In the beginning, there was a plan ...
On this trip, I'll publish TourAlong posts en route. You know, just like a travel blog!
I started out on track, thinking of topics and selecting photos at the end of each day. But just five days into the 21-day trip, there was a sudden detour.
And then you ask, "OMG! What happened!?"
To find out, put on your oxygen mask, grab a flask of your favorite warming beverage, and climb aboard cable cars going up to higher altitudes for an Alps TourAlong—presented in the ever-popular picture-n-caption format!!
Let's go Alping!
Shall we?
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| Alpinists on the Mont Blanc Massif, France! |
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| Annecy Encore! We spent a day in Annecy in 2011 and vowed to return; it's such a cool city. Twelve years later, we did it! Just 26 miles south of Geneva (Switzerland), Annecy (France) sits at the doorstep of the French Alps, with towering limestone walls rising above its namesake lake. Nicknamed The Venice of the Alps, Annecy's old town's canals, shops, and restaurants perpetually draw visitors. One Annecy postcard view is the 12th-century castle—Le Palais de l'Isle (above). This mini castle has a history of being, among other things, a prison at various times, as late as WWII. Today it's a museum with a fun coffee shop in the courtyard! That beats being a prison, don't you think? |
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| Tour du Lac d'Annecy! Lake Annecy is dotted with small communities around its 25-mile shoreline—all connected by a bike path. And just down the street from our hotel was a conveniently located bike rental shop! Add a warm sunny day and it's a GO for a lakeside bike ride! With picnic lunches secured in the handy bike baskets (how French!), we were off! Most of the tour was on a dedicated, paved bike path. It was great! ... until we hit mile 18. OMG! Rock-hard bike seats + 18 miles = seriously sore butts! Butts aside, along the way we noticed how electric bikes were the bikes of choice for many riders! I have to wonder if traditional bikes will soon be quaint relics of days gone by. The new electric age is here. |
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| Rugby World Cup - France Versus Italy! Loyal readers may recall that we recently became rugby fans while watching a match in a Dublin pub. So, imagine our delight to learn that the Rugby World Cup was underway and being hosted by France! What happens in Annecy on a Saturday night when France is playing rival Italy in a World Cup match? Every bar and restaurant that has any sense at all gets big screens up and running to show the match, and we were into it! We watched three other Cup matches during the trip, and we even signed up for Peacock TV when we got home so we could watch the Cup final ... live! Do we understand rugby now? No, we do not. But it's such nonstop fun ... there are NO TV commercials during the two halves of the match! Imagine THAT! Who won? France humiliated Italy like overcooking pasta humiliates an Italian grandmother. The score was France 60; Italy 7. Mamma mia! Oh! And who won the 2023 Rugby World Cup final? South Africa upset favored New Zealand in a nail biter. South Africa 12; New Zealand 11. |
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| The Perfect Day to Burgle Homes in Annecy! Annecy isn't a big place. The population of the city and the adjacent communities is 180,000. And on this sunny October weekend, the entire population was recreating in—and along the shore of—Lac d'Annecy. This would have been the perfect time to burgle any home in Annecy to supplement our travel funds. We behaved ... this time. |
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| Uh Oh! Something was off the day we drove from Annecy to nearby Chamonix. I had that "I'm getting a bit congested" feeling. Not to worry. I had my travel supply of vitamin C, Nyquil and Dayquil caps, cough drops, and a few Alka Seltzer packets on the side. By midnight, it was game over. A WICKED SICK cold decided to join me on the trip. What fun! Let's go over the pros and cons of having a wicked, sick cold while traveling. Shall we? Pros:
Cons:
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| Chamonix! Ah, Chamonix! Chamonix is the heart of the French Alps and gateway to the Mont Blanc Massif ... that's French for White Mountain Massive Mountain Range! I was here once ... in 1976. I remember downtown Chamonix as a bustling touristy mountain town, with postcard racks and sidewalk cafes lining the streets. A town where a 16-year-old kid from Idaho could buy a small steak, fries, and salad for $4 and have a beer (or two) for a bit more! It was paradise. 46 years later? Alas, my $4 lunch isn't listed on restaurant menus anymore. $20 margherita pizzas are the new budget dining choice. But hey! Wanna go shopping? Chamonix is ready for you! The North Face, Patagonia, Salomon, Adidas, Columbia Sportswear, and many other brand stores are eager to sell you expensive outdoorsy gear and clothing ... ... that you really don't need! |
