June 16 - Day 9 - Chamonix, France - Mont Blanc

June 16 - Day 9 - Chamonix, France - Mont Blanc

We woke up early and headed to the train station in Martigny to find out about trains to Chamonix. Luckily there is a small train dedicated to this route, it seemed like a touristy train. Our Swiss Passes covered the fare. We left at 8:42 AM and arrived at 10:15 AM. The ride itself was very scenic. The sky was very blue, mountains and trees were all around.

 
Chamonix is a small town that seems solely based on tourism. It felt a lot like the towns in Switzerland we had been. It almost felt like a honey moon destination. There were a lot of bed and breakfasts and hotels, including a Best Western. It looks really nice and I was ready for a nice night in a real bed, but that wasn’t to be.

We immediately found out where the campsite was and began our hike across town. We weren’t really sure if we were walking the right way based on the directions we received. It seemed like we were lost, but finally we stumbled upon the campground.

It was extremely nice. It was much different than the campgrounds in Switzerland. It wasn’t very big, but it was very clean. The grass was perfectly manicured. We found the man that ran the campground and he informed us to choose a site and then come back and pay. We picked a spot near the restroom under a big tree with Mont Blanc in the background. It couldn’t have been any nicer.

We got our tent set up pretty quickly. The sun was shinning and it was kind of warm. All we intended to do was take the cable car to the top of the mountain and possibly do another short hike if possible. I was tired so we rested. Rather than lay in the tent I just laid on the grass. It was so soft and comfortable. It was a big change from the rains we experienced in Switzerland.

After a brief nap we decided to head to town and find out about transportation to Italy for the next day. We didn’t want to be in a situation where we would have to stay an extra day and get off schedule or have to back track into Switzerland.

We asked people at the train station, but they were clueless. They said the only train that came in was the one we arrived on and it didn’t go any further. In other words, we’d have to back track. We asked the people at the information center but they were no help either. Our next option was the bus. The bus station was closed though.

Our plan was to get to Aosta, Italy by bus and then continue on to Pisa. It was Saturday so we weren’t sure if the buses would run on Sunday. We had read that in most instances buses don’t run on Sunday, but we were assured that it would be running from Chamonix through a tunnel that passes through Mont Blanc and onto Aosta. I wasn’t so sure based on the previous information I had heard, but we decided to give up on this for now and find out in the morning if there really was a bus.

Our one last hope would be to take cable cars over Mont Blanc into Italy and from there get a bus. It was more expensive and time consuming, but it was an option. It was becoming lunch time and we hadn’t eaten very much in the past week so we decided to find somewhere cheap to eat. That was pretty tough to do. We decided on a sandwich shop called Mojos. It was 5 Euros for a sandwich, but it was very big and very good. The waitress was English and had moved here to improve her French.

It was now almost 3 PM. After giving up on our quest to find transportation we decided to go the cable car to find out about going to see Mont Blanc. The Aiguille du Midi would take us to the observatory on the mountain where we would have good views of the city and surrounding scenery. It cost 37 Euros per person and took about 20 minutes to arrive at the top.

We had originally planned to take a series of cable cars across to Italy, but because we were thinking we were going to have to take that route in the morning we decided we didn’t want to pay for it twice. It was very expensive. We were still considering going part of the journey to Panoramic Point, but by this time it was much cloudier than it had been in the morning and we felt it wasn’t going to be worth the money for limited views.

Even though it was cloudy we decided to go up anyway. We went above the clouds and it was much more clear. Occasionally the clouds would come in and cover the mountain, but a few minutes later and it was clear again. Mont Blanc was absolutely amazing.

The steep jagged peaks and sheer drop offs are exactly like what you see in pictures. A helicopter ride over the Alps of southern France would be awesome! If they offer something like that in the future I would definitely do it.

At the top there was a look out point as well as portions of the mountain that had been blasted out to form a tunnel. The tunnel was basically pitch black with little light coming in from the entrance, but I don’t recall a purpose for it’s existence. The observatory on the other hand was really cool. I was able to get some neat pictures of it. Because it was so high and it was still very snowy in the mountains icicles had formed on its windows.

