Chamonix, France, Oct 9th – Oct 12th, 2015
That Friday, October 9th, we set off from Zurich to
Chamonix, France. We were going to drive
it, since technically it’s only about a 3 hour drive. However, after doing some research, we found
that driving can be quite a pain at the boarders because Switzerland is not in
the European Union. You could get tied
up in long customs lines getting in and out of the country. Everything on the internet recommended that
we go via train. I figured no problem,
train tickets are easy. However, just
like Michigan roads in the summer, it seemed like every single train track
between Zurich and Chamonix was under construction, which made it nearly
impossible to get train tickets. Every
time I put together an itinerary, the website would tell me that I couldn’t
travel that way because of construction.
I eventually emailed the Swiss Rail system to see if they could
help. I got an email back right away and
I was able to get tickets from Zurich to Chamonix, but they said that they were
not able to create a return ticket for me. They told me that I may have to get
them right on the spot in Chamonix.
Luckily, we were planning on meeting up with a friend of mine in
Chamonix, so I asked him if it would be possible for him to get return tickets
for us and I would pay him back when we met up in France.
Our itinerary went like this:
Travel from Zurich to Lausanne à
2 minutes to switch trains à
Lausanne to Martigny à
2 minutes to switch trains à
Martigny to Le Chatelard-Frontiere à
5 minutes to catch the bus à
take the bus to Chamonix. We were
freaking out that we would not have enough time to get from train to train. I am not exaggerating when I say that we
literally had 2 minutes to switch trains.
Luckily, Gary talked to the girl at the front desk of our hotel in
Zurich and asked her if there was any way that she could give us the ramp
number for each departure so we could save time by not having to find a board
to see which ramp our next train was at.
She was able to do that for all of our trains. Thank goodness! So, we get through our first leg of the
trip. When we arrive in Lausanne, we run
off the train and book it to the next one.
We literally get on the train and about 5 seconds later the doors close
and they take off.
The train from Lausanne to Martigny was the leg of the trip where we
crossed from Switzerland into France. It
was around the end of the school day and as we made our way to Martigny, more
and more kids kept getting on the train at each stop. It was funny because the train was like their
school bus. And it just seemed funny
that no matter where you are on earth, kids act the same. They were talking loud and gossiping and all
on their phones….if they weren’t all speaking in French, you would have just
thought these kids were just all Americans.
As we pulled into the Martigny train station, we saw a trillion
school-ages kids all milling around on the train platforms. It was the end of the day, and a Friday no
less, and they were all waiting to take the train home. I normally wouldn’t have thought too much
about it, but we had 2 minutes to run, with all of our luggage through this
massive crowd of kids, to our next train.
As the train pulled to a stop, Gary and I were ready at the door with
our luggage. The door opens and we burst
out of it like a bullet. The train
station actually wasn’t that big, but in order to get to our next train, we had
to go down this ramp, go underground and then come up on the correct ramp for
our train. And since it was not that big
of an area, it was massively crowded because there wasn’t that much space to
move. At some point I thought I lost Gary
in the crowd! We ran and struggled with
our luggage and made it on to the train, literally with seconds to spare. Gary was positive he ran over some old lady
with his luggage trying to get through the crowd.
Once on the train, we settled into our seats to enjoy the view. What we didn’t realize was that the train
from Martigny to Le Chatelard-Frontiere actually climbs up the mountain and
travels along the side of it. As we
started going up the mountain, the train ‘clicks’….like when you are on a
rollercoaster going up the first big hill.
We were at such a steep angle that all of our stuff was falling out of
our seats. Gary turns to me and says “Are
we on the Polar Express??”. We were
sitting there wide-eyed, not believing how crazy this train ride was;
meanwhile, all the locals were riding on the train like it was no big
deal. Once we stopped going up, the
train started winding its way along the side of the mountain…occasionally going
through tunnels and stopping at these teeny little towns that had sprung up on
a small, flat, plateau off the side of the mountain. As we snake along the mountain side, we finally
reached Le Chatelard-Frontiere. We grab
our luggage and get off the train. At
this point, we were supposed to get on a bus for the last leg of the trip. We walked around the one-room train
station….there were no busses and no people working. Nothing.
Zilch. I started getting a
sinking feeling in my stomach that we did something wrong. Luckily, there were a few locals nearby that
saw our obvious confusion. They could
speak a little English, so we showed them our train tickets. They told us that we got off at the VILLAGE
of Le Chatelard-Frontiere. The stop that
we needed was the bigger town of Le Chatelard-Frontiere. Literally, the exact same name except one was a village and one was a town. WHAT??
They told us that the next train would be in an hour, but since we had
gotten off at the wrong stop, the chain reaction was already set into
motion…..we would have already missed our bus to Chamonix. At this point, there was nothing that we
could do except get on the next train and hope for the best. I texted Heiko to let him know what we had
gotten off at the wrong stop and we would not be there at the bus station,
where we were supposed to meet him and ride together on the bus to
Chamonix. As we are sitting there all
defeated, the locals also told us another important point. They said that because the stop we were at was
so small, the train wouldn’t stop each time.