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| Aiguille du Midi! What's the best way to go from 3,500 to 12,500 feet in the French Alps? Easy! Take two cable cars from Chamonix to the top of the Aiguille du Midi! Since 1955, tourists and climbers alike have been reaching this ear-popping altitude in just 20 minutes. Today, $85 gets you a roundtrip taste of the airy alpine environment that makes the Mont Blanc range so incredible. Even with a wicked, sick cold—where an ear-popping cable car ride becomes an ear-plugging cable ride—this is an amazing place to be. TOURALONG FUN FACT: As far as cable cars go, the Aiguille du Midi car retains the record for the highest vertical ascent! |
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| Holy Pointy Peak, Batman! Is This the Riddler's Airy Lair? The complex perched atop the Aiguille du Midi is nothing less than incredible. For a better look at just how crazy its placement is, click the photo on the right side of this Wikipedia page! In the lower/main complex (pictured here) are multiple viewing platforms, a fine-dining restaurant, a really good cafeteria (where we ate), a gift shop, and hotel-like restrooms. Just thinking through the logistics of building and maintaining all of this is mind boggling! In summer, the Aiguille du Midi isn't necessarily the end of the journey. From the Aiguille, you can ride gondolas crossing five miles of the Valley Blanche to Pointe Helbronner. From there, another cable car descends to Courmayeur, Italy. The cost? A one-way ride—including the bus return through the Mont Blanc tunnel—is $140. That's a bargain for a day's amazing experience! TOURALONG TIME TRAVEL: In 1976, I took the gondola from the Aiguille du Midi to Pointe Helbronner and spent a night at the nearby Torino Hut. The "hut" sleeps 130 alpine travelers and has a restaurant and bar at 11,300 feet! And it was here that I first tasted the Italian moonshine, grappa! Paradise for the 16-year-old kid from Idaho! Yee haw!! At this point, a reasonable person might ask, "Todd, did you have ANY adult supervision during this adventure?" I did! In fact, one loyal reader of the TourAlongWithTodd Blog was an excellent supervisor of a 16-year-old kid from Idaho on a five-week climbing trip to Europe. I made it home just fine. And, though I never summited a peak during the trip, it was an eye-opening adventure that pushed my love of travel forward. Yee haw!!! |
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| Find the Climbers! There really are eight climbers making their way up the glacier to the summit of Mt. Blanc du Tacul (the peak at the far left). Go to the center of the image and move down slightly toward 7:00. The climbers are tiny, tiny, tiny dots! The snow-covered dome at the top right of the image is the summit of Mont Blanc. At nearly 16,000 feet (and 3,500 feet higher than this photo's altitude), it's the highest peak in western Europe. It's BIG! What's amazing is that Mont Blanc was first climbed in 1786! What's even more amazing is that I reached its summit 190 years later!!! Oh wait! I did not. No, my accomplishment in 1976 was navigating the route from our illegal campsite into the streets of Chamonix—enjoying a $4 lunch of steak, fries, and green salad, and drinking beer—and successfully navigating back out again! |
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| Welcome to Switzerland's Bernese Oberland! I love map drawings! Don't you? They make everything look so clean and proper; everything in its place. Of course, this being Switzerland, it's kind of a low bar. Pictured above are the main attractions of Switzerland's Bernese Oberland:
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| Lauterbrunnen Valley! The Lauterbrunnen Valley is quite possibly the world's most picturesque valley. For sense of perspective, the cliffs on the right stretch five miles. The village of Lauterbrunnen sits in the valley, while the clifftop villages of Murren, Gimmelwald, and Wengen overlook it. TOURALONG FUN FACT: Wengen hosts the World Cup's annual Lauberhorn downhill ski race. Featuring 2.65 grueling high-speed miles, it's the longest race on the circuit! My applications to compete in the race have, to date, been denied. I'll keep trying ... they don't know what they're missing. |
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| The Highwire Act! There's no end to the ways the Swiss entertain their alpine visitors. Above, Natalie navigates the high-wire at the Birg tram station above Murren. I was also on the high-wire when I took this photo. The thought of suddenly bouncing up and down on the wire to surprise her crossed my mind. But then the thought of self-preservation crossed my mind. There was no bouncing, though it would have been hilarious ... for one of us! |
