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The first train was simple — we took the Paris Metro to Gare de Lyon. Obviously designed with the traveler in mind, the trek from the subway train into the SNCF station is a never ending sequence of stairs up, stairs down, corridors, twists, turns, and the odd escalator. Having luggage with wheels is nice, but it doesn't help much on stairs. Arriving at the station about an hour early, we killed time in a magazine store. I checked out the current Macworld - a novelty to see in French but probably not worth the 38 francs. Strangely enough, in Toronto, the only language I see Macworld in, other than American and British, is Italian. Anyway.... Once the gate for our train appeared on the big screen, we went up the escalator and got on our TGV (train de grand vitesse). The TGV doesn't seem as fast as it really is. Apparently it goes 300 km/h, but the only real feel I have for the speed is that my attempt to take a picture of an oncoming TGV the second it appeared.... Well, when I got the picture back, I didn't even have a blurry train - just scenery.
For some reason it wasn't running so they had a bus ready to take us to Chamonix. Finding that out wasn't very easy since the only way to find out was from a French man who was telling everyone where to go. Fortunately we were able to interpret this information and make it to the bus in time. The bus wound around some mountains on a road that seemed to be built a hundred metres above the ground, on top of huge concrete pillars. One possible reason that was suggested to me was that roads between snow-covered mountains might be subject to a little more spring runoff than we typically get in Toronto. After stops at each of the little train stations between St. Gervais and Chamonix, we arrived.
The big thing I wanted to see in Chamonix was Aiguille du Midi. There's a cable car that will take you most of the way, then a lift that takes you right to the peak of the mountain (3842 m). Aiguille du Midi is adjacent to Mont Blanc (4807 m), and it's the best way to see the summit of the big mountain. Unfortunately when we went to get a cable car to the top, we were informed that no cars were going up that day due to bad weather up the mountain. Turns out the winds up there were about 120 km/h.
We had seen another cable car going up a mountain on the north side of Chamonix from our hotel. Le Brévent is certainly smaller than Aiguille du Midi (only 2525 m), but since we only had one full day scheduled in Chamonix, there was no way I was going to miss the chance to go up a mountain quibbling over size. The ride was ummmm spooky. The first spooky part was getting to the cable cars. My heart pounded as we walked up the very perilous streets of northern Chamonix. Pounded because it was uphill all the way to the ticket counter. After I had been huffing and puffing for a while I took a break and looked back down the road. Quite the view. My traveling companion was nice enough to take a picture of me as I huffed and puffed from all the exercise. We eventually made it. The first cable car was much like a conventional ski lift, with capacity for six skinny people. As it was still pretty early in the morning, we didn't have to share with anyone else. The car slowly made its way up the mountain, slowing to rattle a bit at each of the nine or ten concrete towers along the way. My thoughts turned to gravity and the steepness of the mountain.... On the ski lifts at Blue Mountain, if the cable snapped or the chair came loose and plummeted to the ground, the drop would be maybe 5 metres and you'd plop down onto some hard snow. Here, if the cable snapped or the car came loose.... Well, it'd probably fall about 20 metres, then start rolling down the incline, coming to a final stop (in several pieces) either by bouncing off trees or crashing into ones of the concrete towers. Ahh, imagination. Isn't it wonderful?
Mer de Glace is roughly what it means in translation: a sea of ice. Between two mountains in the Mont Blanc chain is a glacier, about 7 km long and 1 km side. To get there we took a leisurely train ride from Le Montenvers, a train station next to the main SNCF station in Chamonix. The ride makes its way up and around one of the less enormous mountains. It's always right on the edge of the slope but it's more relaxing than the cable car.... Feels a bit more solid.
Well, that's all I'm going to say for now. The trip finished up in
Geneva, Switzerland, and other than some really cool parking garages,
a really expensive Big Mac combo, and the word schmuck, there isn't much
to say.
Derek
Back to Paris
© 1998-2004 Derek England. The author makes no guarantee as to the accuracy of the information contained in this document as he got hit on the head four times while traveling in Europe. HTML 4.01 Standard |
Stuff On Paruda's Radar
About Paruda
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Getting to Chamonix seemed a bit daunting, but everything turned out okay.
There were four stages involved. My main concern was the connectivity,
in that if one train was late we might miss a later train and get stranded
in the middle of nowhere. As it turned out, the only train we had a problem
with was the last one.
The TGV took us to a town called Annecy.
By this time we were starting to see some
really big hills. Another train took
us to St. Gervais,
and finally another train was supposed to take us to Chamonix.
Our hotel was a two-star called Hotel de l'Arve. It was great; if
I ever go back to Chamonix (and I'm pretty sure I will), I'll probably
stay at the same place. Clean, cheap (under CDN$100/night), and really
fresh bread and hot coffee at breakfast. 
The car arrived at Planpraz, a station at 2000 m. We got out and took in
the view, and waited a while until I had purged all my negative thoughts
from my brain. Then it was time for the next car. This was a bigger
model, with an operator and room for 60. We went up with a few skiers.
The ride took about 20 minutes and took us to
a height that at least felt comparable to the one at Planpraz. The station
is several hundred metres above the glacier and opposes l'Aiguille du Dru (3754 m),
one of the sharper peaks in the Massif du Mont Blanc.
Looking at the glacier, I
sort of wished I had some familiar landmarks sitting on the glacier to give a
better sense of scale. Perhaps a hundred SkyDomes or something. There were some
mountain climbers down in the glacier (maybe that makes them glacier climbers),
and they were quite tiny to look at. If I ever get in shape, that might be fun to try.
Paruda, also known as Derek England in what some people call real life, is
a Unix geek in Toronto, Canada. When not applying his geeking skills to working
for the man, he likes to draw cartoons and serve as overbearing overlord on