Summer in the Alps
- 4 August to 6 September 2005
With no
immediate prospect of being able to enjoy a trip such as this one, I'm turning
the clock back over fifteen years to the joyous summer of 2005. I'd already
enjoyed a taste of the Walker's
Haute Route, a few weeks after which Sue and I set off in the car on this
month long jaunt.
The pictures
from this trip are confusing me - some appear to have been taken with our old Olympus digital camera, others with our newer Canon S70,
which is the only source of accurate dating of the images. Sue seems to have
used these cameras, whilst I used an old 35mm SLR with Fujifilm. Next to me, as
I write, I have a pile of around 300 pictures, with no digital
versions that I can find*, so the illustrations in this set of postings will be
a mixture of S70/Olympus digital, plus a few scans from the 300 prints. The
dates may not be entirely accurate, but who cares!
Setting off from WokinghamThursday 4 August - Travel to Montreuil
Quite a lot of
effort was required on 3 August to get all the necessary bits for the car to
travel in Europe, and to complete numerous
'admin' matters needed in order to leave the house for a month.
Anyway, after a busy day, I picked
Sue up from work at 4 pm, and by 8 pm we had driven down to Wokingham, where we
had a pleasant, if slightly inebriated, evening with Jill and James.
Montreuil
On 4 August, after
waving James off to work in his new Jag XK8, the three of us - Jill, Sue and I went for
a half-hour stroll in the woods around Woosehill, before Sue and I headed into Reading to find, with
difficulty, its Cotswold shop. At first they refused to exchange the climbing
harness bought in Manchester two days earlier that Sue found too small - very
upsetting for Sue - but after speaking to the Manchester store they changed
their minds, so Sue tried on a few harnesses and decided the one I had brought
for her in Manchester did fit after all! [She still uses it.] A wasted couple of hours and a
slightly stressful period before a gentle drive down to Folkestone for 12:30
where we got a 14:00 Eurotunnel train rather than the 15:00 crossing I'd
booked.
Cappuccinos
whilst waiting to be called, then an uneventful ride, and onward drive to Montreuil on a sunny
Thursday afternoon in light traffic. We soon we found the amiable campsite and
set up on a nice green placement before wandering around the town's impressive ramparts.
We enjoyed a cheap meal at La Paloma Pizzeria in the huge central square. Nice
to sit outside as the sun slowly went down, then we adjourned to camp for an
early night.
Our new car
fridge seems to be working nicely, and at the campsite we've seen a kestrel,
collared doves, blackbird, thrush, pied wagtails, sparrows and swooping
swallows.
* Digital versions (low res on Jessops Picture Suite CDs) now found (31 Jan), completely by chance when looking for something else. Great!
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