Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Out with the Old ...


The New Year is now well underway and, on Sunday, we admired our new Christmas tree for the last time until next Christmas. Before the rather sad tree undressing ceremony, we turned off the lounge lights so our tree's lights could shine without competition. 

 

Gerry, Louis and I (Gio) were lurking in the branches, ready to take off the decorations. Can you see us, looking rather like decorations ourselves? 

Just as we've ended one year and started another, so the time has come to finish our Mont Blanc posts and start some new adventures. 

You may recall that by the end of our last Mont Blanc post, the walking was complete, but there was still a free day to enjoy the delights of Chamonix. We had a very relaxed day looking round and liked what we saw. 

We visited the church and admired the stained glass windows depicting the outdoor activities for which the town is famous ... 


... we visited lots of outdoor shops - our favourite type of shop - and picked up some great bargains in the Quecha shop (we should definitely have more Quecha shops over here). We then found a pleasant restaurant for a spot of lunch. Yorkie very definitely approved of the duck crepe. 

 

We spent the afternoon watching an international climbing competition in the main square. 


Men climbed the face on the left and women the slightly different face on the right. The big screens you see to the right of our picture, gave us close up views of the techniques of both climbers. As soon as a climber fell off they were replaced by another competitor. It was non stop action and completely fascinating. We spent several hours watching and only left to in search of an ice cream before returning to our campsite via a pleasant riverside walk. 

In the evening we had our final group meal and, realised it was probably time to go home, when, after several dry days, it started raining again. 

We left for Geneva airport and home the next day. We had enjoyed a marvellous adventure and thoroughly recommend the Tour de Mont Blanc to anyway who is up for a great walking challenge. 

Back soon, lots of love

George, Yorkie and Gio xxx

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