Pain in the ass trains

With some expert advice from our wwoof hosts we headed to Brittany, the far North West region of France. The first town we went to was Roscoff. It was a very quaint fishing town whose harbors were far bigger than the town center. Brittany is the region that crepes are from, and as soon as we found out that we could get them made from buckwheat, which is gluten free, we ate them for at least two meals a day. While we were there we celebrated Lisa's birthday with a seaside crepe picnic lunch and a crepe dinner in a creperie.

After Roscoff we went to St Malo, which was much larger and much more touristy. The coolest thing about St Malo was the beach. At high tide there was no beach, the water came all the way up to the city walls. At low tide the beach was a quarter mile wide and you could see the water had come up the city walls 20ft. There was a pool on the beach that was refilled every time the tide came in. Lisa went swimming laps even though it was freezing.

While there, we took a day trip to Mont Saint Michel, which is a beautiful island topped with a huge cathedral just off the Normandy coast. Well sometimes its an island, at low tide you can walk to it!

We had planned on seeing the Normandy D'Day beaches the next day but a train strike made it impossible, so we skipped it and headed straight for Paris. We arrived in Paris and piled on one of the suburban trains at rush hour that was packed so tight you could not breath because they were only running a fraction of the trains they would normally run. We met Sylvain, another one of Lisa's dads friends, who kindly offered us a place to stay. His flat was in a suburb, but it is not like an American suburb, it is still very much the city, just not technically Paris.

Lisa wanted to get her hair cut and found an academy online where she could get it done for free by students. After almost five hours she was finished with about a foot cut off. The snoody director told her that she could not just get a trim, it was not enough practice for the students.

With her new spunky hair cut we did our usual walking around every neighborhood possible. We saw a lot more pictures of Jesus at the Louvre and saw the many porn shops and strip clubs that surround the Moulin Rouge. We ate a couple of very nice meals out with Sylvain and I dragged Lisa around the city at night to get pictures.

After a few days we had had enough being packed into subways and trains and planned on heading south to climb. We went shopping and bought a cheap tent that pops up in 2 seconds!  The train strike continued, and continued to be a pain in our ass. Our original train was cancelled and we were put on a different train that had a few transfers. We got off the train at our first transfer, which as the crow flies was actually very close to where we had planned to climb (and camp), and I swear it was about to snow. We went inside and found that our next leg had be cancelled and we would have to be re routed again, this time through the Marseille, then head back north into the mountains. We took this as a sign and got on the Internet and found some climbing further south, just outside of Marseille in the Calenques. Marseille was a dump (literally, as due to the strike trash was no longer being collected and accumulated mountains on the street.) I don't think it would have been much better anyway though.

The Calenques and the town of Cassis where we camped however were beautiful. Perfect limestone mingling in crystal turquoise waters. The only problems were that the wind never stopped blowing the entire time we were there and it was a solid 2 hour hike from the campsite to the climbing. Due to these two factors we did not get all that much climbing in, but we were happy spending a few day in such a beautiful place anyway!

We have a little place in the French Countryside

We arrived in Paris after a five hour train ride from Chamonix just to change trains. It turns out Paris has five main stations and were not at the right one. Luckily we did not cut it close on timing because it was a 3 mile walk across the city with our packs to the correct station. After 12 hours of traveling we made it to La Loupe where we met our new wwoof hosts.



Carol and Pietro run a beautiful bed and breakfast in the French country side that looks exactly how one would imagine the french country side to look. Rolling forested hills dotted with pastures, chateaus and quaint stone villages.

We started out with our usual garden work; weeding and harvesting. I guess we must seem trustworthy because after knowing us for all of 2 days Carol and Pietro asked us if we would mind house sitting while they went to Sardinia to take care of some family business. Of course we said it was not a problem (where would we have to be?) So basically we had a beautiful house in the country side to our selves. We still had some work while they were away but it was light and we had a lot of free time: most of which we spent cooking and eating. We also had a lot of fun walking or riding bikes to the village a few kilometers away.

