Mountaineering Europe’s Tour du Mont Blanc was a completely completely different slice of European tradition for me: Coming upon a distant farmhouse-turned-thriving-cafe serving great lunches…flowers and cows (with traditional bells) scenically sprinkled all through…and an esprit de corps the place everyone seems to be like household.
As practically everybody hikes in the identical course (counter-clockwise), you grow to be mates with fellow hikers. It appeared like half the folks on the path had been from the US, and I met a lot of Seattleites.
And within the curiosity of mountain climbing gentle, lunches had been quite simple — only a sandwich from the lodge, possibly a carrot, a chunk of fruit, and water. However upon reaching the mid-day summit, lunch was a marmot’s banquet. (Talking of marmots, we noticed no wildlife besides a few mice that had been squished below mountain climbing boots on the path.)