believe it when I tell you that despite there being endless hairpin bends, it just doesn't stop the Italians overtaking you. It is the craziest thing you have ever seen. That, the fact that the cars coming down the hill are largely on your side of the road when you see them (quite scary), and our general nervousness about the van's ability to keep itself cool when it's 36degrees outside and 20km of up hill does not make for a relaxing ride!!

Of course it was fine. We got to Bossons and found a special parking place for camper vans - €5 for 24 hours apparently, but there was no means of paying, so we didn't. We set up and had a walk into 'town'.

This place – the carpark and the road back to the bottom – was heaving. But, it has to be said, we just couldn't understand it. Don't get me wrong – it was a nice little place, there was a lake (no swimming though) and mountains – all the required things, but it just wasn't that great. Shame.

So far – France is definitely winning.

In other news, we did spend some time planning out the rest of our trip – broadly though you understand, always room for change – and mostly because my sister Helen & soon to be brother-in-law Andrew are coming out to visit us somewhere on our travels and we needed to decide where.

The original idea was Berlin – but I didn't realise how far Berlin was from Blighty, and as they are coming the last weekend of the trip – the one before we have to be home – we need to be somewhere we can make it home from in that time. After much deliberation, a bit of string, and a marker pen we decided on Amsterdam – which is good.

Broadly the rest of our plan is – weekend 2 - Verona, 3 – Vienna, 4 – Prague, 5 – Berlin, 6 – Amsterdam, 7 – home.

If anyone fancies a trip out to see us – that's where we will be, probably :)

Also, thankyou for all the emails letting me know that you are reading - is good to know, but also a little scary - how can I possibly keep this up for another 6 weeks? It's a bit like the Big Brother house, you don't really know if anyone is still watching :)