There was a button on the wall of the train station, you push it to
trigger the train to stop. So, if we had
been standing there but didn’t push the button, the train would not have
stopped. We thanked the locals so much
for all their help before they hopped on the next train, which was heading back
down the mountain to Martigny.
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| heading to Chamonix |
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| Can you find the small town in this picture?? |
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| Do you see the town in this picture? |
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| This was where we got off at the wrong stop |
As we were sitting there waiting for the hour to go by, I ran into the
bathroom real quick. I couldn’t have
been in there a minute, and all of a sudden I hear Gary talking to
someone. I’m like, “Geez, that guy makes
friends everywhere!” I come out of the
bathroom, and Heiko is standing there. I
had never met Heiko in person before. I
knew him from work, but we had only ever emailed and talked on the phone
because he lives in Germany and worked for Bose. So, here I am, exiting the bathroom and I
meet Heiko for the first time. So,
embarrassing!
After introductions, Heiko explained that he was waiting at the bus
stop for us when he saw my text. He knew
we would be sitting and waiting for an hour, so he just figured that he would
walk to where we were sitting and then just ride with us back. The town where we were supposed to get off
was only a mile up the road! He said he started walking, but then a local
stopped him and asked him if he needed a ride.
So, he hitched a ride the rest of the way back to the station we were
at.
After an hour at the train station, the next train arrived. We couldn’t have been on it for 10 minutes
when we arrived at the correct destination.
Luckily, there were still busses going to Chamonix. So, we just hopped on the next available bus
to Chamonix. The bus ride was only about
30-45 minutes long before we finally arrived to Chamonix. It took us over 6 hours of traveling to
finally reach our destination!
Once we arrived, we walked to our hotel, the L’Heliopic. The town of Chamonix is not that big, and
since it rests in the valley of the French Alps, it was easy walking. Once we got to our hotel, we checked in,
dropped off our stuff and met Heiko back in the lobby to go to dinner. We decided to just have dinner at the hotel
restaurant. As we sat and ate dinner, we
chatted and planned what we were going to do the next day. Heiko said that there were lots of hiking
trails that we could do. So, we planned
to meet around 9am the next morning to do some hiking and exploring on the
mountain.
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| Our hotel! |
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| Hotel restaurant |
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| You have to use your door key to turn on the electricity in the room |
We took the cable car up to the first stop on the mountain of Aiguille Du Midi which was about half-way up. At this point, there was a restaurant, the start of many hiking trails, and where many people would paraglide off from. We took in the view and watched some paragliders before taking off on the trail.
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| This is where you get on the cable car |
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| There's the cable car! |
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| It was crazy to watch them just run and jump off the cliff and glide away! |
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| Hieko petting the French mules. He swears they were planted there by the tourist department! haha |
The trail was very well-worn, so it wasn’t difficult to follow or
walk. For the most part, the trail
followed parallel to the valley, so we didn’t have a lot of climbing and
descending to do. After a while of
walking, we reached this glacier called
Le Montenvers Mer de Glace.
Because it was October and technically we were ‘out of season’ for the
area, access to the glacier was not available.
All we could do was walk down to the entrance and stare at it.
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| The glacier - they do tend to look dirty because of all the dirt and sand that they move |
After taking in the scenery for bit and having a snack, we walked back
up from the glacier where there were several trail heads. We were also told
that there was a lake near the Mer de Glace.
We took a couple of other trails around in the area, but we never did
find this so-called lake. Eventually, we
realized that it was getting late in the day and we probably should start
heading down the mountain back to Chamonix.
Because it was October and the valley was very deep, it got dark quick
and we did not want to get stuck out in the middle of nowhere with no light
sources besides our phones. Furthermore,
we had been told many times that certain trails were closed for the season, but
we could never figure out exactly which ones were open and which ones were
close and we were getting conflicting information. So, we sort-of guessed as to which trail down
the mountain was open.
Things were going along well for a while, when we reached a point where
the trail just kind of disappeared.
There was a “natural” looking way to go down, but there were signs
posted that said that way was not the trail and not to go that way. When we got to that point, there was also an
older couple that was stuck too and didn’t know where to go. Heiko, in all his German-ness, took charge
and just said, “let’s go that way!” So,
we headed down the area that said not to go that way!
It only took a few steps to figure out why we weren’t supposed to go
that way. The ‘trail’ was nothing more
than these huge boulders that we had to traverse that were damp and covered in
slippery moss. Heiko had to pull me up
at one point because I was stuck in a slippery spot and couldn’t move. The older couple, who were still stuck back
where the trail had ended, shouted down to us in French. Heiko could speak a little French…I think he
shouted back to them not to go the way that we went. As we continued down the slippery boulders,
we wondered what that poor, older couple was going to do! They were not strong enough to go the way we
were going, they didn’t have time to walk all the way back to the cable car and
it was getting dark out! I'm not what that little old couple ended up doing!
