French Alps part 1

​“How we got here”, a fable. Picking up our pleasantly scraped and dented 9 passenger van in Turin after a lovely train ride from Imperia (one transfer, Italian teenagers napping in the luggage racks and playing football in the aisle), we set out for the town of St Etienne Di Tinee. A scenic 3 or 4 hr drive depending on stops. For some reason (foreshadowing) my phone wouldn’t let me plot the course I wanted to take so we aimed for Oulx where I planned to replot our route.

Lovely drive. Big roads, gorgeous mountains. Passing through Oulx I asked Ty to replot towards St. Etienne. Kylie doubled checked from the back.

Driving time under 3 hours! We were ahead of schedule. Then we reached a toll station where the toll was 74€ to drive through a tunnel under Mont Blanc. This should have been a clue…

After 2 hours of driving on a huge highway with a speed limit of 130 I pulled over to check our progress after a tollbooth (only 6.8€).

Hmmm new time to destination 5 hours… turns out St Etienne and St Etienne di Tinnee are 2 different towns both roughly the same distance from Oulx.

After a bit of grumpiness (on my part) we changed course to Grenoble rather than drive until 2am and booked a last minute apartment and had a delicious burger and shawarma dinner.

Only picture of Grenoble.

Backing up to the second hint we were going the wrong way. Missed it…

The next morning we set out to cross several mountain passes onto our true destination.

Very quickly I was entranced by the drive. We passed a few signs in French saying something was closed for some amount of time but we kept seeing oncoming vehicles so we persevered and climbed higher and higher, passing more bikes than cars.

It paid off! This was a wonderful road trip day, with multiple hikes, boot skiing and a delicious lunch at 2058m in the sunshine.

After lunch we set out to explore the snowfields. I saw a few late season ski tours and there were some lovely figure 8s on the spring snow.

A good time was had by all.

After changing into dry clothes we continued our journey.

Another stop on a local climbing rock.

Another stop on a crazy Mtn pass.

Almost at the top we found an abandoned military garrison and the kids enjoyed exploring and throwing snowballs. Some moderately sketchy rooms full of detritus but the structure seemed solid!

Making a snow man. The kids only chance this year.

Crazy road. Not wide enough for two cars through most of it. Even passing motorbikes was a scary proposition with no shoulder and some steep dropoffs. And so many hairpin switchbacks!

I think the top of this pass was 2800m. Cold.

Our trusty touring van making most of the corners without having to 3 point.

Amazing day. A lot of views, some fun walks and delicious food. However we were happy to finally roll into our initial destination of St Etienne di Tinee! If we hadn’t taken a wrong turn, we wouldn’t have had such an amazing day. And we certainly would not have had daylight to do all these adventures. Also that final pass would have been awful in the dark. It was scary enough in broad daylight!! Trying to spin it positive. Seems to be working. Bon journe!