Chamonix

 The mountain Village

When the school holidays began, it was terrible weather. The plan was to skip school on Friday, the last day of term, and leave to Geneva then, but when Mum and I were walking home from a restaurant on Thursday night, an alarm sounded on everyone’s phones, including Mum’s and mine, telling us about severe weather the next day. And when I mean everyone’s phones, I mean literally every person in the street at the exact same time had a blaring weather report on their phone. The next day, it was worse. Schools all over Nice had been cancelled, and it was strongly suggested to stay inside and not to go anywhere. I wanted to go for a run, but the weather was so harsh, so I ran up and down the stairs in our apartment, only to wake some very grumpy neighbours. When Mum and I ventured down to the street to get croissants, we were practically blown off our feet. Struggling on the way back, we finally got the croissants, and very wet and blown apart, we made our way to the station as a family.  We arrived at the airport to find out our plane was delayed, which was no surprise considering the weather. The waves were splashing up onto the runway and it was flooded around the edges. 

Upon arriving in Geneva, Switzerland, we were welcomed by better weather, but terrible prices. We found a Burger King right outside the station, which still cost over $80 Australian dollars for the six of us, and walked down to the lake to spent our 4 hours stopover in Geneva, or Genève as the French call it. When our bus, Swiss tours arrived, we hurriedly boarded, and munched on pretzels and bonbons through our hour drive to the mountain village of Chamonix.  

Chamonix was a site to behold when we arrived. We could see the French alps, including the highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc, peeking over the clouds, as well as two magnificent glaciers, things that might not be there 50 or so years into the future. We walked in an awed silence through the beautiful town, our heads turn upward towards the spectacular mountains. When we arrived at our lodge, it was like a typical mountain village house with sheepskins, antlers on the walls, fireplace, and an oak wall, ceiling and floor. 

The next day, I woke up feeling quite miserable, as I remembered I had left our iPad on the plane. That dampened our morning a little bit, but after we had gone out for breakfast, I felt a little better. We then went to the amusement park just up from us where we spent the day.  

We bought 18 tokens and each ride either cost 1 to 2 tokens. We went on a giant swing, mini bumpers cars that were about as fast as snails, a boat that pulled me all the way to the top of a slope, then let go as I fell down and skidded across the water, a butterfly ride which took us all the way to the top, then let go as we slid down side to side on the carriage, till it gradually stopped, a few carousels, and a very wet slide/toboggan that got us all drenched. We also went on the Luge, which was a giant slide like thingy that took us up in a carriage on a metal rail, then at the top, we would push the lever forward and we would whizz down at top speed. Our ticket allowed for ten rides, but they weren’t checking tickets on the first few rides, so we got those for free. But the funny thing was, as soon as the women worker came along, all the other male workers started checking tickets so we got about five more then we were supposed to, but the last few we got quite drenched. We got home at 4, where we had a very very late lunch, then just chilled until dinner. This was on Saturday, the 21st of October. (To view my videos on the luge, head to my Video page)

On Sunday and Monday we just spend time at home, as Mum was working very early in the morning till about lunch time. We had waffles and played outside on Sunday, (22nd of October) and then went for a walk around the very beautiful town. It looked as if it was from a storybook. We went to a cafe afterwards where we bought flavoured milk, like gingerbread, vanilla, hazelnut, spéculos (a very big flavour in France) and cinnamon. Then, in the afternoon, after Mum’s work, we went on a walk up the mountain it was spectacular and a bit cold. We had a very appropriate dinner, soup. On the 23rd, the Monday, we also had a home day, and spent the day just chilling at our house. I took Beatrice for a little walk, and it was very beautiful. 

On Tuesday, we took a trip up on a little Red train to the “Mer de Glacé” which translates as “Sea of Ice” and it is a glacier. It was a very foggy day so unfortunately when we reached the Mer de Glacé we couldn’t really go close to it. We got a glimpse of it at the start, but unfortunately forgot to take photos. It literally was a once of a lifetime experience. After that, we went to an indoor bouldering place. 

The next day, we went on a massive hike up to Glacier Bossons, which was another Glacier and this time we made sure to take photos. It was a long tiring walk which was helped by the promise of snow at the top, but the size and closeness of the glacier was fooling because as when we got closer, it seemed to retreat. But we got some lovely photos and we got to see a glacier for the first and maybe last time. We did hear an interesting story about a plane that crashed into Mount Blanc, and no one knew. A few years later, hikers came across remains in the snow as the glacier melted! 

The next day on the Thursday, we had a wonderful time as we went up on a chairlift to Mount Brevent, where we saw snow in the distance! We decided that it wasn’t too far away so we commenced hiking. But then again, apparences are deceptive so it turned out being a lot harder, and higher than we expected. We got to snow in the end of course and it was an incredible experience! We quickly left as we saw trembling storm clouds overhead and Beatrice was very cold. We quickly left, but remembered to take a snowball with us. When we got down to the bottom, we went home and then went later to the pool. There was a cool waterslide at the pool, and just outside that there was an ice skating rink. Outside the ice skating rink there was heaps of snow from the rink that they were spraying around so we had our second dose of snow there. 

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Then Mum and us kids went on a drive to the next town which was enjoyable, except when we got out and it was cold and rainy so we didn’t have much to do except wait for the next bus. But that was cool too, and a nice end to our trip in Chamonix. The next day we walked to the bus stop, to catch a bus back to Geneva, Switzerland with a very energetic and funny bus driver. When we got to Geneva, we split up, Mum went on to the airport, to pick up the iPad I left behind, and we went on to a department store where we subtly ate our lunch which we had NOT bought from the shop. Then we made our way, through playgrounds and a bit of chocolate, to the train station, and caught our train to Avignon.