Mont Blanc

Friday, the very next day, we headed to Mont Blanc for another all-day trip, this one with Francis and Marie-Annick Godon. The train up the mountain that I had taken years ago with Francis (see balloublog72.blogspot.com), and had missed when Margery had visited me here once before, would not be running until June, but there was another train ride available so we were headed to that.

This part of our trip was obviously quiet with the driver amusing herself by taking pictures. We were catching up from the previous days until we got closer to our destination...

While waiting for our train up the mountain, we watched a paraglider who had been soaring near our destination. Our train climbed quickly, hugging the mountainside...

There were empty seats and the windows dropped for better picture-taking...

Snow up above, the town below, and the edge just outside the train window!

 Snow...and also some strange white flowers...

 Are trees missing here because this area is avalanche prone?

Since I'm a tad nervous around cliff heights, I appreciated having more land outside the window, even if it was covered with snow...

Our upper destination wasn't the top of the mountain, but it was high enough for great views...

 Not so long ago the glacier filled that whole gray area!

 There was a short gondola ride possible at our destination. We had enough to see...

There were wide platform areas on several levels. Tables existed for people who knew enough to reserve them in advance, but we found benches and settled in to eat the lunch we had brought.

The glacier is still there...but when you realize it once filled this valley and touched these platforms...

Heading back down I spent less time looking at the edge of our train tracks and more looking across the valley. Sure enough, that's a road winding its way up the other mountain!

This was our train up Mont Blanc and that's me, complete with woolly hat that I didn't really need.

The train part of our day was finished, but this little one showed up anyway...no scary cliffs on a ride around town! Margery, Gary, Francis, and Marie-Annick opted to take the big gondola ride closer to the peak. I'd had enough of heights and chose to read my book in the car. Off they went!

 The gondola goes over the ridge above and then continues upward in a second gondola!

Amazingly, they met people from Italy and Switzerland coming up from the other side! After 2 hours I thought they might be on their way down and got out of the car to look. Sure enough...

  In the picture above can you find the black box that is their gondola? It's easier to spot below...

They took pictures of me taking pictures of them, but I haven't gotten those shots yet.

It had been a busy day and we were heading home...

Which meant going through long mountain tunnels...

...and checking out mountain waterfalls...

 ...and then the traffic stopped. A car had died inside a tunnel where it was only one lane for each direction due to repair work being done. No one from our direction could get past the dead car. We got out the remains of our lunch and enjoyed watching others climb out of their cars and trucks to chit chat on the highway. We also teased Gary and Margery for jinxing this road...same one that was barricaded after Elisabeth and I picked them up from the Geneva airport!

After about a half hour the problem was solved and we were heading home again. Here's another of Gary's pictures taken by the Blanot pottery...