Our last free day is spent in Chamonix.
Some in the group went hiking the last few miles between our start day and our end day. Some went to the spa. Our main activity was taking the cable car to Aiguille du Midi and then get back in time for Fondue at 1pm. We are keeping it to a very small group of Vena, Lisa, me.
Jo and Kerrie left already to see their husbands in Italy. Here is Peter being a gentleman and helping the ladies with their luggage.
The Aiguille du Midi, a mountain in the French Alps is a 3,842-metre-tall mountain in the Mont Blanc massif within the French Alps. It is a popular tourist destination and can be directly accessed by cable car from Chamonix that takes visitors close to Mont Blanc. It has a refuge neaby which is often used as a launch pad for climbers summiting Mont Blanc. The cable car has a cable link across to Courmayeur, Italy, where some of our tour took the cable car up and across several days before.
Our appointment was at 8:45 and we arrived a bit early as breakfast in Hotel Richemond isn't the top of the line. We were able to catch a slightly early car with an army group, up to do some work on the mountain. The route had a stop half way up, we didn't know and tried to leave, but were ushered back on the connection car.
The top was cold, cold, cold. The platform was icy and I was glad I was wearing as many clothes as I had (wish I had remembered gloves).
We wanted to take the connection over to Italy, but that was closed due to the high wind.
We saw some people practicing mountain climbing, we saw others actually on the way to the summit. We saw the refuge used for the summiters.
We saw the needle that was visible as we were hiking yesterday. Also, in the complex, was a place where you could walk on along a plexiglas floor and see underneath the building.
We could also take an elevator up to get different views. You could see through the elevator roof!
There was also an ice cave!
A bit later the crossing to Italy opened, but we decided that we had vertigo from the altitude and didn't really want to go.
Here we are acting silly:)
We really felt the altitude as we walked up the stairs to the cafe where we finally ended up and where Lisa bought me a coffee and croissant for my birthday.
We got down a bit early and met Vena at the hotel.
While in the room I spied Shaun in conference below with someone we believed to be his boss and were curious about what they were talking:)
For lunch we had a reservation at Le Fer du Cheval which got well deserved ratings for their cheese fondue which we had, with wine and a meat platter and a wonderful meringue glace.
We liked lunch so much that we returned for dinner with Sue, Peter, Vena, Lisa and me. For dinner we sat inside. We had an order of snails to share. I had a calabrase salad, but was still so stuffed from lunch I couldn't eat anything else, but I did join in with a coffee.
On the way back to the hotel, Peter pointed out the mural showing all the Mont Blanc climbers.
This was definitely one of my better birthdays!
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