Pushed out of the Alps...

... by the weather. We have tried two loops through the Alps, visiting Chamonix, the Junfrau region, Saas Fee, Zermatt, Val D'Aosta, Liechtenstein, Innsbruck, Grossglockner, and the Julian Alps. We never had the weather break on the high peaks for more than one day. So goes it in the mountains! We had hoped to climb some mountains or spend the night in some huts but only some rock climbing as a consolation. The sport climbing is very developed in Europe and as a consolation it's not too bad. We hope for some payback on the weather this winter for the ski season. Now we start our Power Drive across the Balkans enroute to Greece where the skies are sunny and the water warm! Right?

CM
à Ljubljana

Sometime we are pleasantly surprised!

8 August 2006

Today, Craig and I went to the sous-prefecture in Albertville to re-register our camping car, now that we are Official Residents of Savoie (this is sort of like moving between states in the US).

We arrived at the sous-prefecture at 11:20, because, of course, they are closed from noon to 2:00.

I was worried that:

1. We wouldn't have the correct documentation


2. We would be required to make a bunch of photocopies


3. The application would cost about 300 Euros


4. It would be impossible to complete in one day, and would require coming back in a week

All of these fears are justified, given our past experiences with the French bureaucracy!

However, we were super-surprised, and managed to complete the transaction (with no photocopies!) in under 20 minutes! And it was FREE! We were out of the sous-prefecture by 11:40.

Travel update: it is no longer too hot. But to counteract all of the sunshine we had, we've been having a bit of rain. Here is a photo of the Col du Grand St. Bernard. It was snowing when we crossed it. (Yes, we visited the dogs up there, but sorry, no photos!)

We leave Savoie (hopefully) in the next few days. Destination GREECE! (With lots to see on the way.)

-SK
a Albertville (free wi-fi at McDonald's)

P.S. We've posted some new features on le Reve home page, check them out!

Hooray for Switzerland!

1 August 2006

Today was Switzerland's national day.

We joined the festivities in Saas-Grund, which included a parade called "Folkloreumzug" (subtitled "Wie die alten Saaser lebten"*). It included 33 participants, including a couple of bands; but the majority were floats pulled by tractors demonstrating various traditions of the Saas valley, like potato planting, wool weaving, twig collecting and wheat whacking. The tractors were all in "turtle mode", so the parade moved very, very slowly. It didn't help that the parade kept getting interrupted by tour busses coming to and from Saas Fee.

With its slow pace, and amazingly complacent spectators, I was starting to think it was one of the most boring parades I'd ever been to until a horse pooped on the route near us and we got the fun of watching the marching bands, etc. avoid it.

Things picked up a bit after the tractors, when groups of people representing the medieval history of the valley (I think) and William Tell (lots of kids dressed like apples!) moved through. Apparently, people can walk faster than tractors in turtle mode.

The highlight of the parade was at the end; a hand-drawn antique water carriage from the fire brigade that squirted water somewhat randomly into the air!

I also really liked the two horn blowers that announced the beginning and end of the parade. They played those long horns like you see in the Ricola commercials.

Unfortunately, the evening's fireworks were cancelled because of the dangerously dry state of the valley. A bit ironic, since it rained on and off all day.

-SK
a Saas-Grund, Switzerland

*We don't read any German, so our best guess at what this means is "Life the old Saas way"