Almost There!

The day after our rest day, we found out exactly why we'd had a rest day: it was because the final 2 day's walking were going to be very challenging, and provide the hardest walking of the Tour.

We were told not to worry, as we had all improved our fitness since the start, and we should be able to take it comfortably in our stride. And so, we didn't worry, and it was fine.

Our penultimate day started off with some reasonable ups, interspersed with flatter sections and even a down, to our first coffee stop, which was in the plateau just north east of centre in our first picture.

The coffee stop was something of a carrot, so we didn't rebel at what was coming next! This was a big climb up the Col de Tricot. We would have to climb some 600 metres in a kilometre (I think we've got that right but the memory is fading now).

As we drank our coffee we were able to study the path, and see all the zig zags that were needed to get us so high in so short a distance. Apparently the guide book time for the climb is about 3 hours.  We needed nothing like that time. We romped up just ahead of our female minder who made it to the top in under an hour and our male minder also did well, arriving at the top just over 10 minutes later.

The top might have been the end of the hard work but there were still several hours more walking ahead of us, taking in a big suspension bridge. We finished the day by catching a bus back to the Los Bossons campsite, outside Chamonix where we'd spent out first night. It felt strange, but nice, to be back.

The next morning we started our final day's walking straight from the campsite. This was an even bigger day's walk than the day before. We had just over 1500m of climb ahead of us to the top of the Brevent.

We had plenty of time though so we took it nice and steady. We didn't want to hurry anyway as it was our last day and we knew that when it was over, the Tour would be over. After our first coffee stop we left the pine forests behind and were out in the open with the most amazing views of Mont Blanc and its surrounding peaks.

It was spectacular beyond words, which is why we won't say too much about these views; we'll just let our photos speak for themselves.

At this point we still weren't at the top, but you can see how high we were when you see how far below us Chamonix is.

We won't hurry our account of this excellent final walking day, so we'll be back soon with part 2.

Lots of love George, Yorkie and Gio xxx