What makes time in the French alps better? Good friends.

When we end a bike trip nothing feels better than taking a nice break at our wonderful generous friends’ house in the Vallée Verte, France. We shop for food and cook in every day instead of searching for open grocery stores and restaurants. We have leisurely mornings and afternoon naps.

But this break was even better since we had our dear friends Christine and Cecily joining us for a week. Usually we spend our time in the alps hiking from the house, catching up on stuff, travel planning, cleaning and storing the bikes and trying to help around the house. Their visit gave us the kick in our pants to rent a car and actually get out and see some of the alps. We joke that for folks who have spent so much time in the area we hadn’t seen many of the local sights.

The best way we know to get over jet lag is physical activity in the sunshine. Thankfully the weather cooperated for our first hike, Plaine Joux up to Pointe de Miribel.

The nice hiker with the dog warned us there was a herd of goats with their guard dog on our chosen route down. The dog barked at her and her dog, just so we knew. My sister in Colorado has had these big white guard dogs for her livestock for years so I assured everyone that they aren’t dangerous, just protective. Well, the big white dog did indeed bark at us, but calmed down after we greeted them with good doggie voices.

After a day just hiking from the house, we headed by car to Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval. The weather was rainy but we all just suited up in our rain gear and headed out on a fantastic waterfall loop.

The next day our destination was Chambéry, which is south of Lac du Bourget. A nice walk around the old town, a visit to the Musée Savoisien and lunch.

At a traditional Savoie restaurant for lunch, Christine had the tartiflette, which was delicious but rich. We all agreed it is not an everyday meal. But so luscious.

We learned a good lesson about renting cars, always add the second driver even though it costs more. Since Rich did all the driving he didn’t get to enjoy the scenery as much as the rest of us. We’re spoiled from California where the rule is that the spouse is always covered when it comes to rental cars. We should have added me as a driver so Rich could relax and enjoy the scenery too. So, with that in mind we took the train the next day. Rich still had to drive us to the train station but then we all got to admire the scenery from La Roche-sur-Foron to Annecy.

After a day at home, shopping and doing an airport run to pick up Hannah, we headed off the next day to Chamonix, a new place for the four Americans. The very impressive roadway leading to Chamonix and the Mont Blanc tunnel was mostly empty since the tunnel is closed for works until December 16, 2024. That made for a lovely traffic free drive along the impressive viaduct roads.

Sadly we had to say to goodbye to Cecily and Christine as they were off by train to Italy for another friend’s 70th birthday party. We dropped them at Annemasse train station, they took the local Léman Express to Geneva, and then trains to Turin. Such a fantastic way to travel.

When we made our nomadic decision it was our hope that we would have friends meet up with us in various places. This visit by Cecily and Christine was so energizing and wonderful. To get to share one of our favorite places, the Vallée Verte, with two of our favorite people was fantastic. The biggest downside to our life as nomads is missing friends and family.

Too soon it was time for Rich and I to shoulder our backpacks and head off ourselves. Hannah’s family had arrived so we left them in good spirts and got a lift to the train station in Annemasse.

We were working our way to Paris for a month stay and more visits from friends, but first we had a few stays along the way. More on that in the next post.