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| Shootin' the Shit with a Swiss Farmer! Here's a sight not featured on the myswcomitzerland website! Imagine our excitement during our hike from Murren to Gimmelwald when we came upon a farmer shootin' the shit! It worked like this: A small tanker truck drove up the narrow path and the shit was soon shot firehose-style! The truck went back down the path to the Shit Store and came back up with more poop to spew all over the field. It was awesome ... We witnessed three shitloads shot! Luckily, there wasn't bad weather. Otherwise, it would have been ... ... wait for it ... A SHITSTORM! NOW how do you feel about eating Swiss cheese and chocolate and drinking Swiss chocolate milk!? One thing's for sure: When spring comes along, Swiss cows munch on the most amazing fields of mixed greens! I feel sorry for cows that don't get to indulge in the same salad smorgasbord. It's tempting to faceplant and just start grazing ... but remember to bring your own salad dressing! |
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| Grindelwald ... And What's Missing Pictured here, nestled in the valley far below, is the village of Grindelwald—our base for the next few days. Along the skyline are the Wetterhorn on the left and the Schreckhorn on the right. Before the Industrial Age, glaciers descending from these peaks nearly entered the green valley. Not anymore. I remember hiking a short distance up to the snout of one of these glaciers, the Oberer Grindelwaldgletscher valley glacier, in 1976. Today, it's gone. To grasp what's happened just over the past few decades, visit this page depicting images of then and now of glaciers in the Grindelwald area. And, to see exactly what I mean, go to the bottom of the linked page and scroll up just a bit to the Update 2019-11-18. That's what I saw in 1976 ... and what I didn't see in 2023. Hey! Here's a cause: Let's work on making alpine glaciers again! Shall we? |
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| Get Ready for Flight! The Eiger Express, an ultramodern $500 million cable car system, opened in 2020. What makes a $500 million cable car system cost $500 million? Well, besides the cables and cars, it might be the MASSSIVE terminals built at each end, especially the terminal at Grindelwald ... appropriately named Terminal. At Terminal, the Swiss conveniently provide ways for you to part with your money via shops selling chocolate, expensive watches, expensive outdoorsy gear and clothing, and many other things you absolutely don't need to ride a cable car! |
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| Flying Along! The Eiger Express is just one recent example of how Europe's alpine countries have created transportation systems that move people from cities to villages to spectacular mountain vistas. Trains, buses, cable cars—they all play a part. On the Annecy-Chamonix leg of this trip, we had a rental car. After that, we traveled by train. Swiss trains are quiet, have a smooth ride, and—true to reputation—run on time. Between walking and public transportation in Annecy and Chamonix, driving was unnecessary. Had we taken trains the entire trip, we could have saved $700. Ouch! |
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| What? This zoomed-in view of the Eiger's immense north face is about one-third of the way up, where the 5,000-foot rock wall goes from really steep to really, really steep! See the windows? Why are there large windows on the Eiger's north face? Well ... the windows are at the Eigerwand station—one of two train stations INSIDE the Eiger—on the Jungfrau Railway's route up to the Jungfraujoch station's mountain-ridge perch at 11,300 feet! What's at the Jungfraujoch? How about climate and weather research stations, astronomical telescopes, and an alpine entertainment complex built in, and on, rock and glacier for the amusement of 600,000 yearly visitors. What's truly amazing is that the railway became operational in 1912! TOURALONG FUN FACT: In the 1975 Clint Eastwood movie, The Eiger Sanction, Clint's character, Jonathon Hemlock, had to save his own life by cutting the rope he was hanging on in order to be caught by another rope secured by a suspicious rescuer. DRAMA! This epic scene was staged at these station windows. Clint performed the stunt himself, 1,500 above the ground! |
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| Where Instagram Photos Come From! Oh, it doesn't take much to get me started on the FOMO "need-to-be-seen" phenomenon perpetuated by Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media platforms. It's just so weird ... and it's cited as one cause of today's tourism overcrowding. For example, residents of Hallstatt, the hyperscenic Austrian alpine village, recently erected a fence to block hordes of visitors taking photos from a specific vantage point. The fence was taken down. But the protest was real. Google "overcrowding tourism" to take your own deep dive into this topic. |
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| And My Version of THEIR Instagram Photo! On the OTHER hand, I made the most of these two jumping for their Instagram photo! You can see them in the prior image making one of their many jumps for the camera. Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok aside, they were definitely having fun getting their shot! |