There were actually two observatories. One of these buildings was resting on the top of a peak like a bird’s nest and the other was higher up and reachable through an elevator inside the mountain.

At the top there is a lookout platform. When we reached this portion I immediately felt light-headed. Possibly brought on by the lack of food in combination with the high altitude. When I went back inside I felt fine, but standing outside would bring it on again. It was also very bright from the sun reflecting off of the snow. I was able to get a few pictures of the mountains and a small group of mountain climbers. Every few minutes I had to go back inside to recover.

We spent about two hours total. It was now about 5 PM. We decided that it was getting late and there wasn’t much else for us to do at the top since the clouds were beginning to return and didn’t clear out like they had before.

When we got down we returned to our campsite. We hung our clothes out for the 4th time, hoping they might finally dry. After this much time soaking wet in our bags they smelled terrible, but I was more concerned about the weight the wet clothes added. It must have been a few pounds at least. While we waited for our clothes to dry I laid back down in the grass for another nap.

Since we didn’t have much food we decided to splurge and go out to dinner. We decided on a small pizzeria called Fanfuille. Every town seems to have tons of Pizzerias and Chamonix was no different. It seems like pizza is everyone’s favorite meal and they order it everywhere. The pizza was ok, but it was really cheap for Europe, 6.50 Euros, so it was fine. After dinner we went to a bakery and bought chocolate meringue. It looked really good and we were wanting something sweet, it was only 1.30 Euros so we decided to get it. It was probably the worst thing I have ever eaten. It basically tasted like Styrofoam. It was similar to eating air. I don’t recommend buying plain meringue ever. I’m sure it was intended to be put on something else as a topping, but we didn’t have anything else. Oh well.

After dinner we walked around town for about two hours in search of something to do. We had heard about a hike you could do and wanted to do that to watch the sunset on the mountains, but we never found it. Instead we walked around looking at the architecture of the buildings and for souvenirs. Most of the shops were closed and we didn’t find anything interesting. It didn’t seem like very many of the people that were out were tourists. June was a great time to visit, but it must not be the high season.

We went back to our campsite for the night, took a few last pictures of the sunset and then took showers. Every 30 seconds the showers would turn off automatically so it was a little frustrating. I eventually just started leaning against the wall and nozzle so it would stay on. It had been a few days since I had a shower so it was worth the trouble. I was finally clean again, but I was running out of clean clothes.

As a whole Chamonix was a very cheap town, at least in comparison to Switzerland. The campground was by far the nicest we had been to, and probably that I have ever been to, and it was still the cheapest. It was about $12 per person. Chamonix and the surrounding area was really nice. It was one of the highlights of my trip and somewhere I have always wanted to return.

"Nexte Halte, Pisa..."

June 15 - Day 8 - Martigny, Switzerland

June 15 - Day 8 - Martigny, Switzerland

We walked the mile about as fast as we could. We made it back at 6 PM, with 10 minutes to spare. We had wanted to go to Martigny, a good stopping point for the night since we wanted to go to Mont Blanc the next day. However, the train we planned on taking didn’t stop there. As a result we had to take a train headed towards Milan, Italy and change trains in another city. Our Swiss Pass was getting a lot of use today. I highly recommend getting on if traveling for an extended period of time in Switzerland.

We ended up changing trains in a small town called Sion. From there we continued on to another small town, but I don’t remember the name. This train was going to take us to Martigny. It was getting dark, we had no place to stay, and didn’t know what to do. I remember along the way seeing a campground out the train window, but the train didn’t stop in the area and we had no way to get there. Everybody we asked seemed to think that you couldn’t get from Martigny to Mont Blanc, even though I had read that is the route to take. We began thinking that it may be best to just go back to Geneva and try again tomorrow, at least Geneva had hotels we could stay at, even though they would be very expensive.

