Annecy Monday July 9.

The weather is still crappy! Thunderstorms and regular heavy showers.
After the food consumption of the last few days I headed off for a short walk up the mountain behind us. It was quite steep and I soon had quite a sweat up, a bit different to an early morning walk around Mulgrave.

Today we are off on a car journey through the mountains. First stop – Col de Telegraph. We couldn’t see much as it was very misty, but as usual passed a few cyclists toiling up the road. After Col de Telegraph, the big one – Col de Galibier. Fortunately the rain stopped and the skies cleared enough for us to get a look at the stunning scenery. No trees, just mountain peaks, rocks and waterfalls. This ascent is amazingly steep, and goes on forever. As usual a few cyclists were struggling up the road. I don’t think I would make it up the first kilometre. It was 6 degrees at the top with the odd flurry of snow. After the obligatory photos and souvenir buying, it was off down into the valley and on to our next destination – Alpe D’Huez.

We stopped at le Bourg d’Oisans for a very late lunch (3.30pm) Brian ordered a dish of local sausages, and after a few mouthfuls hesitantly asked what was in them. Jean-marc informed him quite casually that they were made of “trips”, which I quickly translated as Tripe! – the look on Brian’s face was priceless, and he chewed his mouthful very slowly, and then decided he was no longer hungry!

Le Bourg d’Oisans is very pretty and is situated right at the bottom of Alpe d’Huez, and obviously a bit of an action spot – with white water rafting, paragliding and of course cycling. They were setting up for a race up the mountain. We set off to drive up – it was too late for us to hire bikes and ride up, plus we had the girls with us. Well that is my excuse and I am sticking to it! I know I keep mentioning how steep these mountain climbs are, but Alpe d’Huez is bloody steep! It took us about 24 minutes to drive to the top, and I think Lance did it in his historic time trial victory in 32.

One more mountain Pass to go on the way home – Col de la Chandon. This is quite desolate and there is no ski resort on the top of this one. Unfortunately the weather had closed in again so we could not see all the mountain tops.

We arrived back to Alex quite late (around 9.30pm) to find beautiful cooked dinner waiting for us – Veronique you are a legend!