Cham-Wow! (Chamonix)

Today we saw our best shot at good weather in the French Alps so we took our chances, got up at 530 and drove 250km to Chamonix. What a gamble!

First, the town is amazing - like retirement location amazing. Amd second was what we were able to get in today because, as we learned, today produced the weather "everyone has been waiting for."

Our first stop was a mind-boggling, basically straight vertical cable car ride to a spurt of rock 13,000 feet high with stunning, up close views of Mont Blanc (tallest in Europe). Once you there, we had the opportunity to move about the frigid peak through tunnels, on platforms that jut out from the mountain, and over bridges and over metal staircases with only sky below.

We could have ended our day right there and been more than happy. Instead, we stopped half way down the return cable car ride and hiked three hours across the cliffs to what should have been a glacier field (it has receded dramatically). From there we took a cog train back down the mountain to Chamonix, bought some real macaroons and beer made with Alps water, and headed back to Lyon.

We will definitely be back!

2 Days in the City (Lyon)

We spent our first two days staying in Lyon exploring the city on foot and in its amazing clean metro system.

Highlights include the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere (overlooking the city), the Gallo Roman museum and Roman ruins (also overlooking the city), the Old City generally, the Place Bellecour (the largest Plaza in Europe), the Lyon Beautiful Arts Museum (where we had one of our best meals so far), and the Croix-Rousse district (also overlooking the city).

As a bonus, Wednesday night we found a British pub to watch Tottenham establish themselves internationally in Champions League as a legitimate threat, beating perennial contender Dortmund 3-1.

Self-Induced Stress (Port-Saint -Louis-du-Rhone, Arles)

When we started our trip we only had four nights booked. We easily and successfully chose Marseille for our next four nights. But, we kept putting off what followed Marseille, to the point that on our last night we drank wine and went to sleep without any plans. Of course, that backfired when we woke up having to check out without any plans, which began a day of just going with it.

Fortinately, just before we checked out we chose Lyon as our next base in east-central France. And on our way up from Marseille we made several detours and side trips.

The first was an attempt to ferry across the Rhone river, which we forgot to bring cash for (we eventually got cash and across).

The second was a lookout vista over the violet covered salt flats that produce over half the salt for Europe.

The third was the mouth of the Rhone to the Mediterranean which is the home of numerous groups of wild flamingos - which surely won't show up well in our phone cameras pictures.

And the fourth was a visit to Van Gogh's adopted city of Arles, with its still present Roman-era coliseum and wildly friendly citizens. After that was smooth sailing to our flawless apartment in Lyon.