We decided we would go to Martigny and just take our chances. Just like every other time on our trip that things seemed hopeless somehow it worked out perfectly. We arrived at 9:30 PM and walked about 1 ½ miles to a campground, Les Neuvilles Martigny. Like all the other campgrounds it was pretty nice and very clean. We got our tent set up and it started to rain, perfect timing.

We had spent most of the day traveling by train, but it wasn’t completely bad. We got to see a lot of the country side, Freiburg and Geneva. It also gave my legs a chance to rest. The plan for the morning was to figure out how to get to Mont Blanc.

"Nexte Halte, Mont Blanc..."

June 15 - Day 8 - Geneva, Switzerland

June 15 - Day 8 - Geneva, Switzerland

We made our way back to the train and continued on to Geneva. We arrived a little after 3:00 PM. We weren’t staying overnight so we had to see what we came to see pretty quickly in order to continue on to our next stop. It was a little overcast, but it wasn’t raining finally. We felt it would be easier to navigate the city without our bags so we attempted to find a locker in the train station. Most of the train stations in Switzerland had this as an option, but we hadn’t used one up to this point. The price was 7 Swiss Francs, about $5, so we decided we would just carry them.

Geneva is a much larger city then the others we had been to so we needed to take a bus to get to the sights we wanted to see. There were a lot more cars in Geneva than the rest of Switzerland. The traffic was really bad and slowed us down a lot.

Unlike the western and central portions of Switzerland, in this region most of the people spoke French, however, everyone said “merci” regardless if French or German was their first language. This gave me an opportunity to use my French language skills, although most the people spoke French, German, and English, some even spoke Romanisch, a form of Italian spoken mostly in the southern region near St. Moritz, which we would be going to later in our trip.

Geneva is a city known for it’s support of human rights, international treaties, banking industry, and being very multinational. Our first stop was the League of Nations building. This is where important political figures come to discuss important events taking place around the world and how to solve them. We were unable to go inside, I think it’s restricted to visitors or maybe you can go on a tour. Either way, we didn’t have time to do anything except see it. In the front of the building is a huge square with water fountains shooting out of the ground. In the middle is an enormous three-legged chair, it’s probably 50 feet high at least.

Down the street from the League of Nations was the Red Cross building. There are Red Cross locations all over the world, but this is their headquarters. Inside is a museum that we were able to get in free to with our Swiss Passes. We were able to leave our bags behind the counter for free while we walked around, which was great because my bag was heavy and I didn’t feel like trying to walk in a crowded museum with a backpack on.

As a whole the museum was a pretty big disappointment. It’s a museum, so that was strike one on the fun factor, but there wasn’t much to it. Usually you can see neat artifacts or something of interest, but this was basically an empty building with a few posters on the wall explaining the mission of the Red Cross with important events in time that they have contributed their efforts towards. It was lame, good thing we got in free.

There was also a short movie you could view in one of the rooms. It was basically a slide projector that you would see in 1980s. The video made no sense at all, it was terrible and strongly not recommended. Overall the museum was boring, but at least I can say I’ve been there. The one cool part was a sculpture in the front of the building depicting a group of people blindfolded. I’m sure there is some significance to this, but I’m not sure what it was.

As we were trying to leave the museum a television crew was filming a promotion at the front door for the Euro 2008. There were other people trying to leave as well. Since we had limited time to see everything before our train left we needed to find a way out. We waited around for a few minutes and then someone that worked there directed us to the back door.

It was already 5 PM and our train to Martigny was scheduled to leave at 6:10 PM. The last thing we wanted to see was Jet D’eau, a fountain that shoots out of Lake Geneva. In order to get there we had to cross the street and get on a bus to take us all the way across town.

We didn’t know which exit to get off, but we could see the lake from the bus. We thought the bus would drop us off close to the water’s edge, but that wasn’t the case. We ended up taking the bus a little further than necessary and had to back track. It only spent about 10 minutes looking at the lake. It was very pretty and seemed like a great place to hang out.

