Geneva really is just the starting point and the ending point for this trip. But first we have got
to get to the Alps and Heather's got some kind of crazy bus scheme worked up.
Getting to Chamonix from Geneva is just a little bit clumsy. We could take a train, which takes like
five hours. We can rent a car and drive like 75 minutes... or, if you dig around on the France train
website, apparently you can order an on-demand bus, and take a bus from Geneva to Chamonix. It runs maybe
once or twice a day. It was kind of hard to tell the schedule, but that's what we've done.
I submitted a schedule request for a France bus via their train website, and it wasn't very expensive.
It only has 3 stops. Whether it actually works, we have no idea. We'll find out in a few hours!
We think we've done this right; we're headed to Chamonix.
Well, this weather is quite the departure from what we experienced in Greece! Just a quick
reminder of what that trip was like. It was really bloody hot. So it's been incredibly hot again.
Locals are saying this is August weather, two months early. Unrelenting sun.
Today it has been 50 degrees and raining the entire day. It's not raining
right now, but it's definitely still cool. Since it's not raining, we've decided
to take the train to a nearby town and check out some waterfalls that are there.
Thank you, Vanna White.
We have our vaccine cards but no health pass. Is that okay?
We just got done at the Gorges. We've been trying to figure out what to do, honestly,
today, because it's been raining all day. It rained last night, and it just is wet and
cold, but we really wanted to get outside. If you're here in Chamonix and it's raining out,
this is a great activity. You fill some of your time that's still outdoors. If it's sunny out, I
would probably recommend heading for the mountains. Definitely more stairs than we expected, but it's a
great way to break us in for some hopefully more ambitious hiking that we'll be doing tomorrow,
when the sun is hopefully outside. Gosh, if I just jinxed us I'm going to be so upset!
Let's see. Oh no, it's not warm.
I don't know if you can see it up here, but along this ridge, you can see the mountains or the peaks behind.
We haven't seen those yet, so we think there's a low cloud layer, and then clear views above.
Here's hoping! We are now actually walking to go up the lift to Aiguille du Midi. The mountains have been
peeking out, so we're cautiously optimistic that we'll see some amazing views up there.
Maybe go to Italy, we'll see. We are super excited to be going up the mountain today!
This is the one thing that i wanted to do while we were in Chamonix, and with the weather we weren't
really sure we'd be able to make it. Just real quick, regarding the process if you do come while
there are still COVID restrictions. You have to have a reservation to go up. You cannot just
show up and go up. You have to make a reservation for a specific time, and you'll get some tickets.
You come back at the time in the ticket, and then you get in your capacity controlled
gondola and whiz up to the top. So what are all the things that can go wrong here? Oh my god.
I'm super excited to go up. I'm also terrified. I have a fear of falling. It's different than
a fear of heights. I have a fear of falling and these things terrify me, but the view is always
worth it, and I'm always glad I did it. But I'm terrified. So many things can go wrong.
So, you think the doors are going to close, right? {That's not funny.}
Here we go.
There's people down there! Way down there.
They have to pause the lift while other riders get on at different points.
This is the door between Italy and France. I'm in France. I'm in Italy.
A long way to come for coffee, don't you think? Woke up this morning in France, and I'm having my coffee in Italy.
The Italians really know how to do coffee and cappuccinos.
This is the lift we're not going down. The whole platform inside actually spins.
And you can't see it.
What Bill hasn't mentioned yet is that we have a train that we're trying to catch.
It's the last one of the day at 5:30. It's in, like, 2 hours and 45 minutes,
and it's a 3-hour hike. We're going to be hoofing it to try to make that
train, otherwise it's an hour and a half journey down the mountain to get back to Chamonix.