Maggiore-Chamonix-Lyon

A cool grey morning dissuaded us from a swim, and anyway it's a long drive today. We feel like we're headed 'downhill' to home now with only 6 days left ... but we still have the delights of France.

Prompt departure at 9am all of 200m to El Gigante supermarket for more food & drink topups plus paracetamol. On the road (many roads ... have I said what a mess the road system is?) by 10 as planned. Cloudy sun, good driving day. We've decided on 4 short 'watches' of about an hour and twenty, with a long break at Chamonix, because these roads and traffic are quite tiring. 

Good road and less traffic as we head north west towards Mont Blanc, much easier driving.


Pee stop and swap drivers somewhere. As we get into the mountains the scenery is excellent and the series of tunnels quite stupendous.


Only 5 cars and a few minutes queue, and no customs, to pay €56 (!) to transit the Mont Blanc tunnel - it's impressive but at 11.6km it's shorter than the other in Austria (or was it Switzerland?). Butvthere were a lot of instructions.

We particularly liked "a police officer will be waiting for you [if you transgress]. On the French side there was a 2hr queue up a steep hill - poor them, lucky us. 

Pulled into park&ride in Chamonix because big and easy. Van lunch then coffee & tarte in Vertical Cafe at foot of cable car that goes almost vertically up and then across to L'Aguille du Midi  - which would have been spectacular but we don't have time, it's €50pp, the top is at 3,800m and is -6° ... so we had a stroll down main street instead. Not much here apart from sports shops and apartments and it's quiet inter-season. Chamonix is at 1,000m and the air is chilly.



Onwards and downwards, much downwards, after an hour we were out of the big hills and rolling across mainland France. The b***y Telepass wasn't working so kept stopping and contactless paying instead of cruising through at 30km/h to happy beeps. Made a couple of small mistakes due to Mrs G being imprecise and/or the driver thinking he (!) knows best, but easily corrected. 

Arrived Camp de Lyon at 1730 having booked online a couple of days ago. Expecting a snazzy French campsite, we were a bit disappointed to find all the pitches slope in both directions ... again. We parked across the pitch to minimise the effect, and L cooked a chicken in wine with veg and lentils on rice - a healthy bowlful. The Sanitaire is all unisex and largely open to the elements; hey guys, this is not the Med! It's only 14°. Went to bed early - knackered.


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