It was now 5:45 PM and we needed to get back to the train station. We figured it was about a mile away, but just to be safe we wanted to take a bus. We looked around for a few minutes but couldn’t find a bus stop. We figured this was a popular destination and there would be one near by, oh well. We didn’t have time to wait around. Traffic in the city was really bad anyway, so we figured if we got on a bus we wouldn’t be going any faster than walking. I figured we were going to be able to see everything in just a few hours and then have to wait around for the train, but now we were almost to the point of running out of time.
We had 20 minutes to walk to the train station, which we didn’t really know where it was, and board the train. This was just like the Amazing Race!

"Nexte Halte, Martigny..."

June 15 - Day 8 - Freiburg, Switzerland

June 15 - Day 8 - Freiburg, Switzerland

We planned to wake up early and go to Kandersteg to see Oeschinensee Lake. On the original plan of hiking cross country it was one of the places I was looking forward to most. Even though we weren’t hiking I still wanted to see it.

It was pouring down rain in the morning so we decided to sleep in since we weren’t going to be able to see anything anyway and trying to take the tent down in the rain didn’t sound very fun. The rain began to die down enough that we were able to pack up and leave. We finally departed Bern around 10:30 to 11:00 AM.
Our first stop was Freiburg. I had seen pictures of the city when I was researching the trip and thought it looked cool. Since we couldn’t go see Kandersteg due to the weather we figured we would check out Freiburg. Basically the only thing I wanted to see was St. Nicholas Cathedral. It is a Catholic Church built in the late 1200s with a gothic style. We only had about an hour to walk to the church from the train station, take pictures, and get back in time for our train to Geneva.

It was still pouring down rain as we got to Freiburg. Since we were relocating we had to carry our bags with us through the streets as we got to the church. It was about a 15 minute walk, but we were able to stay dry for the most part since the buildings had awnings over the sidewalks. Across the street from the church was a building with an awning so we could stand under it out of the rain and take pictures.

"Nexte Halte, Geneva..."

June 14 - Day 7 - Bern, Switzerland

June 14 - Day 7 - Bern, Switzerland

We had had a busy day already, and it wasn’t over yet. We had seen Piz Gloria in Murren, Staubach Falls in Lauterbrunnen, and now we were on the train to Bern. Trains made travel so much easier. We were also able to use our train pass efficiently. We could jump on and off the train as many times as we wanted in the same day. We also could read, take pictures, or what I usually did, sleep. The trains were so smooth and clean. Much better than a bumpy road. They would usually stop for just a few minutes to drop off and pick up passengers, and as always, arrive and leave right on time. These people don’t mess around with their schedules.

Along the way to Bern we passed through Interlaken, a city we had planned to spend a lot of time in while doing our hike, but we had to take it off the list in order to do the other things we wanted to see. We got to Bern in the afternoon, and as usual it was very cloudy and it had obviously been raining there. We immediately got directions to the campground and started walking. It was a pretty long walk. We had to walk through the main part of the city which was very crowded with people and cars. It was much busier than the other places we had been, even Zurich. Zurich had very few cars, but that wasn’t the case with Bern. It was still compact enough that you could walk everywhere, nothing like the cities in the U.S.

We took a trolley to the area we were directed, Camping Erchholz. The campground seemed like it was in a neighborhood, I remember walking around in what seemed like a subdivision with lots of houses. When we got to the camping area we were a little surprised. We knew campgrounds in Switzerland weren’t anything like we were used to, but this was literally a city park with a swimming pool. You had to pay to enter the park, and then a little more if you planned to camp. It was very nice and wide open, but nothing to suggest this was a campground. They said we could put our tent anywhere. We decided to put it under a tree in case it rained and so we could hang our clothes to dry since they were still soaked. We had hoped to do laundry here, but never had an opportunity.

