Friday, August 04, 2006
JULY 29th THROUGH AUGUST 5th FRANCE
Bonjour!!
We arrived in Salzburg about 4:30 pm in a rainstorm. We had to return our rental car by that time. Our train did not leave until 12:45 AM., so we had several hours to pass waiting for the train. We had luggage so we couldn’t go out and wander around in the city. We checked with the information people for the station and they told us about a first-class passengers lounge. It was open until 10:00 o’clock so we were able to stay there for about five hours. Those lounges are a big perk for first-class. They have free soft drinks, coffee, tea and even beer. They have free snacks, newspapers and electrical outlets where you can plug in your computer. There was wireless internet access for a fee. We passed on the wireless at this station because it was too much fee. I seem to recall that they wanted 12 Euros for an hour. At supper time we were able to go out and get food and bring it inside to eat. The lounge was not crowded, it was quite and it was a lot more comfortable sitting on couches and easy chairs than on hard benches which were in the other waiting rooms. We kinda splurged when we bought the first-class passes, but there are some real benefits to them. Mary said that she thought that she was a first class girl.
We met some interesting people during the time we were waiting. There was a young Japanese girl sitting at a table next to us. She spoke very little English and it was hard to understand her... She really took a liking to Mary and talked to her quite a lot. Mary got a little irritated with the communication problems and tried to keep the conversation short. I don’t believe that the girl realized this. Mary felt really bad later when the girl was leaving to catch her train. She gave Mary two little Origami Birds, made from pretty colorful paper. She told Mary that she made those and she wanted to give each of one for good luck on the rest of our journey. Mary packs them very carefully so they do not get destroyed.
We also met a couple from British Columbia, Canada, who were doing much the same thing we were doing, but for just half as long. They were having as much fun as we are. They said that they envied us because they had to go home and go back to work. They were on the same train that we were going to Zurich, Switzerland. Mary and I thought that we were traveling light. I think that those folks had everything packed in one back pack. We never saw them with any other luggage.
We had a sleeper on the train from Salzburg to Zurich. It was so small that we had to go out in the hall to turn around, but it had comfortable beds and we did alright after we got laid down. They gave us breakfast on Saturday morning. We had to eat fast before we got to Zurich. If our connection time had not been so short we could have gotten a voucher and eaten after we were in the station restaurant. From Zurich we went to Geneva. I would have liked to spend a few hours in Geneva, but we did not have the time in our schedule. From Geneva we went to Chambrey, France. On this leg of the journey we traveled through a lot of grape vineyards and wineries. We also rode along side Lake Geneva for a long way. It is a massage lake. The last forty five minutes of our trip to Chambrey was on a bus. We had to change lines to get access to our rail destination which Bourg St. Maurice, France. At Bourg St. Maurice we rented a car and drove to Tignes where our hotel is located.
I knew that our hotel was at a ski resort in the mountains. What I didn’t know was how tough a drive it was to get to the resort. BIG MOUNTAINS!!! We never got above third gear on the five speed transmission because of the hills and curves. I’m not real sure how long the trip should have taken us because we took a wrong road and had to backtrack to get back on the right road.
I must say that the mountains, valleys and waterfalls are beautiful, but we decided that we were going to entertain ourselves on site and not drive over those roads every day to get to the train for site seeing. We did, however, make it to our hotel at our reserved time to check in.
Tignes is a huge development. It is on three levels going up the mountain. Each level has a village with shops and restaurants and ski lifts. Our hotel was above the village at the top level. They have huge elevators just to take you from our level down to where the shops are.
The river has been dammed and there is a sizeable lake at the middle level. This a great family vacationing place. They have organized activities for all age groups.
I have seen groups getting instruction in horse back riding, archery, golf, canoeing, kayaking and maybe evening hang gliding. There are hang gliders in the sky most of the time.
They do things to entertain you even if you don’t join a group activity. Yesterday we went to a craft fair and all the business places had side walk sales. There were clowns, artists, woodcarvers
(one guy even was carving with a chain saw). They had the RUNNING OF THE MILK COWS like the running of the bulls in Spain. Mary and I were shopping so we missed most of that. We did see what they left on the street, and Mary got a picture of the cows after they were out at the edge of the village.
