Mary and Larry with Alain
Back down 4km to Cruseilles and then on to A40. And while I'm typing French names with 2 letter Ls in them, how come the French will place 2 letter Ls in a name and not pronounce them. Marseille (Mar-say), Cruseille (Cru-say), Aiguille (Ay-gwee). The Spanish next door don't do this and neither do we Americans. We will say alley, villa, gallery, etc. We pronounce the Ls. I don't get it. Seems like a use of too many letters that are not needed.
The drive to Chamonix was uneventful. A very nice highway all of the way. Of course, it's a toll highway where you pay a few Euro every once in awhile. As we passed by Albertville, we passed over the Arly river again. Nice river. The gorges that we passed through along the way were spectacular. Only the haze and smoke took away from the visual beauty. (Dare I say le smog). We couldn't take pictures of Mt. Blanc as the sun was rising behind it and the large mountain was just being washed out.
Approaching Chamonix
We arrived at our hotel at about noon. Free parking in a small lot next to the hotel. Our room was ready so it was up to the room and settle in. Our hotel, L'Oustralet, is #1 on www.tripadvisor.com so we're looking forward to our visit. We're now in room #4. What a wonderful room. It's small but you have everything you need - especially electrical outlets for charging our computers and camera batteries. No A/C but you can't have everything. Besides, you are high in the French Alps and you just leave the windows cracked a bit a night and it really cools down. We did this also at the Chateau de Avenieres.
L'Oustralet Hotel in Chamonix
After settling into the room, we did a walking tour of the town of Chamonix. We're one long block from the cable cars up to the top of the mountains. We stood in a fairly long line for tickets but at the ticket window, they wouldn't sell us tickets for the next day. Too many possibilities of changing weather and other circumstances. Here are a few pictures so far.
Gondola Station in Chamonix
Gondola Arriving at Chamonix (Holds About 40 People)
So, off we went on the rest of our walking tour. Chamonix has so much charm and things to see. As with our other stops, you see the hotels, shops, cafes, restaurants and other interesting sites. However, the look of Chamonix is a bit different for for me, much more visually attractive. Here are several pictures.
On our walking tour, we did see a nice-looking restaurant that Fondue on the menu. When we got back to the hotel, we checked out the restaurant on www.tripadvisor.com and the nice-looking restaurant was one of the worst in Chamonix. We choose a couple of other much better rated restaurants to look at.
As with other locations, the restaurants do not open until 7:00pm. We choose Le Caleche (pronounced Le Cal-h). Again, that use of too many letters that are not used. The restaurant is full of knick-knacks, pictures, old copper cooking utensils (worth a bit of money), old Swiss cow bells and much, much more. Of course, being so close to Switzerland, Mary and I just had to have Fondue - which we did. It was really quite good. Here are pictures of the restaurant and Fondue pot.
The food was very good. We saw so many things on the menu that we liked, we intend to return there tomorrow evening. Back to the room for the night.
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