Pack up and breakfast. Farewell to guides. Quick walk into town with Annie and Caroline for some tourist shopping.
Say goodbye to Ann who is staying at the hotel for another night.
Off to the airport with Liz, Mel and the girls. The girls and I say goodbye to Mel and Liz there.
I get onto the shuttle bus which takes me to the NH hotel. I check in and rest for a bit. Then out for short walk to the bus stop which takes me off in the wrong direction but I spot my error, jump off, cross the road and pick up the next one going in the right direction. The buses are very frequent. But best of all they, and the trams and the trains and the boats are all free to tourists who pick up a tourist card at their hotels. Fantastic.
I walk around the old town and spot a nice restaurant but they don’t serve until 7 and it is only 5. I locate the Demi Lune cafe which is a gay bar and have a beer while writing up my journal. I return to the nice looking restaurant and the wretched girl who I’m sure is queer, says I may have to eat outside, I’m not keen as it’s getting cooler. However she does locate me a table inside and then attempts to be nice. I have tuna on thin toast with grapefruit ***, chicken with courgette flower in batter, with potato wedges and a delicious vegetable stack of courgette, aubergine and something cheesy *****. More beer, more wine and water. Finish off with creme brulee ***. Stuffed at the Cafe Papon!!
I return to the bus station but the last bus is long gone, thinking fast, I get on a bus going to the airport and then get the airport shuttle back to the hotel. No cost and all very quick!
I put the photo of Cavour’s plaque in because my great great great grandfather, Evasio Radice, was big in the Italian risorgimento. Extract from Giles Radice’s (my dad’s cousin) book.
Caroline and AnnieCaroline and StephaneAnn and PierrotLiz and MelKermit juice!
At 2.30 a.m. my comrades awaken, as does everyone else. They get ready for the off. At 3.15 they leave and I expect them to return about 11 or so.
I then wait for all the others to leave and this takes until 5. I decide to get up for an outdoor wee and meet a completely mad English man who has climbed up from the Tete Rousse in the dark and ice and snow. There have been a few centimetres of snow fall. I return to my pit which is now in an empty dorm, only to be woken up by a new man jumping into bed. Sleep a little bit more until 7 when I get up.
I now use the loo for the second time, it’s almost bearable as the big poo canisters have been swapped over, just so long as you don’t breathe at all.
I have breakfast with 2 other people, very odd after last night’s dinner with at least 100. Breakfast is coffee, pancake, cake, bread, butter and jam. I eat it all.
I take a short walk to the top of the ridge immediately outside the hut, this confirms to me that I’ve made the right decision as it’s quite scary just out there. MB is in thick cloud and the ridge is pretty sharp. I take some fairly useless photos.
During the wait, I redesign the toilets in my head – a solar powered snow heater which would supply water so that at least once a day the toilets could be hosed off.
I go back in the hut, having located various items for my pals, start to read a French comic book and am thinking about having a coffee when in walks Caroline with frosty eye lashes, having been the only one to summit, it’s only 9.45 so it’s taken her 6.5 hours up and down. Pierrot follows her in.
Next up are Liz and Mel, last are Annie, Ann and Stephane. There is a lot of hot chocolate on the go for the intrepid explorers.
A suggestion is made that I should descend straight away with Pierrot and Caroline. Stephane intervenes and we go back to the previous days’ formations. Pierrot seems to go a bit on the fast side for me.
I have been very scared about the descent to Tete Rousse, especially in the ice and snow. So it’s crampons on and then I find I start to enjoy it and gain confidence and balance. After 2.5 hours we are back at the Tete Rousse glacier. In fact I’ve enjoyed all the downs! Just you have to ups to get them!
We take our crampons off a bit on the early side but at the glacier we find that one of the girls i.e. Annie or Caroline, has slashed her leg open with a crampon.
Ropes off and now it’s just a regular walk back to the train station. All the MBers are pretty tired, not surprisingly. For this last bit of walk, it gets a bit wet and misty, reminiscent of Lakeland.
We arrive at the station at 3.30 (we have to catch the last train). Stephane has gone ahead so that he can drive Caroline, for it is she who is injured, to the hospital.
So Mel, Liz, Ann, Pierrot and I take our last train and cable car down to the bottom. A small refreshment is made, Pierrot drinking something vilely green.
We get back to the hotel and the walking wounded soon return. Annie’s knuckle is huge and bruised from the rope she held onto as Caroline fell. Caroline has 8 stitches but has more pain from her bruised toe!
I ring home and Ann has a shower. We are in a different room with 3 beds and an en suite smaller than a cross channel ferry.
It is so nice to get out of my smelly clothes and wash off 3 days worth of muck.
Straight down to the bar to watch Stephane’s film. He and his pal climbed a previously unscaled face of Nuptse in the Himalayan mountains. The film is quite terrifying to watch, with S dangling and waving at millions of metres up, but it also totally reinforces my complete confidence in him. He walks like a ballet dancer with perfect poise and balance.
We go off to a nice restaurant in the town. Too tired to take in what it is called. I have nettle and tomato soup ****, veal and risotto ***, a selection of grandmother’s tarts ***. All very nice food but suspect we are all a bit too tired to properly appreciate it.
I have a final night cap with Liz and Mel back at the hotel.
Stephane posted up some photos on a guides’ web site. My rucksack is red, but I seem to be mainly pawing my way along the snow. He took some much better photos of people (me!) and I hope they turn up before long!
I didn’t realise going down was so horrible for some of the others because I loved it! It does indeed take all sorts and in all different ways.