I tried to get her to take a picture of what they left on the street, but she would not. There were several musical groups playing. The best was a group with the long wooden horns that sit on the ground about fifteen feet out in front of the player.
We talked to them after they finished playing and they told me it was called “Cor des Alpes”. The lady who talked to us said it took her three years to learn to play it. She had played trumpet for 20 years before that.
There is a centrally located tourist center with information, bathrooms with showers for campers I guess, and a computer center where they had wireless internet and also for a little more money they had cables where you could connect to their high-speed broad band network. Across the lawn from that they had a big pool and a sports fitness center. We joined the fitness center for a week so we could keep up our weightlifting and cardio work. On Mary’s first visit she was sent out for not having the right kind of shoes so we just got our money back and got our exercise by walking in the beautiful outdoors.
There are a bunch of hiking trails around the valley which go up and down the mountain. They range from about an hour and a half to four hours of walking. There is also a nice path around the lake which takes about two and a half hours.
On top of the mountains there are some sizeable glaciers. Some of them are large enough that they ski on them all summer. We have pictures of some pretty large waterfalls that must come from the glacier melt. You can tell by the color of the water in the streams and the lake that it is glacier fed.
Today is Friday. All day yesterday and today it has been cloudy and rainy. Yesterday in the late afternoon we had some snow flurries.
Today the clouds are not as low on the mountains as yesterday and you can see a good dusting of fresh snow the fell yesterday and last night. We have been inside most of the last two days. We have an indoor pool and a sauna which I have used. We did our laundry today and we will pack tonight and get ready to leave.
We changed our plan for next week. We are going to spend two days in Berlin, one day in Amsterdam, one day in Brussels, and two days in Paris. We have passed through Berlin and Paris, but we want to spend some sightseeing time. That will be a busy week. I am going to try to write in my journal every night so I don’t get behind. We will spend two nights on sleeper trains and five nights in hostels.
Bonjour!!
We arrived in Salzburg about 4:30 pm in a rainstorm. We had to return our rental car by that time. Our train did not leave until 12:45 AM., so we had several hours to pass waiting for the train. We had luggage so we couldn’t go out and wander around in the city. We checked with the information people for the station and they told us about a first-class passengers lounge. It was open until 10:00 o’clock so we were able to stay there for about five hours. Those lounges are a big perk for first-class. They have free soft drinks, coffee, tea and even beer. They have free snacks, newspapers and electrical outlets where you can plug in your computer. There was wireless internet access for a fee. We passed on the wireless at this station because it was too much fee. I seem to recall that they wanted 12 Euros for an hour. At supper time we were able to go out and get food and bring it inside to eat. The lounge was not crowded, it was quite and it was a lot more comfortable sitting on couches and easy chairs than on hard benches which were in the other waiting rooms. We kinda splurged when we bought the first-class passes, but there are some real benefits to them. Mary said that she thought that she was a first class girl.
We met some interesting people during the time we were waiting. There was a young Japanese girl sitting at a table next to us. She spoke very little English and it was hard to understand her... She really took a liking to Mary and talked to her quite a lot. Mary got a little irritated with the communication problems and tried to keep the conversation short. I don’t believe that the girl realized this. Mary felt really bad later when the girl was leaving to catch her train. She gave Mary two little Origami Birds, made from pretty colorful paper. She told Mary that she made those and she wanted to give each of one for good luck on the rest of our journey. Mary packs them very carefully so they do not get destroyed.
We also met a couple from British Columbia, Canada, who were doing much the same thing we were doing, but for just half as long. They were having as much fun as we are. They said that they envied us because they had to go home and go back to work. They were on the same train that we were going to Zurich, Switzerland. Mary and I thought that we were traveling light. I think that those folks had everything packed in one back pack. We never saw them with any other luggage.