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| this was part of our 'trail' |
We finally made it over the outcropping of boulders when we got to this
area of smooth, flat rocks…like the surface of the moon or something. We figured that this area was the ‘humpback
whale’ that one of the locals was trying to explain to us earlier in the day
when we were trying to figure out which trails were open and which were
closed. As we continued over the
humpback whale, we saw in the distance this little cabin and some trail head
signs. Finally, we had made it back on
to the trail. I didn’t say anything at
the time as not to instill fear in the group, but I told Gary later that I was
getting pretty nervous that we had been off the trail for such a long amount of
time. I think he was glad that I faked
confidence because he said that he would have freaked out if I had freaked out!
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| Walking across the 'whaleback' |
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| We found the trail again! Thank God! |
From that point on, it was easy sailing. The trail actually got wide enough that it
looked like a 2-track road. We continued
down the hill and made our way back to Chamonix. Once back in town, we then walked to this
little grocery store to get some stuff to eat for dinner. Gary and I were exhausted and we had no
energy to go out to eat for dinner. So,
we grabbed some stuff and walked back to the hotel. We parted ways with Heiko and planned to meet
him again the next morning at 9am. At
the end of the day, according to my phone, we had been hiking about 7 hours
non-stop, with one snack break, and had gone over 17 miles. I think Gary had had his fill of hiking for
the year! Lol
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| I think we walked our quota for the day! |
The next day, we planned to take the cable car all the way to the top
of Aiguille Du Midi. Heiko was very
hesitant about going because he said he was scared of heights! But, he reluctantly went with us.
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| Cable cars down to the Italy side were closed for the season |
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| Ice climbers access to the mountain |
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| The 2 explorers that first climbed over the mountain |
On Monday, October 12
th, our train didn’t leave until after
noon. We spent the morning walking
around Chamonix one last time. At noon,
we all got on the train and headed back to Martigny. Luckily, Heiko was able to get our return
tickets with a longer connection in-between.
I think we had around 10 minutes at each station, which was plenty of
time. Once we arrived back in Martigney, we had to split up with Heiko. We said our goodbyes and watched him get on
his train and head back to Northern Germany.
We got on our train and headed back to the Zurich airport. Once we arrived at the airport, I thought we
could just walk to our hotel. However,
our hotel luckily had a shuttle van going back and forth, so we were able to
catch the shuttle to take us to our final hotel destination in Zurich.
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| Me and Heiko saying goodbye |
The next morning, we sadly packed up all of our things and headed down
to the lobby to catch the shuttle back to the airport. We had reserved a spot on the 10:30am shuttle
to the airport. At 10:30, a group of us
all got in the van ready to go. About 1
second after the doors shut and our driver was about to take off, this loud,
old bag throws open the door and shouts at the driver asking if they can
squeeze in the van to get to the airport.
Everyone on the van groaned and said expletives under their breath in
German. In typical selfish American
behavior, these 2 older couples made the driver get out and load their stuff
while they squeezed in. They were
talking about how they had the 11:00 reservation, but since the van was there,
they figured that they would just jump on at that time. They gave no consideration to the fact that
everyone else on the van got the 10:30 reservation because we all needed to get
to the airport earlier than they did.
Gary turns to me and says, “Just think, we are going back to an entire
country full of them!”.
Once we got the airport, things went smoothly. We got our luggage all checked in and got to
the plane just fine. However, being on
the plane heading back to America was very different from when we headed
out. The plane we boarded was old and
dingy compared to the Swiss air plane we left on. Another thing that is very noticeable, is that airlines outside of
America must discriminate when hiring their flight attendants. I say this because every single flight attendant is: 25ish, beautiful, thin, looks like a model and is the most
friendly person you will ever meet. All
of our flight attendants on the return trip to America were old, fat and angry
if you asked for a cup of water. Also,
our meals were not like they were on the Swiss Airlines. We did get a hot dinner, but for our second
meal we got a sandwich in a bag. And
nothing was free. No free wine….no free
headsets…no hot towel and no little piece of chocolate.
We arrived in DC where our layover was and where we had to go through
customs. The airlines had given us 2
hours of layover time. All we needed to
do was go through customs, collect our bags, go through TSA, drop off our bags
again and get on our flight. As we
waited and waited we realized that we would never be able to get through the
line before our plane took off. Gary
tried to talk to one of the airline workers…she just said that there was
nothing that she could do, it was all TSA’s fault, and everyone in line was
late for their plane so she couldn’t push us ahead of anyone. And she was correct. Everyone in that line was bitching and
moaning about how they were late for their plane. We started calling Austin to let him know
that our luggage may be arriving in Michigan without us because we couldn’t get
through the TSA fast enough. Once we
finally made it through, we hauled ass running through the airport trying to
get to our gate. Of course, the gate we
needed to get to, was about as far from the TSA as you could get and still be
in the airport. We ran through the
corridors, down escalators, took a train, ran up and down a flight of stairs
and made it to our gate just in time to be the last ones to board. ‘Merica!
The flight home from D.C was uneventful. We arrived in GR just fine. It was great to get off the plane and see
Gary’s parents and kids waiting for us.
Mom was there waiting for me with a sign congratulating me on finishing
my marathon. It was a wonderful trip,
but good to be home again!
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| Thanks mom! |
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