Valmorel Day 2 - 8/28

We've just finished our last hiking day in the Alps and we're both toast. Both yesterday morning and today, we walked down into the little village, just below Club Med and took the gondola up the mountain. Yesterday, we made it up to 2185m. Can't tell you where we started, maybe I'll do the math later. But it was awesome. One of my favorite moments of the trip so far was seeing a valley far below where we were hiking, full of grazing cows. Free range of course... and each had a cow bell around its neck. It was the most beautiful sound. When I get home, I'm going to buy a wind chime full of cow bells. We passed a couple of herds of cows on our trek up the mountain and something that struck me was that they all looked totally healthy. Their eyes were clear and bright and not bothered by flies.
So after we made it as far as we wanted,we headed back down and hit the gondola again to return to the village, where we stopped at a little restaurant, Le Perce Neige, for some Marguarita Pizza and a beer. The guy inside didn't speak English but it was pretty easy to order. We just pointed :) The rest of the day was spent getting some pics on our fb timelines, sitting outside on the deck drinking coffee and beer and getting showered and dressed for fondue. We ran into the Chief De Village, who for those of you not associated with Club Med, runs the show at each resort. We actually asked him the way to the specialty restaurant and didn't realize it was him until I asked Bryan if he could have been the Chief. Point for Chris. Fondue was good, but it was total carb and fat overload and I have done meat fondue and dessert fondue and was kind of hoping for that too. Oh well, glad we did it.
Last night was the weekly kids performance and it was a huge production. There must have been better than 50 kids of all ages on stage throughout the show, having rehearsed all week. The crowd was rowdier than at any other time here. The French certainly do not act like Americans... first, Bryan was quick to inform (warn?) me that they aren't big day drinkers, which is a steep departure from what I'm used to at Club Med. I've been to Cancun, Ixtapa and Turks and Caicos which are all centered around alcohol. I guess this one is centered around children, at least this week. But the show was hilarious and super cute. I got pics and video, all of which will get put on YouTube when we get back.
Since this isn't a party club, there's one large lounge area and bar in front of the stage. That's it. This is the last night the resort is open until mid December so we'll see how many people are around tonight.
Today we took the gondola up again and headed a different direction, around the side of the mountain to check out the ravines and waterfalls, and just be surrounded by green... Our intention was to not be on the mountain as long today but when we got back to the gondola, it was a little after noon and apparently the gondola operators take a siesta between noon and 2, just like everyone else. So we figured, how long could it take to just hike back down? 2 1/2 hours. Downhill. Murder on the knees and shins. We are now lying in bed doing our blogging and pics. I am in no way ready to stand up. But I'm impressed with my hiking skills today. 
Tonight we'll scout out the laundry situation. Its 10 euros for a load and we figured we might as well take care of some clothes before we head out tomorrow for Opio, just in case its a lot pricier there. We also have to plot our route for tomorrow.
Next blog will be in 2 or 3 days, from Provence :)
Au revoir!

The Drive To Valmorel 8/27

I thought I could beat jet lag. We had a plan. We stayed awake all day. But  here we are at 3am local time, watching a music video, with the weirdest, cheesiest video EVER (picture this: a middle aged french guy with the mustache and everything, and several backup dancers, all in leopard striped outfits, dancing (badly) and singing in front of changing 80's-style backgrounds. It's called Sexy Cool. Seriously, I'm not making this up.) All I can think about is having dinner, which is what most of you are doing right now. We're looking forward to tonight because we will be eating in the specialty restaurant here in Valmorel, which serves fondue!
Let me back up... Our drive from Geneva was successful except for a small hiccup within our first several miles of the airport, undoubtedly due to not knowing a thing about the road signs here. But that was short-lived and we were back on track in no time. We made our way to Annecy, France and wound our way toward the lake through the main part of the city, on roads that we weren't sure our teeny car would even fit through. Wait til we go back at the end of the trip and I get pics... I'm excited because I was trying to navigate our way to a parking spot on our map (didn't work out) and barely looked up. I saw literally just a few seconds but the town is absolutely charming! We totally lucked out and found a parking spot closer to Lake Annecy than we planned and sat on the shore, eating Triscuits and cheese from Trader Joes (yes, we are a bit embarrassed by that) and just enjoyed looking at the lake and the mountains rising behind it.
Then we were off to Club Med Valmorel. Bryan decided to take us along a different route than we originally planned, up through the mountains toward the resort, a move that could have ended badly, but turned out to be the most amazing drive! The roads were skinny, mostly one lane each way, through tunnels, twisting and turning, and in some cases were downright dangerous, especially at 50 or so mph. We tried to keep up, and kudos to Bryan for driving like a local... at one point, we were headed directly toward a flatbed truck, before it swerved back into its lane... damn near sandwiched us against the wall. The French are insane drivers. Maybe not so much as Romans, but if you're not going as fast as they want you to, they get on your ass until they can pass you, and make no apologies for doing so. That must stem from having such small, maneuverable cars. We got passed by a little Peugeot on the curvy mountain roads at about 50mph like we were standing still. Long story short, glad we made it.
We drove through dozens of little towns along the way, some made up of thirty or so houses, barely deserving a name on the atlas. Then we started getting into the ski towns with their chalets and hotels...
I have never been in a ski village or to a ski resort, being deathly allergic to snow. But off-season, they are absolutely charming and I can only imagine how peaceful they would be, covered in white. My dad was a big skier when I was young, but I never took it up, and if we hadn't had to complete this trip before the year was over, this would have been Bryan's dream vacation (no doubt he belongs in the snow) and my first time on the slopes. Second, actually, but one day on the highschool ski bus doesn't really count.
Valmorel is beautiful, covered in green. I've been missing what I call "real" trees, not pine or olive, but Christmas trees. And they're everywhere! Too bad we've only got 2 full days here before the drive to Provence... every chance we get will be spent outdoors. One day hiking and one day in the little town of Valmorel, down the hill. We also have to take a ton of pictures (duh) and I have to be detailed about the shots of Club Med because Bryan is the first from his office to visit and wants everyone to be able to see it from every angle... I'm in heaven :) Maybe we'll even poke around the private chalets, which are also timeshares - now THAT is money!) For being the home stretch for this resort, there sure are a ton of people here... and it seems like we're the only ones without kids. There's nothing cuter than a small child speaking French. And EVERYONE here is French. I'm sure in a few days I'll get used to hearing it like Bryan is (some of his coworkers are fluent), but right now, it's still disconcerting to me.
Club Med is the highest on the road up the mountain (no surprise there) and is only a couple of years old. It's absolutely beautiful. The pics on the website don't do it justice. You will all have to be patient with the posts and pics. We will only be getting internet every few days, so we'll likely be publishing a few at a time. It's truly easy to take easy internet access and fast download speeds for granted.... ;)

