May 24, 24 Geneva to Evian to Chamonix, France.
Before TT took off on his bike, Rel and I went down to breakfast and Kenna went on a run. We went out to find a good chocolate shop. Four fancy little balls of chocolate was $12. Thankfully the bell hop brought the car back up from the dungeon for us. Phew! Since I was stressing about it. I’ve been told I’m a bit of a water snob since I love Evian water. One time, when Master D was about six, he went to a fitness camp at the gym. They asked him if he wanted a bottle of water and he said “do you have Evian?” – so I guess you could say I’m a big fan. I couldn’t not stop and pay homage. It was raining and there was no parking. I parked in bus parking and we quickly snapped a photo while I worried about getting a ticket or towed. I’m grateful Rel and Kenna were good sports about it.
We headed out through some of the most beautiful and scenery I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving through. Everything was incredibly green, rolling hills, waterfalls galore, healthy massive trees, cottages, streams, narrow winding roads and very speedy french drivers – I had a Culligan man right on my butt, it felt a lot like a serial killer stalking us on the highway in my true crime obsessed mind. We came upon this poor guy and his car fully engulfed in flames. He didn’t speak English, we could only understand “turn around” and we could hear the emergency services coming. So we had to turn around and wind around and about through a few more tiny little villages to make it back to the main road. TT was way ahead of us since we left later than him and detoured to Evian. He’d missed biking past this unfortunate guy.
TT arrived in Chamonix to the hotel before us and they let him check in. He had biked approximately 55 ish miles and ascended somewhere around 3000 feet – which is equivalent to biking over 130 miles-ish. We were following his location on GPS (the start of our very bad luck with GPS mapping) but it tried to take us down a wrong way street and we had to go back out onto the toll road. When we finally arrived, we made reservations for the gondola, which is the big draw here, and then went out to explore the cute little town and get a very late lunch. The kids went down to find the hot tub and then later went for dinner at the hotel and I just went to bed.
May 25, 2024
Every single night, Rel spends an hour or more studying for her exam, I’m so impressed by her dedication and persistence. We went down to breakfast while TT and Kenna went on a run. And then we got massages and went out to find a Red Bull for Rel. When she bought it, she didn’t notice it was sugar free, so we went back to exchange it. They did not speak English, so it took like 10 minutes to make them understand. TT & Kenna cut their massages short to make it to the gondola and then we waited more than an hour after our scheduled time to get on it. The people going up were rock climbers, ice climbers, skiers, snowboarders, campers and a few of us tourists. Holy crapola, this thing went vertically STRAIGHT UP THE MOUNTAIN, more like an elevator than a mountain gondola. It was the scariest one I’ve ever been on.
We had to change gondolas once and roll over the top of three different towers that made us swing. I was sweating profusely and my tummy was not okay. When I looked over the edge my knees were weak. When the kids looked over the edge, my knees went weak. TT was chatting it up with some of the climbers and discovered that it takes three days to climb the mountain. They’ve built a building out there for people to sleep in. The whole thing took us about 2.5 hours to go up and down. The views were unbeatable. The climbers were insane, but also impressive. Seeing back country skiers being dropped off by helicopters was memorable.
Once we got off the mountain, we found a British pub, so of course, I ordered the fish n’ chips. We had a little friend join us for lunch, having no idea who he belonged to. Everyone around us just seemed to accept him, so we did too. We went back to the hotel. The kids hot tubbed and then we went down to their bar for dinner. I got hot chocolate with homemade lemon marshmallows, kind of a weird combo but so yummy!
The hotel was super cool, but the beds were made of concrete I think. The staff was super helpful and kind.
We all slept in, having overcome some of the jet lag. The girls went down to exercise while I packed up and took a shower. I made a Nespresso for the first time in a long time, expecting it to taste better over there for some reason, but it did not. We left to go find crepes. I mean, when in France, you must eat crepes! TT had left at 7:30 am to bike to Zermatt. The three of us each got strawberries and cream. And then left by 11:30 am to head to the Matterhorn. As we were driving out of the gated parking for the hotel, we realized we needed a charger for the GPS, so Rel jumped out while I was putting the ticket in to open the gate. She jumped back in and I went to drive as the hatch opened up and dumped TT’s suitcase out. The people behind us honked to let us know and then had a very good laugh at our expense.