While we were there our friend Daniel was visiting Paris and since we were only a little over an hour away it was natural that we would meet up. We headed into Paris and met Daniel and his roommate under the Eiffel tower. (Not as obvious as we would have thought as it is like the size of a city block.) We found it strange that there were armed guards everywhere and I later looked really stupid when a reporter asked me on camera if I knew that there had been a terrorist threat on Paris that day. I did not. We also did not know until our mothers started calling that there was a travel warning for France.

We went up the Eiffel Tower and saw Notre Dame without any further terrorist problems. We were really glad to be there in October instead of tourist filled summer as there were a lot anyway. After our one day taste of Paris (with a few items checked off of our to see list for our "real" Paris visit to come) we headed back to the country side for another week of relaxing. We had such a nice time and our hosts were so great I think we would have moved in if there had bee some climbing nearby.



Business Trip in Italy but All Business in Chamonix

Still jittery with excitement from our recent engagement, we made our way via several trains and buses to the city of Trento to meet Lisa's dad, Dave, and her step-mom, Dawn, who had been in Milan at a water-ski tournament. We had no idea where the hotel was but after wandering away from the train station we managed to find it just as Dave and Dawn were unloading their car.  It was a treat to stay at a nice hotel where we weren`t sharing a bathroom with the rest of the floor.  Trento was a typical Italian city in that there was a beautiful old section inside of a wall with narrow cobblestone streets surrounded by industrial ugly shit architecture.  It was good to be with people a little less used to Italy because it kept us from taking the Italian-ness for granted!

The next day we went for a walk and took a cable car to the top of a hill.  It was in stark contrast with the cable cars in Switzerland in that it cost 90 cents as opposed to 30euros.  Then again the cable cars in Switzerland didn`t seem like they would crash down at any second.

We left Trento and headed towards the small town of Asolo stopping to visit Dave's friend`s water ski camp.  We stayed in another really nice hotel in Asolo and had a great time seeing another town we had not yet been to.  One night we went out to dinner with Dave`s Italian distributor and had fun practicing our Italian.  As usual we learned why italy was the best place in the world and that this region was the best part of Italy.  We also hiked up to a castle where with some fatherly encouragement Lisa decided to climb on the thirteenth century walls.  A stone pulled out and she tumbled down and has been limping ever since.  Karma?

The next day we were making our way towards Milan and randomly decided to stop at a town on Lago Garda.  It ended up being perfect weather so we rented a boat and toured around the lake taking plenty of time to just relax and swim.  Afterwards we went to the town of Sirmione which I had never heard of, but apparently everyone else has as it was packed with tourists.  And for good reason as often times seems to be the case. 

The next day we all headed to the Milan airport where we would say our goodbyes and Lis and I would take a shuttle to Milano Centrale and work our way to Chamonix.  On the way we stopped for gas and in typical parental fashion and keeping up with our rental car luck, Dave  filled the tank with diesel instead of unleaded.  Luckily we made it to the airport and dropped the car before we saw any results of this new diet.

It turned out to be a huge pain in the ass to get from Milan to Chamonix and took two days even tough its only about 200 kilometers.  I guess we were crossing the highest mountain range in Europe.  More specifically there is a tunnel that goes under the highest point in Europe.

Chamonix was amazing.  The mountains are crazy spikes that lend endless climbing opportunities.  The first day we were there the weather was good and knowing it was supposed to change we hopped on a cable car to get to some alpine rock!  It was just sport climbing but in an alpine setting in the fog that made it feel much more serious.  We were glad that we climbed that day because the weather did change and we spent the next few days hiking, getting rained off of lower crags and drinking hot chocolate in a patisserie.  At one point we met up with some friends, Jena and John, who were there on their honeymoon and had just climbed mount Blanc.

Finally on our last day there the weather cleared and we had perfect blue sky.  We hiked up for 2 1/2 hours to a point on the map that showed a sport climbing park.  While it was absolutely beautiful, we didn`t see any climbing opportunities that did not involve a full alpine rack (we sent ours home in the spring) and it was a bit annoying after such a long hike to still be surrounded by tourists who were pouring off of a tram.  We were able to hike just a little further though and have a whole lake to ourselves which was a great way to end our time in the mountains!  By the way, Lisa is fine :-)