So we had a big drive ahead of us and we had no idea how to get there but Simon and Rachelle's car had GPS or SatNav and we could follow them.
I have always scorned the need for such devices but I hold my head in shame now as quite frankly how anyone gets anywhere in Europe without getting hopelessly lost or divorced or both is beyond me.
All we had to do was stick like glue to the stylish Volksy in front, however, I almost couldn't do that as Simon has spent a considerable amount of time in Italian freeways (autostradas) as is now quite at home on such facilities. More on that later.
Anyhoo before we got to the Italian border we were going to drive past a glacier or two so we simply had to see Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice, I believe). But first to get there we had to go up a shiny red funicular railway. What a bonus. Not only am I a closet car nut and out of the closet bike nut, I am a semi concealed train spotter too. So we all jumped on the carriage with oddly angled windows and ground our way up the mountain into the clouds. Ben saw a reindeer on the way which he was pretty happy about, and Finley and Maja bounced about with glee and we arrived to see a pretty cloudy but still breathtaking view.
Up the mountain
However, where the heck was the glacier? It seems the largest glacier in France ain't what it used to be and we had to jump in a gondola down the valley and then walk another 400 steps down to the glacier.
It really has shrunk.
Global warming, shmobal warming.
Mer de Glace!
We got there though and the thoughtful French had carved a massive cave into the glacier. How do you do that? It wasn't just a little tunnel, it was a full scale lighted hallway 50 metres long with interesting artefacts in glass cases at the end.
Extraordinaire.
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