Chamonix & How to Be a Conspicuous Tourist

This was a 3-day weekend in France and I used the opportunity to take my 5th weekend trip away from Paris (but first since I started blogging) to the town of Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc at the border with Switzerland and Italy. Chamonix was the home of the first Winter Olympics and is known both for its skiing and the opportunities for various daredevil sports. At the risk of annoying you with vacation itineraries, here is what happened.

The trip takes 6 hours and 3 different trains, which is probably good preparation for The Amazing Race. The final leg is on the "Mont Blanc Express" which is quite the misnomer. It seemed to stop wherever there were more than 5 buildings and went so slowly I think you could have walked along the track, flagged it down, and it would have stopped for you.

Chamonix is a great place, though. I'm not a skiier (which is why I was visiting in August), but it seemed to be a ski town that was accommodating to both the student traveller/backpacker types and to the wealthy, not to mention those in between.

The highlight of the trip was taking the suspended cable car "flying" up from the town (elevation 3,500 feet) to an elevation of 12,600 feet for a close-up view of Mont Blanc. The ride up there was not harrowing and it was fairly amazing, but when our ascent stopped for about 5 seconds, everyone on that car had to be wondering if we were about to start sliding back down the cable and if the ticket sellers had put a few too many people on that trip. For all I know, the pause was probably just done for effect.

After going to all the various look-out spots and taking pictures, I took the cable car half-way back to town, down to about 7,500 feet. At that point, I took a 2.5 hour mostly horizontal hike from just above the tree line to just below it. This is called the "Grand Balcon du Nord" trail. It is fairly wide in most spots, and it is not that difficult a hike, as evidenced by the fact that I did it, but there are no rails or ropes to hang on to. The most difficult part is a 20-minute optional portion where you go up at least 600 feet, but it is worth it for the feeling of accomplishment. At the end of the 2.5 hour hike, you can either descend to town on foot or by train, and I was ready for a nap, so I took the train.

On the 3rd and final leg of my train trip back to Paris today, on the high-speed train from Lyon, I was seated with a 60-something American couple and their English relatives touring France. I wasn't going to say anything, but when the lady asked her husband if the train was non-stop and he didn't know, she pointed to me, and said "Ask him," assuming I was French. While it could have been very funny to wait for this man to try to ask me in French, and then for me to see how long I could impersonate a French person, he looked mortified to ask me, so I told her myself in English. They were all very nice people, but they kept correcting themselves to speak more quietly. It reminded me of when I was in Paris as a tourist in 2001 and immediately after arriving, I met a friend and we were on the Metro when he told me I was talking too loud, and I'm sure I was. It is never a good idea to be too conspicuous as a tourist, if no other reason than it is very hard to explain why your T-shirt says "Tennessee Volunteers" to someone in France -- it doesn't translate easily to those unfamiliar with the mascots of the Southeastern Conference. Anyway, at some point one person in that party asked if Michael Phelps had won his 8th gold, and when told that he had, this person shouted "Yay, USA" so everyone on board could hear. Probably not a shining moment in Franco-American relations.

The 3 attached photos show the cable car, a view from the top looking down on some skiiers, and a picture taken during my hike.