After we got our campsite situated we decided to go back to the downtown area to see some of the government buildings and other significant sites. The route we took was along the river. It seemed like a good walking path that lots of people were using. Once we started walking on it it seemed deserted. To one side was the river and on the other side a fence. I was thinking it was a good place for criminals to hide out and rob unsuspecting people. I don’t know why I thought that, I guess because in the U.S. you would expect something like this, but Switzerland seemed extremely safe. Along the walk we passed people playing sand volleyball at what appeared to be a college, but I don’t know.

This route seemed to take much longer than the way we came in, but it was ok. It gave us a chance to see a different part of the city. We finally got back to the city center and everything seemed to be under construction. Switzerland was hosting the European Championships with Austria in July and Bern was one of the host cities. As a result, all the buildings were getting a makeover. It did make it a little disappointing, the whole country was perfectly clean and organized, and the capital Bern was under construction.

Not only were the buildings under construction, but so were a number of the roads. They had trolley’s in town and they were being improved as well. Even though the city wasn’t in it’s best condition we were still able to see what we wanted to.

We spent about four hours hiking around the city. We began our sightseeing at the train station on the Marktgasse, the main street in the old town. We saw the parliament buildings, which were under construction, with a water show out front. We also saw the Hotel Schweizerhof - a famous hotel where important world leaders often stay when visiting the city. We passed the Church of the Holy Ghost as well as a lot of shops.

It seemed like every street had a fountain with a very detailed figure on top. One of the first we saw, Kornhausplatz, is a fountain with a carnival figure on top. Because I was running out of space on my memory card I wasn’t able to take very many pictures of them. There was one with a bagpiper, another with a knight, and one with bears known as Zahringer Fountain, plus many more. I wanted to save my last few shots in case I saw something really cool.

Because everything was under repair, it was cloudy, and lightly raining, we decided to head to the Einstein Museum, I’m not sure it was originally on our list of things to do but it was neat. It had a lot of information about scientific experiments. Outside in the courtyard there was something like a playground. I’m sure it was mostly intended for little kids, but it had different things to test scientific theories.

We then took a trolley to see the Cathedral of St. Vincent, which had a huge spire on the top that you could climb. Some of the people that were on the trolley looked extremely weird. I remember there was a group of four teenagers, probably 15 years old, two boys and two girls. They had strange piercing and weird hair, much like the punk rock look I mentioned before. They got on at the same time as us, but as we were driving one of them decided to jump off the back. He tried to run and jump back on, I don’t remember if it worked out for him or not.

At the Cathedral of St. Vincent we intended to climb the 270 steps to the top to see great views of the city, however, it was under construction so we were unable to do that. Instead we just took a few pictures of the fountain out front and the door. There was an iron fence out front that must have been locked because we didn’t go inside. However, the door was huge and very detailed with a number of religious figures and events.

It was becoming dark so we continued deeper into the Altstadt or Old Town. The streets in this area were very narrow and all coblestone. I was wearing some very warn out hiking boots and it was kiling my feet. Whoever thought coblestone was a good idea made a mistake.

We passed a really neat arched bridge and decided to walk down to the bottom of it and get a few pictures. There were some very old buildings dating back to the 17th century as we made our way through the city. We bought some Swiss chocolate in one of these shops since it was highly recommended.

We eventually came to the Zutgloggeturm, which means clock tower. At the clock tower there is a puppet show with bears, jesters, and emperors. It is the world’s oldest and biggest show of its kind. It takes place four minutes before every hour. I was down to my last few pictures, but I did get one shot of the clock tower itself.



After the show we passed through the Prison Gate, which dates to the 1200s. There is a small museum inside it today, but we didn’t go inside. We then made our way back to the area of town with the parliament buildings. Again the water show was taking place so we took some photos. I had to delete a few pictures I had previously taken so I could take some of this.

It was now pretty late and dark so we started our hike back to the campground we were staying at. We walked along a different path this time, taking us through the city. We were able to take a trolley to the general vicinity of the camp and walk the rest of the way. Because it had rained our clothes were still wet. Great!

"Nexte Halte, Freiburg..."