We had a sleeper on the train from Salzburg to Zurich. It was so small that we had to go out in the hall to turn around, but it had comfortable beds and we did alright after we got laid down. They gave us breakfast on Saturday morning. We had to eat fast before we got to Zurich. If our connection time had not been so short we could have gotten a voucher and eaten after we were in the station restaurant. From Zurich we went to Geneva. I would have liked to spend a few hours in Geneva, but we did not have the time in our schedule. From Geneva we went to Chambrey, France. On this leg of the journey we traveled through a lot of grape vineyards and wineries. We also rode along side Lake Geneva for a long way. It is a massage lake. The last forty five minutes of our trip to Chambrey was on a bus. We had to change lines to get access to our rail destination which Bourg St. Maurice, France. At Bourg St. Maurice we rented a car and drove to Tignes where our hotel is located.
I knew that our hotel was at a ski resort in the mountains. What I didn’t know was how tough a drive it was to get to the resort. BIG MOUNTAINS!!! We never got above third gear on the five speed transmission because of the hills and curves. I’m not real sure how long the trip should have taken us because we took a wrong road and had to backtrack to get back on the right road.
I must say that the mountains, valleys and waterfalls are beautiful, but we decided that we were going to entertain ourselves on site and not drive over those roads every day to get to the train for site seeing. We did, however, make it to our hotel at our reserved time to check in.
Tignes is a huge development. It is on three levels going up the mountain. Each level has a village with shops and restaurants and ski lifts. Our hotel was above the village at the top level. They have huge elevators just to take you from our level down to where the shops are.
The river has been dammed and there is a sizeable lake at the middle level. This a great family vacationing place. They have organized activities for all age groups.
I have seen groups getting instruction in horse back riding, archery, golf, canoeing, kayaking and maybe evening hang gliding. There are hang gliders in the sky most of the time.
They do things to entertain you even if you don’t join a group activity. Yesterday we went to a craft fair and all the business places had side walk sales. There were clowns, artists, woodcarvers
(one guy even was carving with a chain saw). They had the RUNNING OF THE MILK COWS like the running of the bulls in Spain. Mary and I were shopping so we missed most of that. We did see what they left on the street, and Mary got a picture of the cows after they were out at the edge of the village.
I tried to get her to take a picture of what they left on the street, but she would not. There were several musical groups playing. The best was a group with the long wooden horns that sit on the ground about fifteen feet out in front of the player.
We talked to them after they finished playing and they told me it was called “Cor des Alpes”. The lady who talked to us said it took her three years to learn to play it. She had played trumpet for 20 years before that.
There is a centrally located tourist center with information, bathrooms with showers for campers I guess, and a computer center where they had wireless internet and also for a little more money they had cables where you could connect to their high-speed broad band network. Across the lawn from that they had a big pool and a sports fitness center. We joined the fitness center for a week so we could keep up our weightlifting and cardio work. On Mary’s first visit she was sent out for not having the right kind of shoes so we just got our money back and got our exercise by walking in the beautiful outdoors.
There are a bunch of hiking trails around the valley which go up and down the mountain. They range from about an hour and a half to four hours of walking. There is also a nice path around the lake which takes about two and a half hours.
On top of the mountains there are some sizeable glaciers. Some of them are large enough that they ski on them all summer. We have pictures of some pretty large waterfalls that must come from the glacier melt. You can tell by the color of the water in the streams and the lake that it is glacier fed.
Today is Friday. All day yesterday and today it has been cloudy and rainy. Yesterday in the late afternoon we had some snow flurries.
Today the clouds are not as low on the mountains as yesterday and you can see a good dusting of fresh snow the fell yesterday and last night. We have been inside most of the last two days. We have an indoor pool and a sauna which I have used. We did our laundry today and we will pack tonight and get ready to leave.
We changed our plan for next week. We are going to spend two days in Berlin, one day in Amsterdam, one day in Brussels, and two days in Paris. We have passed through Berlin and Paris, but we want to spend some sightseeing time. That will be a busy week. I am going to try to write in my journal every night so I don’t get behind. We will spend two nights on sleeper trains and five nights in hostels.
