ERT Day 13

European Road Trip Day 13

Wednesday 13 July 2022

Today it was time to go to Chamonix to have our alpine climbing course!

We had found a place that had ice cream that was between Morgex and Courmayeur, so we drove all the way there today before we stopped. But first we got a bit lost trying to get off the highway, we're not entirely sure how that happened but it was a bit weird. The ice cream place was a bit of a let down after our previous ice cream the day before. This one was both a lot more expensive and just decent in taste unfortunately. After this we went to Courmayeur to find a geocache before heading into the 11,6 km long Mount Blanche-tunnel. So this day was expensive because going one-way through the tunnel cost almost 50 euro!

View from the ice cream place

After going through the tunnel we went down a hill and wound up right in Chamonix. This was Kim's first time in France and well, Chamonix wasn't a great first impression at first. Insanely crowded and impossible to find a parking spot. Everything was either full or had a maximum height of 2 metres. Even above ground! Which felt very unfair to us with our van that needs around 2.4 metres. After going around in circles for probably an hour, we finally found a big parking lot by Aiguille du Midi called Parking du Grépon where we could park. It was still hard to park with our big van though because it was so tight and crowded.

Then we grabbed all the stuff we might need and walked towards our hotel Pointe Isabelle while the sweat poured off of us like water because of the crazy heat. We were early though, so we had to wait an hour before we could go to our room, but that was okay. At 15 we got our room, left our stuff, showered etc. So nice! Then it was time to go to Snell Sports to rent some alpine boots. Snell Sports had pretty much everything, but the store's layout was really confusing, so we had to ask around at least twice before we finally found the cellar where we could try out and rent our boots. Lukas found something right away, but Kim was struggling more. Size 41 felt very tight for her toes even with just thin wool socks, but unfortunately they didn't have any bigger sizes. So she didn't really have a choice, and went for those anyway and hoped for the best. Here at the store we also briefly met Urban, another guy who was signed up for the very same course as us.

After renting shoes we started to head back to the hotel room. But on the way, Kim visited McDonald's that was really close by, both to have a light snack and because she has this thing were she eats McDonald's in all countries she has been to!

The Bossons Glacier, a mighty backdrop for the town of Chamonix

McDonald’s Country number 22? For Kim.

Back at the room we started packing and preparing for the course. We also took it easy and relaxed because here it was somewhat less hot than outside.

In the evening we decided to head out to eat, and had found a place that looked like they had nice pizza, but when we went there we got told they were fully booked. And it was completely crowded everywhere. In our hungry desperation we decided to go back to the hotel, and just eat some McDonald's on the way there, and after that we felt a lot better again 🙂

In the evening Kim continued writing blog posts and stuff, and outside it was a huge party with fireworks and everything, late into the night.

Afterwards we would find out that they were celebrating their national day or something, so that explained it.

Start: Quincinetto, Italy

End: Chamonix, France

Drive time: 2 h 40 min

Distance driven: 120 km

Toilet fees: €0

Parking fees: €0

Toll: €70.3 (€48.8 of those was for the Mont-Blanc tunnel)

Total drive time: 45 h 47 min

Total distance driven: 3090 km