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| Natalie Trottibiking Along! Trottibiking (or Toddibiking as it clearly should be called) is like riding a large scooter with brakes. It's not without challenges, and being a little bit comfortable with scooting, skiing, or skateboarding is a bonus. While we didn't witness the event, a young woman made it only 50 feet down the path from the cable car station before falling and injuring herself badly enough to warrant ambulance and police ... and yes, they drove up this path! Well, Trottibiking wasn't fun for her, but we had a blast! |
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| My! What Large Hands You Have! What do you want in a glacier-carved-river-gorge hiking experience? At the Grindelwald Glacial Gorge, you can hike along a suspended cliffside catwalk, go bungee jumping ($$), and bounce on a net spanning the raging river below. But wait! There's more! How about ethereal musical entertainment? Above, Natalie serenades passersby with the sweet tones of her autoharp! Dogs howled and people went mental! It was THAT good! |
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| Jet d'Eau! If it's the Jet d'Eau, then we must be back in Geneva! The Jet, shooting 460 feet skyward, was originally a safety valve for a hydraulic power network. Since its construction in 1886, it's been moved (once) and has increased its height (twice)! And, as if you need to know more, it shoots 132 gallons of water per second at 124 miles per hour. But it does NOT do its jet shooting thing 24 hours a day! Nope, it gets turned off at night. And now you know. You're welcome. The Jet is one of the most visible aspects of the city, a city we found inviting, clean, and quite walkable. But if you'd rather not walk, hotels provide their guests passes for free public transportation, including the water taxis that crisscross the lake! |
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| From Geneva to Mont Blanc! Just 46 miles away—if you're a crow flying in a straight line for 46 miles, which I bet crows never really do—the Mont Blanc Massif rises in the east. In the middle of the photo is a tiny point of rock—the Aiguille du Midi! Yes, the same Aiguille du Midi we stood atop two weeks earlier! And to the far right, the nearly 16,000-foot Mont Blanc! |
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| Awesome Headgear! The National Monument symbolizes the entry of Geneva into the Swiss Confederation in 1814 and features two young women, one (with the crenellated headgear) symbolizes the Republic of Geneva and the other symbolizes Helvetia, Switzerland. Crenellated headgear? Come on! That's a castle on her head and I want one too! Actually, I'd like a castle AND castle headgear! |
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| Why Automation Sometimes SUCKS! We've noticed an interesting trend: Do our work yourself! Example 1: Pictured here, we decided to have takeout at the nearby KFC for our last night of the trip (KFC, really? Yeah, it just sounded good). The only way to place an order is to use one of the somewhat confusing kiosks. It all worked out, but sadly, the food didn't match our expectations. Wah, wah, wah ... TOURALONG TRAVEL TIP: Skip the U.S.-based fast-food chains, but don't pass up the chance to enjoy a restaurant-made hamburger in Europe. They've mastered the art. And to top it off, pilsner beer isn't your only choice anymore. Today, excellent craft beers are widely available! Example 2: At the Newark Airport concourse bar, you HAVE to use the QR code on the menu card to place an order. We asked, "Do we have to do it this way?" The bartender confirmed that humans can't be bothered with taking orders. But when the bill arrived on a tablet, presented by a human, the default tip was 20%. Nope! TOURALONG TRAVEL TIP: Tipping in Europe really is a thing of the past. On this trip, we were presented the opportunity to tip just twice. The rest of the time, we just tapped our credit card, and the bill was paid. Quite a contrast to expectations stateside. |
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So, there you have it!
But what about that WICKED, SICK COLD?
Like any faithful companion, it kept me close! What a bummer to be wickedly sick in the Alps. But hey! I was IN THE ALPS! ... and we still managed to get out and take it all in, albeit with Kleenex stuffed up a nostril now and then!
Here I am, exploring the Alps in 1976. Clothing styles were different then, as were the capabilities of cameras. This photo may look a lot like a painting, but it's not. Anyone who knew me when I was a 16-year-old kid from Idaho knows I was a ginger ... always carried a long stick while standing on rock outcrops ... and always struck a manly pose!
Speaking of striking poses for photos ...
Three Alps Photo Albums ... Just For You!
- Click here for Alps 2023 Annecy-Chamonix (90 photos)
- Click here for Alps 2023 Lauterbrunnen (50 photos)
- Click here for Alps 2023 Grindelwald-Geneva (90 photos)
To view an album as a slideshow:
- Once at the album, click the right-facing arrow in the upper right corner to start the slideshow.
- Use the slideshow controls in lower middle of the screen to navigate as the show plays (go back, go forward, pause).
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