My goodness do I have some recommendations for any keen walkers/explores after the last 8 days! I am loving my time in the Alps so far and have already seen quite a wonderful variety of places and even activities - nope this isn’t all going to be about hiking! First of all however, you have to drive there…

Vercors
I think I may have found heaven in the valley of Vercors. I camped near the town of La Chappell de Vercors which, despite not being particularly fancy compared to some towns I have stayed in, had all the amenities and restaurants that I needed for my stay and had a pleasant, friendly feel to the place. The valley was wonderfully green - very wide with lots of fields and forests on the slopes. To the East the mountains were also tall and promised lots of adventure - even more so when I looked at the walking map and discovered hundreds of local footpaths - and all the ones I walked were in very good condition. I chose to come here because of the wolves that have been spotted in the mountains and so, at the earliest opportunity, I climbed over the first layer of mountains and up onto a high plateau. This ranges between 1,200 metres and 1,600 metres and leads onto even taller mountains on the other side. It is about a mile wide and so incredibly rich in flora and fauna that I just didn’t know where to look. There were so many birds that I didn’t recognise and even the trees and flowers fascinated me. I was however on a mission to find a wolf (I knew it was extremely unlikely) and so spent hours and hours following tracks, sneaking through woodlands, climbing over boulders and even wading through a stream when I could find no better way across it. I walked for miles without spotting anything wolf-like but felt so happy engrossed in nature at its purest that I didn’t really care. It was intoxicating and just the absolute best experience that I aim to recreate whenever possible.

Lac de Bourget
The first of the two lakes during this week, Lac de Bourget is the largest lake in France and has mountains on all sides. I stayed on the northern end (away from the busier towns) and had stunning views along the lake of snow capped mountains in the far distance. What I found really interesting was how this area has so much going on. You have the lake, which is great for walking, cycling and all manner of watersports; the Rhône river running nearby which would be good for walking if it hadn’t flooded so many of the local footpaths; a short but beautiful canal, the highlight of which for me was the wonderful village of Chanaz; and of course the mountains which had so many great walks along them. On my way towards Lake Annecy I also climbed up Cret de Chatillon which gave me a real baptism of fire into how steep some Alpine mountains are. I climbed about 1000m which is easy enough for me but I did it in only a couple of miles. Every step up it was steep and, when it got to a point where I presumed it would go around an obstacle because it looked like a cliff, all they did when making the path was add a chain so you could pull yourself up instead. It was however worth it with my first distant view of the spectacular Mont Blanc and the mountains surrounding it all majestically covered in snow.

Lac Annecy
After a few days of isolation and solitude, it was a bit of a culture shock to drive into the valley that contains Lake Annecy. I would guess that about 70% of the lake has some sort of development around it and in some areas, such as Annecy itself, this is quite dense. Somehow however, this doesn’t actually take away from the charm of the place. It probably helps that many of the properties are rather spectacular which for me means I spend my time imagining that I live there. Because the mountains here are so close it also feels as if the place is very much part of nature, despite the number of buildings. The city of Annecy itself is also rather beautiful with lots of quirky buildings and a semi-permanent market going on. The river running through it also qualifies it for that overused description as ‘The Venice of…’ in this case France. I wouldn’t say it is anything like Venice but it sure is beautiful in its own right.

(I have no idea how or why I managed to look so smug in the top left picture 🤦♂️)
The biggest attraction of this area for me however, wasn’t the beautiful lake, the wonderful buildings or even (for once) the rather wonderful mountains and forests! Instead I had arranged to meet some friends here for a few days and it was so nice to socialise. After months of very little interaction with people it was actually quite tiring and I hope I didn’t put them off with my rusty conversation skills. We talked for hours, swam in the lake, had a meal at a restaurant and, best of all, they talked me into a hot air balloon ride! I actually said no at first but I am so glad I ‘saw the error of my ways’ and joined them. It is such a peaceful way of travelling and the views of the lake, the chateaux (one of which we got rather close to) and the rising sun over the mountains were superb. It was only when we went to land that I realised that hot air balloons have absolutely no way of steering: they just land where the wind takes them, trying to avoid things like towns and forests by controlling their altitude. This is made much harder as the wind was constantly changing directions which makes picking a suitable field (preferably cut) very hard work. After grazing the top of a tree and almost landing in a field full of crops we landed safely and helped them to pack away the balloon - a rather laborious task after such a peaceful journey! This was one of those experiences that I don’t think I will ever forget and I am so grateful to Pete and Kez for inviting me!

