Incredibly, it’s over a month since our last blog and, as you can see, we have returned to the mountains. We flew from Preveza to London and spent a week catching up with family and friends, having a particularly special evening at Dishoom where Gill, Ros, Sarah, Helen and I met up with Anita and Anik who were both visiting from Australia.
We then travelled out to Ste Foy enjoying the cooler mountain climate after the exhausting heat of the Ionian Islands. My brother David joined us for the fist week and we started with a gentle walk up to Le Monal, the lovely old village just above Ste Foy Station. The next walk up to Mont Rosset was somewhat more challenging and we were very grateful for a refreshing beer at the Refuge de la Balme on the descent.
The weather was quite changeable but we managed to show my brother some of our favourite spots, taking the ski lift for a ridge walk in Tignes before descending to Tignes Val Claret (another welcome beer stop) and on to Tignes le Lac. We also headed to La Thuile in Italy via the Petit St Bernard pass, and the inevitable photo opportunity, where we had a great walk around one of the high altitude lakes and a delicious pasta lunch.
Our final few days were city based with visits to Albertville and the medieval city of Conflans, along with a stop for a fantastic lunch of oysters, fish and moules en route to Geneva airport. We waved farewell to David in departures and picked up Jonathan’s Dad in the arrivals hall.
John will celebrate his 90th birthday in a few months but is still very fit and keen to do lots of walking. We had lovely sunny weather, temperatures now heading into the 30s, so were grateful for the mountain breezes. Our first gentle walk was to the beautiful mountain chapel of Notre Dame des Vernettes. The next day we headed over the Col d’Iseran and down to Bonneville Sur Arc where we walked along the river up to L’Ecot arriving in time for a welcome beer and lunch before wandering around the stunning village of Bonneville.
Two more days and two more cols. We headed over the Cormet de Roseland and had a fantastic walk above the lake before stopping for a fun lunch at Refuge Plan Mya. It was really hot and we sat at shaded trestle tables enjoying Beaufort tart and escargot. Delicious! For John’s last day with us we returned via the Col du Petit St Bernard to La Thuile for a beautiful walk above the village and another fabulous pasta lunch.
We headed back to Geneva to drop John at the airport where we picked up my friends Mick and Monique. They are visiting Europe for five weeks and had just arrived from Tasmania. I first met them in 1993 when I rented a room in Mick’s house by the water in Hobart whilst I spent a year working there. We became great friends and I’ve visited them several times since. They are in Europe to support their daughter Anneka who is due to row in the world championships in Belgrade!
They spent a few days with us in glorious sunshine as the temperature hit the mid 30s and we showed them some of our favourite spots including a revisit to the Cormet de Roseland where we found this phonebox overlooking the lake – no idea why it’s there. We returned to the Refuge for lunch but they could not be persuaded to sample the escargot!
We had lovely days walking up the Gorge du Maupassant to Refuge du Prariond and from La Savonne up to the refuge du Ruitor, returning for BBQs on our newly refurbished terrace. It was really lovely to catch up with all their news before they headed off for a tour of the Italian Lakes and on to Belgrade for the rowing.
We’ve spent the last week or so doing some long walks, including a seven hour trip to Col du Mont, and a little cycling. The weather has finally cooled down although the cold front has brought several days of heavy rain. But this has allowed us to completely finish all the work on the chalet, planting up flower beds on the terrace and installing a new woodburner. We’ll be heading back to Greece at the weekend after a quick stop in London to attend our nephew’s 18th birthday. Preveza seems to be almost as hot as when we left, but let’s hope that the weather there remains calm as next week we’ll be heading across the Ionian Sea on an overnight passage to Italy.
Fantastic. Xx
Thanks – we’re in Greece now and planning to sail to Italy if Storm Daniel ever settles down.