The Walker's Haute Route Trip Report: Day 1

Goodness it's been a long time since I posted anything on this lovely blog...six whole years!! Much like video killing the radio star, I think instagram killed the personal blog. So what am I doing here all these years later? I decided that the best way to record and share our recent trip-of-a-lifetime to Switzerland would be here on my blog. As we were preparing for the trip, we found the information that other people shared on their blogs and websites an invaluable resource, so in order to document our fun and share what we learned with others, I'm posting our trip report here.

Day 1: Albuquerque-Minneapolis-Amsterdam-Geneva-Chamonix

Oh what an incredibly long day! We left for Albuquerque around 10 am. We had to stop at REI before going to the airport because after looking at the weather reports, we decided there was a very good chance we'd be hiking through rain the entire trip, and Justin's only rain jacket wasn't exactly waterproof.  It's amazing how relaxing and not stressful flying is when you are only traveling with adults. It's also pretty nice when you are only traveling with small-ish backpacks. We flew together to St. Paul, and then we were booked for two different flights from there to Amsterdam. Fortunately, the nice lady at the Delta counter was able to switch my flight to go on the earlier flight with Justin (this was apparently such a big no-no, that she didn't even charge us the flight change fee because she didn't want to leave any record of the transaction). It was nice to be together for the long flight over the ocean--especially since I got super motion sick at the end. I made it all the way until we landed before I threw up...We had a few hours of a layover in Amsterdam, but I was feeling so exhausted and nauseous, that we opted for sleeping on the floor rather than trying to go into the city at all. Justin was kind enough to take the picture of me conked out on the floor.

We were excited to finally get on our last flight to Geneva! When we arrived, we were very disappointed to find out that our shuttle was delayed due to some sort of car fire at the tunnel, so we had to wait a couple of hours...

The drive to Chamonix took about an hour, but it provided us with our first views of the Franco-Swiss Alps and Mont Blanc! We used Chamonix Valley Transfers, and it cost 35 Euros each (which seemed to be the going rate for most of the shuttle services). It was easy to book and they were very friendly. 

Oh how happy we were to get to our hotel in Chamonix!! We stayed at Hotel Le Faucigny, which was right in the center of town and had one of the best breakfasts of the trip! The person at the hotel offered to keep the hot tub open for us, but we'd basically been awake for about 24 hours at that point, so we really just wanted to eat some dinner and go to bed. We were very grateful for the restaurant recommendation. We ate at Cap Horn, which was one of our top two favorite meals of the entire trip. It was also one of the cheapest (due to the fact that food in Switzerland turns out to be insanely expensive)! Justin had to try escargot since we were in France. They were actually really yummy! I guess if you soak anything in enough butter and herbs, it will be delicious. We both chose the fish (which was amazing), and a cheesecake and sorbet dessert that was fantastic. The whole meal probably took two hours, and I may have started dozing off between courses, but it was totally worth it for the delicious food. When we finished dinner, we wandered around the center of town a little bit (and Justin took a video of me). But then we went back to the hotel and crashed! We had to get some sleep for the long day ahead of us on Day 2! Here's me (obviously tired) talking about our dinner: