Why do Europeans insist on everything being so damned hot?? Last night I had no doona at all, and air conditioning on max cold, all night, and I *still* woke up at 4am feeling hot and miserable. Just ridiculous. And the "desk" for working on has a glass surface, so is completely useless with a mouse, so have been using the bench under the tv, but it has a shelf right at knee height which I've banged into a couple of times already. Grumpy making hotel.
So after waking up at 4am hot, I then started stressing about today. So didn't get much more sleep.
The hotel breakfast was pretty average. The rosti were cold and disgusting, as were the crepes and the waffles. Blerf.
Anyways, so got ourselves ready and headed down to the Key Tours ticket office just down the road from out hotel. After having read so many negative reviews, I was very dubious about going with them. But they assured us that if the lift was closed we'd at least get a refund for that.
So out we headed to Chamonix. Took about an hour and a quarter to get there, although we had to queue for about forty minutes to get up the cable car to the top.
Peaks of the Aravis Range on the way to Chamonix
Peaks of the Aravis Range on the way to Chamonix
View to Aiguille du Midi (including cable car!)
But oh my. It was so good. We had the perfectest day you could hope for - clear blue skies and not much wind. I might have gone a little crazy taking photos of the mountains! And snow! We also managed to get good positions on all four cable car rides.
Aiguille du Midi Cable Car
View west from the first Aiguille du Midi Cable Car
Paragliders waiting for the right wind conditions
View to Aiguille du Midi from the cable car transfer
Summit antenna on Aiguille du Midi
Part of the visitor complex and cable car station on Aiguille du Midi
View to Geneva from Aiguille du Midi
Mum and me in the Step Into the Void platform at Aiguille du Midi
View to Mont Blanc summit
View to Mont Blanc summit
Me at Aiguille du Midi
Photo by Mum
Part of the visitor complex at Aiguille du Midi
Summit antenna on Aiguille du Midi
Photo by Mum
Chamonix valley from Aiguille du Midi
Chamonix valley from Aiguille du Midi
Chamonix valley from Aiguille du Midi
Chamonix from Aiguille du Midi
Chamonix from Aiguille du Midi
Me and Mum at Aiguille du Midi
Grandes Jorasses (left) to Dent du Géant (right) and peaks east of Aiguille du Midi
Part of the visitor complex at Aiguille du Midi
Snow tunnel
Vallée Blanche Cable Car
Peaks northeast of Aiguille du Midi
Aiguille du Midi Cable Car
Peaks east of the cable car transfer station
Ski trails
Aiguille du Midi Cable Car
Plan de l'Aiguille and French Alps
Pylon on the lower Aiguille du Midi Cable Car
View to Chamonix from the Aiguille du Midi Cable Car
After we got back down (several hours later!) we had a leisurely walk through the town of Chamonix, then stopped at a place just opposite the meeting place at the station for a drink/snack. They said they could do a cheese platter, so we asked for *small*, but ended up with a lot more food than we wanted :(
Arve River in Chamonix
Mural of mountain guides on a building in Chamonix
Place Balmat
Casino Le Royal and French Alps
Place Balmat
Park in Chamonix
At 5pm it was back on the coach and back to Geneva.
Chamonix-Mont-Blanc transit station
Railway viaduct and French Alps near Les Houches
French Alps near Vaudagne train station
Viaduc des Égratz viaduct near Passy
And the fountain was fountaining. It looks exactly like ours.
Lake Geneva and Jet d'Eau
Geneva from Quai du Mont-Blanc
Jet d'Eau - Geneva's water fountain
Jet d'Eau and Geneva from Quai du Mont-Blanc
View across Geneva to the Alps (Mont-Blanc is peak at far right)
So all up a pretty awesome day. Yes it was expensive, but I really couldn't find any suitable alternatives on such short notice. It turned out to be super convenient and hassle free.
Got back to the hotel with just enough time to do my hair before heading out.
Dinner was at La Nasse, but we really weren't hungry. Entrée was a salad, mains was lasagna. But after seeing the serving size of the dishes they brought out for the other tables, we asked them to half the sizes for our table. Even then I struggled to get through it. Couldn't even face dessert (a fruit tart). The lasagna was pretty nice, but the restaurant service (at least from the waiter we had) was very average. Was not impressed.
Back to the hotel to try and catch up.
View across Geneva to the Alps (Le Môle just right of fountain, Mont-Blanc is peak at far right)
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