Chamonix

                                                      

                                                                         Our Hotel de L'Arve                                                                                

The Arve:

 Fast, cold, and filled with sediment.

It runs like this from April until December while the glaciers melt      

       

Yes, Virginia, it is foie gras.

          

 

In Chamonix you can get your lymphs drained

                                                           The Aiguille du Midi...

                                    A tram sucks you up to this pinnacle next to Mont Blanc. 

                                                          12,500' -  Nice views 

                       

 

The Grandes Jorasses

One of the three great North Faces of the Alps

Mont Blanc

The Bossons is one of the fastest Glaciers in the Alps.

Also one reaching the lowest.

It comes almost down almost to Chamonix

The knife ridge connecting the tram to the Mer de Glace and Vallée Blanche

You have to make your way down this track to ski the glacier.

This guy seems to be retreating.

I was performing near Chamonix in 1981 and decided to do this.

I rented skis, but it was May and I had no hat or gloves, so I skied the Vallée Blanche with socks on my hands and a pair of cotton underwear on my head.   

The Aguille is one of the main routes up Mont Blanc.  It's usually a two-day trip

 with a sleep-over at this refuge.

See the climbers?

Gaston Rebuffat was one of the greatest French mountaineers and made first-ascents 

on some of the most difficult faces in the Alps.

The English climbers didn't like him and called him 

Ghastly Rubberfat.

On the way down we stopped to drink a beer 

                            

and walk around on the moraines

Followed signs to Le Lac Bleu

Cold

Later that afternoon we walked up the other side of the valley to a chalet and drank another beer

The host's border collie like to stand in the drinking water 

which gurgled from a wooden spout into this hollowed log

The narrower peak on the right is the Petit Dru

Its north face is one of the most difficult big wall climbs in the Alps

We ate twice at a cozy bistro specializing in Savoyard cuisine.  We had onion soup and foie gras - seriously - but everything else was cheese.   

The pyramidal apparatus in this photo...

... is a cheese melter, and the triangular block under its coils is 2 lbs of raclette.

We watched this girl, without a break -  eat her half on 9 potatoes - we counted.  With some ham.

This is a typical breakfast with an acceptable pain au raisin.  

They are absolutely ubiquitous.  We watched kids on bikes pulling them out 

of their pockets to munch while they scattered pigeons.

Our last stop was Provins, a town of 9000 almost entirely composed of medieval half-timbered houses.

One would imagine it to be touristy and fake, but it was a living, bustling little burg with lots of normal commerce and, on one corner, a pair of dueling Italian bistros.

We ate in the one with the green awning.  No foie gras.  The Italian waiter spoke neither English nor French, but delivered enormous portions.  

I worked my way through the burratas...

Susan enjoyed her slabs of salmon tartar.

And that's it.  We'll be home, inshallah, later today