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Tour du Mont Blanc: Switzerland awaits
Today, our seventh day of walking and our eighth day on the Tour du Mont Blanc, the trail led us 8,300 feet up and over the Grand Col Ferret and down into Switzerland. It was quite a climb!Our first two hours of walking delivered us to Refugio Elena, strategically nestled into the hillside and…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: Time to return to this amazing trail
It was “ciao” to Courmayeur, Italy today after a day of rest in the Alps resort city. The Tour du Mont Blanc has been more than challenging for us, so we needed the break.Walking into a new country was a new experience on Saturday. We heard “buon giorno” more often than “bonjour” almost immediately…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: Spirits Lifted
We awoke Sunday morning (day 5) to more clear blue skies, and after a 6:30 am breakfast packed our things and started our trek.The hike down from Refugio Elisabetta eventually leveled out onto a wide pathway of relatively easy walking…a welcome relief to the relentless ups and downs of the last few days.We were pretty…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: After struggle, the mountain rewards
From my bottom bunk looking out a small window in a wood-paneled room, I see a glacier and Alpine peaks high above. Our home for tonight, the Elizabetta hut in Italy, is at about 7,500 feet, two miles from the Italy-France border.The only way we could get to this place, as remote as you can…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: A circular Alpine trek
We will be walking the 110 miles of the Tour du Mont Blanc over the next two weeks, with a couple of breaks. The trek circles Europe's highest peak, which is really a mountain range of Alpine peaks, above 15,000 feet.We are starting in France and will go counter clockwise through Italy and Switzerland, finishing…
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Tour du Mont Blanc: Our challenge begins
We were strongly advised to begin our trek with two gondola rides from Chamonix, taking us more than 5,000 feet up above spectacular terrain to Le Brevant, more than 8,000 feet high. Clouds blocked our view across the valley to Mont Blanc and made visibility poor for most of the day.So, after ascending into…
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The way to Chamonix: Trains and costly surprises
Naïveté, bad luck and good fortune all had parts in our eventful journey from sunny Strasbourg to rainy Chamonix in the French Alps on Monday.Three trains were to take us on the nine-hour trip, but a bus and a very expensive taxi ride saved the day in the end.The second train ride, meant to take…
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France: Life hums on the sidewalks
Notes from FranceDoes anyone drink and eat at home in France (other than us)? Tonight, after our dinner at our Strasbourg apartment, we went for a long walk. There were thousands and thousands out and about. And it did not seem crowded, although most seats were filled. That's because Strasbourg has more cafes, bars, squares…
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