Morzine in the French Alps

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Steve says:
Alas, it's the last leg of my trip. And what a damn shame too. We hired a car in Geneva and drove to Morzine, which was an experience in itself. Trying to drive a manual with the opposite hand in a foreign, non-English country with a dodgy car rental map is no mean feat, let me tell you. It took us about twice as long as it should have but we made it in one piece. The drive was pretty spectacular. The French Alps are what you'd expect - a living, breathing postcard. Rolling valleys surrounded by massive mountains peppered with gorgeous chalets and rather attractive cows that moo with a French accent.

We drove to the Chalet where my friend Susie is living and working, which is also our home for 5 days. It's again quintessentially French, although it's owned by a couple of Welsh. It just happens that our friend Annie was also down for a few days, so it was a bit of an Aussie reunion of sorts. Seeing Sooz for the first time in ages was just tops. We're bestest buds from when we met in the mountains of Austria many moons ago so meeting in the mountains again is kinda special.

Of course, we headed straight for the pub and then back to the Chalet for some serious drinking and catching up time. The next morning we headed off on a hike into the mountains. Three hours of powering through some of the most beautiful wilderness you're ever likely to see, sucking up lungfuls of fresh air and drinking Evian water straight from the source. Yes, Evian, the place they bottle the water of the same name is just down the road. The streams from these mountains feed the springs that end up in the bottled water everyone goes on about. So we drink and bathe in Evian water every day. We happened to buy a bottle of Evian water today and it does indeed taste exactly the same as the tap water. How good is that?

After the hike, we had lunch in the restaurant back at our starting point. A truly French affair with Frog's legs for Entree. A kind of cross between chicken and fish, I guess. Bizarre. The ladies had a goat's cheese salad and I had a chicken schnitzel that was topped with ham and swimming in a pool of French cheese and baked in a clay baking dish. This was all washed down with liberal doses of some of the best Pinot Gris wine we've ever had and sealed with a couple of shots of pear liqueur and some flower (not sure what kind - a petite peu French, I'm afraid) liqueur.

We hit the town again last night to see a local band, which was tops. Today we went white water rafting - that's the subject for the next blog entry.

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Photos

First arrival in Morzine
Straight to the pub, of course

Mmm, Evian
Drinking the Evian water straight from the source

The party team
Team Australia carving it up at the pub

Ladies and the band
The ladies cutting up the dance floor

Fleur and I
Morzine in the background during our hike

Comments

[Kate Fyfe]

Hey Fleur - thanks for the updates, they are great. Enjoy every moment!!! Safe travels :)