Having left Italy and briefly driven through Switzerland, we re-entered France and headed for the lovely town of Chamonix.
The town is dominated by the mountains of the Aiguilles Rouges, the most impressive of which is the Aiguille du Midi which has an observation platform at 3842m. This photo was taken from the town some 2,800m lower down.
We had a spectacular view from our hotel room ….
…. and after dark the view just got better. The dot of light on the mountain to the right of centre is from the observatory on Aiguille du Midi, shown in the photo above.
Margaret, who hates cable cars, stayed behind to do some shopping, whilst I took the highest vertical ascent cable car in the world (2807m) to the top of Aiguille du Midi.
The cable car on the ascent and descent was packed. I was interested to see how many Asian tourists were visiting this area, I’m pleased that tourism is now a global affair and not just the domain of westerners.
From the observation platform the views of the valley to the west ….
…. and the east, were spectacular.
Unfortunately the upper observation deck, which gives the best view of Mont Blanc, was closed for renovation until June. On the side they have fixed a glass skywalk (a perspex box) known as ‘step into the void’. If you step into it you have an unbroken 1035m drop under your feet. I’d love to have tried it although I know I would have been scared.
With every step …..
…. more and more magnificent panoramas unfolded ….
…. in the distance the peaks of Monte Rosa, at 4634m the second highest in Europe (excluding the Caucasus) can be seen.
…. and zooming in, here it is in more detail.
To the south the highest peak in Europe (again, excluding the 5000m mountains in the Caucasus) can just be seen, the 4810m rounded peak of Mont Blanc.
Aiguille du Midi wasn’t just used by sightseers and skiers, large numbers of hang gliders were using it to make their near 3000m descent.
As I walked back through Chamonix I came across this building. All the balconies, windows and people are painted on. The balconies look so three-dimensional, but if you look at the shadows cast by the real balconies on the front you can see that are thrown in a different direction. Nice to see they have painted a Lammergeier on there as well.
The following day we re-entered Switzerland and obtained this spectacular view over the town of Martigny in the Rhone Valley.
Zooming in revealed a fascinating pattern of parallel lines.
Although we had wonderful views of the Matterhorn from the Italian side, the most dramatic view is from Zermatt to the north. Fortunately we missed the sign that said you weren’t allowed to drive into Zermatt without a permit (and we really didn’t have the time to catch the train) but once in the town we got caught up with a load of lorries involved in delivering material for construction, so I just hopped out of the car, snapped this photo of the Matterhorn and retreated.
We stayed the night in a quaint little town called Munster but we learnt that all the mountain passes between there and our destination of Interlaken were closed due to snow and/or road works. It looked like we would have a five-hour drive back to Martigny, and then north to Montreux and Bern before we reached Interlaken until we found out that we could take our car on the train.
So the next morning we turned up at the station at nearby Oberwald, drove onto this train and spent 20 minutes going through a tunnel ….
…. and then drove off again at Realp at the eastern side of the Furkapass. We still had to make a detour as far north as Lucerne before we could get to Interlaken, but it was a lot better than going via Montreux.
We were able to drive part the way up the Furkapass before we reached the road barrier and continued the search for high altitude species. As well as Alpine Choughs, we found some Snowfinches and Water Pipits and had brief views of an Alpine Accentor.
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