Chamonix, France - Day 1

Hey all,

we had a really nice drive down to Chamonix from Germany today. No really bad traffic to speak of and the weather was great. We took a bit of a roundabout way to get here but it was supposedly the quickest. The last leg of the trip took us through the heart of Geneva in Switzerland. After navigating this city, we crossed the border in to France. The scenery was very nice most of the drive down, but nothing compared to the view after being in France for 15 minutes. As we made our way towards Chamonix, we came around a long bend in the highway and there was Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe (Mt Elberus in the Caucus mts is the highest, but don't tell that to the western Euros...). Thankfully, the French in all their wisdom, provided a very nice rest area with great views of Mont Blanc and the surrounding Alps. We pulled out here to take a rest and took a bunch of pictures as well.

We arrived in Chamonix about 30 minutes after the rest area, finding our hotel easily. I guess we had just missed the big summer rush of tourists and found the hotel and the town to be fairly quiet. Quite nice compared to some of our other travels this summer. After getting settled in our room, we took a walk in to the downtown area of the city. All I can say is, Wow. What a beautiful and picteresque town. This is my kind of place. Outdoors stores, restaurants with fantastic smells wafting out the windows and doors, tons and tons of wine/meat/cheese shops, art galleries and bars. We really didn't see a lot of tourist crap that is so common in places like this in Germany and Austria. It seemed half the people in town had just finished hiking or backpacking or biking - a very active populace.

Chamonix sits in a narrow valley surrounded by mountain peaks. It's probably the most scenic town I have ever been in. Active glaciers pour down the eastern slopes from Mont Blanc and the other peaks, seemingly close enough to touch. Gondolas head off in every direction high in to the mountains. We will be exploring a few of these tomorrow. It is hard to describe - just absolutely gorgeous. We took hundreds of pictures already today. I'm a bit worried that I may run out of memory cards on this trip!

One thing Dawn and I try to do when we are visiting a new country is to find a place that serves hamburgers. This sounds silly, but we like to try these fine American delicacies to see what other countries takes are on them. So far, we've tried hamburgers in Liechtenstein (not bad), Belgium (ick) and now France. The French, at least this place in Chamonix, did a good burger. Really good. I took pictures of them and will post them after we get back.

Anyway, we're sitting here in our room listening to Oregon State destroy Portland State in football. The third quarter has just started, but I think we'll be shutting this down soon and getting some sleep. We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow!

Well, we'll try to get some sleep if we can. Osu has some pretty noxious gas right now, the kind that can and will wake you up. May have to crack the balcony door for the night........