Walking in the Alps

From Monaco, we took the TGV to Lyon and then a regional train to Geneva. In Geneva we stayed with the fabulous Geyr family, our old friends from P&G whom we first got to know in Tashkent.

Jean-Louis and Sandra, and their three boys Nathan, Victor and Morgan, stay in the second biggest house in Geneva. Our children were delighted to have their own rooms, and to be able to do children things like play football, play computer games and fight. Lachlan in particular enjoyed himself as there were other boys to play with who were his own age or older.

After a day spent catching up with various other old friends from P&G, we went to the mountains to do some gentle walking. We drove to Chamonix and took the chairlift up the first part of the walk. The generation gap in the approach to walking was evident from the start when "German sensible" was trumped by "Monaco casual"

After a picnic lunch we walked to the "refuge" where we spent the night. Les Refuges are a very civilised aspect of walking in the Alps.

These are mountain huts which provide dormitory accomodation, meals and drying room facilities - or at least ours did, I am not sure that they all have the full range of facilities. The users of these are primarily hikers and climbers (like those pictured below)

We arrived just as the rain started and soon had a good cards school going, with Morgan celebrating his birthday by winning the big game.

Jean-Louis (when he is not looking at Sandra's cards - that was his story, and he is sticking to it) works for a large Brazilian company and when the news filtered through that Holland had beaten Brazil in the World Cup, his Blackberry went surprisingly quiet.

The next day dawned with beautiful weather and stunning views of Mont Blanc.

We made our way down the mountain to Le Lac Blanc. This small lake is fed by melting snow and is therefore slightly colder than the places we have swum recently - the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the Dead Sea etc. However, undeterred the Belgians and Scots (but not the photographer) went for a swim. A variety of styles were employed - the wade-in, the full plunge, the half-and-half - but all were agreed that it was . . . refreshing. Sandra's face says it all!

That evening, back in Geneva we also caught up with another old friend from Tashkent/Istanbul - Tankut Turnaoglu and his wife Berak. Tankut has just been promoted to General Manager and is moving to Singapore. It was also the first time we got to meet his beautiful Fenerbahce supporting daughter Derin Su.

Our final day in Geneva was spent in the always entertaining company of the Forbes family (no photos as the cameras had done overtime in the mountains). It was a fine braai with which to end our stay in Geneva and we are looking forward to seeing Greg, Diane, Alex and Craig in Dollar in August for the return fixture.