Only two days until we leave for our much anticipated grand tour of Italy, so we thought it might be good to post an update of our recent summer activities before we go off the grid for a while. The summer has been great, other than the sometimes rather unbearable heat which has given us an immense appreciation for air conditioning… and the nearby lake! Ian found a lake that is right off the piste cyclable (i.e. bike path), so we can bike there in about 20 minutes. The best part is that it is inaccessible by car, so it is rarely crowded. And it has a tremendous view of the mountains, which begin to climb up almost right from the edge of the water.
We have been doing quite a bit of travelling around the Grenoble area, thanks to our friend Ruth from church, who is a great adventurer and always up for seeing something new. But before I go into our travels with her, let me first fill you in on one of the coolest things we have seen so far this summer… Le Tour de France!!!
We took an early train to Annecy, a beautiful town about an hour away from Grenoble and the location of a time trial for the famous cycling race. We wandered around in the masses for a while, saw all the bike team buses with exorbitantly expensive cycles propped up on bike trainers, watched a few riders warm up and smile for photos, and then decided to find a nicer place to watch the action. The race route was a 40+ km loop around the lake in Annecy, so we walked along the lake for about 5 km and found an amazing spot on an inside curve, sitting right on the curb – no barrier between us and the cyclists! Which was actually a little scary, as I was picturing myself making the evening news for accidentally falling in front of a cyclist and ruining the whole race! So we had an awesome time feeling the breeze off the cyclists as they blew by, and Ian managed to snap quite a few great shots. Seeing all of those great riders that close up was quite an experience, and it was even more fun after I dug a program out of a trashcan so we could identify who was going by : )
One of the families at our church hosted a picnic at their house the next weekend, so Ian and I decided to ride our bikes there. Which normally is not a big deal, but this particular ride was 15km with an elevation increase of about 600 meters… that’s almost 2000 ft! No big deal for Ian, but I was definitely proud of myself for making it all the way up. There were certainly a few moments I doubted whether I could do it!
A few weekends later we jumped in the car with Ruth and headed southwest, destination: Le Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval. Basically a wacky postman built this “palace” in the middle of nowhere out of rocks and concrete, and it took him 33 years to do it! You have to check out the pictures of this place, because it is just too crazy. We also saw lots of beautiful countryside on the drive, and never got lost despite the fact that we forgot the GPS!
Last weekend Ruth called us for another adventure, so we again hopped in her car, this time headed towards Les Grottes de Choranche in the Vercors mountain range. These caves were really spectacular, with thousands of glittering stalagtites and stalagmites (luckily, those words are the same in French so we could sort of follow what the tour guide was saying!). Wandering around inside the caves made me want to go spelunking, but I think I’ll have to find someone else to go with because I don’t think Ian was too excited about it! After seeing a waterfall and having a nice picnic, we hopped back in the car to continue our cave adventures at Les Grottes des Echelles. These caves are on a walking path called la Voie Sarde, which is a “road” built in the 17th century to link Italy and France, back when this area was part of Italy instead of France. Lots of really interesting history on this tour, plus the path is really gorgeous with lots of huge trees and dense undergrowth. It made us a little homesick for the mountains of East Tennessee!
That’s about all for this update, as we are busy packing for our trip. You can see many more photos from our recent adventures on Ian’s Picasa site (http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.isom). I’m sure we will have tons of things to write about when we get back, so prepare yourselves for a lot of reading and picture viewing!
you guys tire me out just looking at the dates and locations and activity!
it was neat reversing the cliff diving and seeing you jump back to the top-
and how in the hell would one maintain the outside of a structure that has one side that is a very deep drop off? even though it is water- how did someone build on the edge of a cliff-
you two look great healthy and happy-who could ask for anything more!
By: robert on 30 August, 2009
at 11:10 am