An eventful day

And here we are at a beautiful camping ground, Camping Municipal de Challes-les-Eaux.  Not far from Chambery.  And the sun is shining, which is wonderful when sitting in the caravan.  The wind is bitter, straight off the mountain peaks.  However the temperature has risen to 11 degrees so getting warmer.  The ground is very dry here, as it was in Dole, although the grass is lovely and green.  Obviously the ground dries out faster here, in the warmer southern sun,

I reversed the caravan onto this pitch, with the help of Walter who told me in which direction the front wheels were facing.  Makes all the difference.

 A well deserved glass of beer, non alcoholic, which was all that there was available in the van, but it tasted very good.

The day did not start well. At 5.30 am we woke to the sound of French voices and they were very close.  In fact in bed with us.   It took a few minutes to realise the sound was coming from the speakers above our heads. The radio had turned itself on.  Three times one of us got out of bed and turned the radio off. But after about ten minutes it would come on again.  We think someone close by tried to turn their radio on by using a remote control and it connected with our radio.  Either that, or there was a ghostly presence in our caravan.

We eventually went back to sleep, and then slept in.  So a late start.  But the sun was shining and our caravan hitchup went smoothly.  And I did not take the gate posts away with me.  Why do French campsites have such narrow entrances?

We drove on the motorway for two hours in the morning, in the direction of Geneve.  It was quiet, and we certainly gained some extra time.  It cost €15.60 in tolls, which was pretty reasonable as we were towing a caravan.

After lunch in our van, and a coffee at one of the motorway services, we set off on a D road towards Chambery.

As sensible people we decided to take the D1075, which was a relatively straight road, away from the mountains.  But somehow we managed to get onto the more scenic D1504, which wound through a very tight valley between the mountains.  I think I turned left instead of right at some point.  As one does, in a strange area.  

But the journey was very scenic, and well worth the time it took to slowly and carefully drive through the valley.

One of the few straight stretches of road.

Walter managed to take a few photographs, when he freed himself from the task of keeping an eye on where I was driving.  The villages were the most difficult to drive through as the streets were incredibly narrow at times.  Some of the houses were built into the cliffs.

The rocky cliff faces were particularly stunning.

A village nestled into the hillside.

Just as we were gaining confidence, and thought we were nearing the end of the valley, we noticed a sign which said the tunnel in the last section of the road was closed.  There were detour signs, but we noticed that all the cars were continuing to drive towards the tunnel, and there were cars coming from the opposite direction.  So we continued on regardless.  As one does.

We saw the closed tunnel, and then the road to the right, winding up the side of the hill, and realised we were going to have to drive up over the peak.  Mont-du-Chat.

There are no photos of the steep winding road, as Walter was way too busy keeping an eye on the road, and the traffic coming the other way.  He was extremely patient and only gave me useful advice.  

And at the top, 700 metres up, there was a village, with a very tight hairpin corner.  We thought this was pretty amazing. Imagine living in this village.

The road down was a trifle hair raising due to the closeness of the jagged rock face on our side of the road, and some very tight hairpin corners.  Plus a narrow ditch running along the edge of the rock face.  But the caravan stuck tightly to our car, and all worked out well.

The views of Lac du Bourget were quite breathtaking.  Sadly we could not stop to really admire the view.

I am proud to say that there are no marks on the caravan, or car.

But I did have trouble driving the car through the narrow entrance to the camping ground.  I approached it from the wrong angle, and had to do a bit of reversing, under the guidance of the camping ground manager.  I really must work on my tactics for driving through narrow French camping ground entrances.

Off to Gap on the Route Napoleon tomorrow.