Megeve
A weird little town which I can’t work out if I like or not. It had lots of beautiful chalets all of which were ridiculously expensive. They were the sort of things my students used to build on Minecraft and I can imagine they only get better when surrounded by snow in the winter. I read that Megeve is the most exclusive ski resort in Europe and can easily believe it. Aston Martins everywhere, shops like Rolex or French Cashmere down the high street and a few (not all of them) slightly snobby people. I hate it when people think themselves superior and I had the perfect opportunity for a little Marky mischief! I was sat on a bench when, across the street, I noticed a woman walking. She had really nice clothes but what really caught my attention was just how high she was holding her head and just looked like she was looking down on everything. My suspicions were confirmed when she walked towards a couple of people and just stayed bang in the middle of the footpath making them divert around her when there was plenty of space for two. When she did this to a women with a young child in a push chair I got really annoyed. This poor lady had to take her young child on to a busy road to get around her. I forgot about it for a while as I walked through town but about ten minutes later saw the same women walking towards me on a footpath. She did her obnoxious middle of the path trick on another couple and so I came up with a wonderful little plan - I stopped to tie my shoelaces. She walked straight at me and I looked up in mock surprise, made a rather pathetic attempt at pretending to be sorry and barely contained my wicked grin as she had to walk around me, giving me the filthiest look you can imagine in the process!

The idiocies of Mark:
Unfortunately (for me) it’s a busy one this time!
First one is a simple bit of advice for how you should check messages before sending them, particularly if you are talking to your parents. I feel dad in particular was worried when I noted how I was winding people up about the Euros football tournament whilst in a ‘bath’ full of French people. I hope he realised straight away that I meant a ‘bar’ but having to clarify this was rather embarrassing.
Secondly - time management! I will admit to getting a little distracted when looking for wolves. I went on an afternoon walk which was meant to be around ten miles long (I had already done ten miles that morning), however I found a rather lovely place, as described above, and just got more and more tempted to keep walking further into the mountains. It would be easy to say that I didn’t realise how far I had gone or how late it was getting but that would be a massive lie. I knew exactly where I was. I knew exactly what time it was. And I knew exactly how long it could take for me to get down the mountain. So me having to run down a mountainside known to be home to wolves as it was getting dark and then having a six mile walk at night through the valley was all my own fault. The worst part is that, if the same opportunity comes up again, I know I’ll do the same thing 😂
Thirdly - this one was a worry! I know it kind of ends quite simply but hopefully you will imagine the tension of the moment. After the hot air balloon ride we were driven back to the cafe and field where we started. Getting out of the car I did my usual pat down to check I had all of my things. But my right pocket was empty! My phone was in my left which meant that my car key had disappeared. I checked my bag - nothing. Went to check the car in case I had left it there - nothing. I went to tell the others and I could see that Pete and Kez were both calm but you could see in their eyes that they were thinking the same as me - what on earth do I do next?
The obvious places where I could have lost it were terrible.
In a large field where we had left off as we had helped a little with setting up the balloon. I had covered quite a lot of the field during this time so that was not looking good.
In a small bit of field where we had landed and again helped out quite a lot. I had also removed my jumper here so this was a real possibility. The problem was that the grass here was long so I didn’t think there was much chance at all of finding them.
The worst place I could have lost it would have been in the balloon itself. Our pilot had actually dropped his glasses mid flight so I was having visions of me having accidentally dropping them over the side of the basket and into the lake.
We were all discussing possibilities and starting to wonder what I would do if they were gone. I think all of us were imagining how many hundreds of euros this was going to cost me. Bit of an anti-climax really as it turned out they were in the balloon company’s car from when they had given us a lift back.
Inevitably I have spent the last 24 hours constantly checking my pocket to ensure my keys are in it. I fear this may be a constant now for the rest of this trip.
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