This is the lovely restaurant after all the adventures, La Maison Carrier
Somewhat frustrating pre-flight irritations after being ready for days in advance! First of all a traffic jam at Yeadon, then my pre-paid car park entry wouldn’t let me in and lastly had to pay extra for my luggage. And all of this meant I missed my airport coffee!
Met up with Ann and we had a smooth, easy flight. Jet2, being budget, make you pay for refreshments so I was glad of my home made sandwich.
On arrival in Geneva, we were met by Mel plus Annie and Caroline. Straight off to Chamonix with me navigating Mel out of the airport and onto the right motorway, fairly straightforward, just followed the signs to France!
After an hour or so, we got to our hotel, La Chaumiere and met up with Liz who had been out for a run. Warming up for the big one! Lovely to see her (and Mel of course!) again.
Ann and I got a nice room with a balcony looking straight up at Mont Blanc. I whizzed into the town and bought a couple of pairs of cheap but warm trousers as had managed not to bring the right ones, grrr! I brought quite a lot of things I didn’t need at all but the trousers were the only thing I really missed. Still the $5 (keyboard needs a Euro symbol) ones did very well and now I’ve repaired them, I’ve passed them on!
On returning to the hotel, we met the guides for the trip, Pierrot Fiorucci who works in the Mercantour with Mel and Liz, and Stephane Benoist, who hails from Nice, and about whom, more later.
After a surfeit of eggs the day before, I thought it would be kinder to forego them for breakfast – C had a fried one.
We worked out how to ask if we could leave the luggage there to collect later and that achieved and bills settled we went off to do some bits of shopping and sight seeing.
First had to have a coffee, this was at the cafe next to the green seats one of the night before. Whilst there noticed that their fare claimed to be real German and locally sourced so decided to return later for lunch.
Looked in a cheap shop, C attracted by candles. Held back for time being.
Went up to castle and for E2 had a great time looking round. Very nice tickets too with old picture of the castle on. We were the only visitors. C looked through telescope. Wandered round and then went up the tower, 7 flights but the views at the top were worth every step. Could see the Grosser and KleinerFeldbergs, the Altkoenig and then very oddly, Frankfurt appearing like a futuristic metropolitan blot on the landscape. Looked very out of place somehow.
A short walk through the trees brought us to the open air swimming pool again. Much quieter as all the children were in school and all the adults were making money in Frankfurt. Had a nice swim, not too long as the weather was quite a bit cooler. As soon as we’d got showered and dried under the body driers, great invention, it started raining. Back through the forest to the town and didn’t get wet.
Back to the cafe but went inside as it did quite a big short shower. Chris had pork medallions and I had Wiener style schnitzel. Some beers. All very delicious and properly cooked, yum.
Did a bit of shopping, the cheap shop got raided by Chris who decided to let go at last.
Then back to the hotel to pick up the bags, and back to the train station. Back to Frankfurt main station, posted the postcards. Train to the airport.
All very smooth. Bit more shopping at the airport, bum bag for J. And then a smooth flight home. The plane was jammed full and we couldn’t sit next to each other which was annoying. But many others in same situation so someone had cocked up that lot.
Eventually located the car park and the car at Manchester! Drove back to Fountain Villa, gave C her bag of bits and off she went. A totally lovely holiday, thank you so much.
After not sleeping very well (a lot of traffic noise because of being on the corner for J), we went for breakfast. A nice array, muesli, yoghurt, salamis, hams, cheeses, jams, nice fresh bread, not very nice coffee, possibly with chicory in it. J had a boiled egg.
We asked the lovely breakfast frau, possibly the one on the right in the picture of Cafe H about how to get to the Grosser Feldberg. Actually weirdly none of the people in the pictures on their website or the dog look like anyone that we met.
She gave us the bus number so we went to the train station to get the bus. The bus turned up with a very nice bus driver (Chris’). We climbed up in the bus to the top of the mountain (hill) as it’s only 878 metres where there was the annual town sports rally taking place as well as a biker convention. Despite all this, it was all very calm, there were a couple of cafes and kiosks, so we went to get a coffee.
On the short way, Chris picked up an old geezer who was taking a photo of a car. As well as the challenging language situation he had also had a stroke and so it was amazing that we were able to communicate at all. I kept trying to drag C away from him but this was very difficult so struck was she. Finally got away and into the cafe only to have him come and sit at the next table. At this point we gave in. Anyway his granddaughter lives somewhere in England and is very intelligent. The Americans taught him his English after the war, he was born in 1933. Actually he was quite a nice old man but most of the chat had to be done at high volume so guess we all entertained the cafe customers.
After some small purchases, we set off to walk the so called 7 km back to Koenigstein with the map which took a lot of working out so we just followed the signs and then just the general direction (down).
We had our substantial packed lunch, ate up some of the bits from the previous days extreme hunger rations, ate our new rolls and cheese and ham and tomatoes.
The walk through the forest was lovely, very quiet, a man passed by on a horse, the odd walker. We crossed the big road going up to the top and then came across a cafe/pub so had to investigate. It was next to a campsite and seemed to be part of an old Nature Movement. C had a beer and I had an espresso. Lovely.
At this point I finally managed to work out where we were on the map, better late than never. We walked back into Koenigstein and the Cafe H. Had a nice quiet couple of hours, I had a nap.
Then refreshed, went into town and after some photo opportunities went to what we thought was a real German restaurant that we’d picked out the night before, only to discover it had a Greek theme to the cooking. We sat outside and C had a lamb kebab and I had a lamb steak with cottage cheese in the middle of it. Not a good choice and mainly because I couldn’t remember what Schafkaese was. More beers.
Wandered back, stopping at a bar for a cocktail (C) and a big whisky (me).
