Travel to France, Rhône-Alpes, Saint-Gervais-les-Bains.

11th of June: packed our things, went for a walk around Passy lake, shopped for food, went to Peter's friend, purchased rain coat-big expence for me, but together visited nice place, exciting driving and getting ideas of more hikes around. Arrived at the chalet - our new stay for the remaining time in Alps. We said warm good bye with all appreciation to Peter. Settled in and decided to go to the closest hike towards Mont Joly. Nice hike through small villages, more cow herds with the bells, Walking on the road through big forest. Took wrong turn, got back, headed other direction and then signs appeared. We heading to bare mountains with kind of new path on the slope, which had few snow tongues still hanging. after crossing few, Jovita decides to go back, I continue on my own. Got to the top - so dry, sunny, vast spaces, people repairing the lift, i turned to the chalet and then i saw entire path on the slope of Mt. Geroux (2288m) towards the mountain Joly is completely in snow and small dot of a person, which soon disappeared around the mountain.

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Travel to France, Rhône-Alpes, Annecy.

When we visited the Gorges de la Diosaz (Where Have All The Mountains Gone?) they had some leaflets on a number of other things to do and one of those was a Segway tour of a nearby place called Annecy, so we thought we would give that go today. For anyone who doesn't know, they are basically motorised, self-balancing one-man, two-wheeled vehicles that control by leaning forward or backward, and steer by pushing the handlebar to the left or right. They were easier to get to grips with than we were expecting, so after a short practice we were ready to go.

We had booked a sixty minute tour, but when we got there, there was a problem with one of the vehicles, so we had to wait a couple of hours for a later tour that had some spaces. That was however a 90 minute tour. It also gave us time to have a look around Annecy, as touring it on the Segway was unlikely to give us time to look around and take photographs, so it was actually a double bonus.

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Travel to Rhône-Alpes, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc.

After all the driving of yesterday and the late meal and hence late night , coupled with the fact that we're (well my wife and I at least) are past it and no longer up to the pace, it was a casual day today, with a lay-in and some relaxing.

That said, I got up to go for a run as it was relatively cool first thing. However as soon as the sun got above the mountains (which took a while given how high they are) it started to get very hot, very quickly.

Everywhere was a lot busier that we were expecting, but we should't be surprised as we had heard just before we left that this is peak-time for the French going on holiday and about two thirds of the French actually holiday in France. Well, unlike us they have the weather I suppose. As we found in Marrakech, the French don't do towels on sunbeds at 6.00am, so the others could chill for a while whilst I had a look round.

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Travel to Rhône-Alpes, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc.

We loved the holiday to Austria two years ago so much that we decided we would do something very similar (albeit not exactly the same) for our holiday this year. We picked another winter ski resort, this time Chamonix in the French Alps, and set about driving there again, this time directly with no overnight stop-overs. That way we have the freedom to do what we like and, after the Ryan Air experience for the Morocco holiday, we don't have to worry about luggage limits, bag sizes, bag quantities and all the grief.

We had a roof-box delivered the day before and we then spent the evening filling and filling it some more, and then a bit more just to make sure we had everything we might need and a good load more that we almost certainly won't need. As we were arriving on a Sunday, we also remembered the experience of Austria, where we arrived and the whole country was closed. We therefore packed some food so we wouldn't go hungry if that happened again this time.

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