Hello from Geneva! - 8/27

Well, we've arrived safely! We're sitting in a cafe in the airport, waiting for our rental car to be ready for... unfortunately, thinking for sure customs would take us a while, I reserved the car for noon. So it turns out that I have a little time (over an hour) to jot down my thoughts... my first thought is that French airport coffee is not as good as Italian airport coffee.We're both dying to get out there, driving around the countryside. We have a few amazing pictures from the air of how green it is, dotted with little houses... actually they looked quite large. I suspect you have to have a lot of money to live in Geneva, or anywhere else in Switzerland for that matter.
Frankly, I'm a bit blogged out, having written a ton on the first leg to JFK, only to have it be lost forever in space (or wherever it went - user error, I'm sure, but don't know how I erased a whole blog post.) Most of it was incredibly witty and informative but it seems the 8 hour flight into Geneva wiped all that out of me...
So our next adventure begins with the car... about a week ago, Bryan and I bought a huge atlas of France and  he had his nose buried in it for the few days prior to our departure, mapping out the routes to each of our destinations. And I, having no experience with maps at all, have been trying to learn as quickly as possible, so I can be the navigator. I think I have a pretty good idea of which way to go, and it was nice to see the city from the air in order to get my bearings. Leaving the airport is important because if we don't follow the route to go straight into France, the road will lead us into Switzerland and one of the reasons our rental car is so cheap is because we didn't pay the extra 40 euros to be allowed to drive on Swiss roads. I can think of better ways to spend 40 euros. After we make it into France, however, we're good to go.
Our first stop is Annecy, on our way to our first Club Med, Valmorel.
We are hoping to find some street food, which we've heard is the way to go to save money, and that it's just as good as any restaurant. So we may sit by Lake Annecy and have a little snack before winding our way into the Alps toward Valmorel. The weather forecast is for a bit of rain while we're there, and we hope that doesn't mess up our hiking plans. But a little rain never hurt anyone :)

The Waiting Game... 5 days to go.

It seems unreal to consider that in just 5 days, Bryan and I will be on our way to JFK to connect with our flight that will take us to Geneva. This trip has been in the works for months and all of the plans have just been finalized in the last few days... For those of you who haven't seen a map of our upcoming trip or haven't heard me explain incessantly and annoyingly, all the particulars of how we're getting to and fro... I finally get to detail it all out to you on "paper." Lucky you. Here goes the first chapter... Stay tuned for more episodes and be sure to add your email to subscribe to this blog and read about everything I'm eating...
There's a small sliver of Switzerland that sticks into eastern-central France. At the tip of that sliver, is Geneva, where we begin our adventure. Since our trip is going to take us to 5 locations, all in smaller towns, a rail pass would be expensive after all of the transfers are added. So early on, we decided that our best course of action would be to rent a car and pony up for the exorbitant cost of gas... This would also allow us to take little day trips out to small villages and possibly get lost, seeing as we will only have paper maps... God help us. Someone recently told me that there are worse things than getting lost in France. She's probably right :) 
While researching for countless hours, a little-known tidbit that I came across is that the Geneva airport has both a Swiss side and a French side, since it literally straddles the two countries and apparently renting a car from the French side is about half the cost because everything is so bloody expensive in Switzerland. But they don't make it easy for you... One thread I read online said that unless you know what you're looking for, it's near to impossible to navigate your way through to the French Sector. Thank you, kind sir, for the detailed directions from baggage claim and customs...
So we arrive in Geneva on Tuesday morning at 9:15 which is, of course, midnight here. Hopefully the Ambien will have done it's job and we will be ready to tackle the airport and rental car counter... I wonder if we'll get any hassle when I try to decline the hideously expensive rental car insurance plan...

First stop... Annecy, France and hopefully fondue!