Tuesday
Non-cycling car transfer day
Drove to Briancon via the Frejus tunnel, thereby giving us a short excursion into Italy.
Set off to explore the old town, described as artistic and historic with its Vauban fortifications designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Obviously not the tourist season. Narrow streets that one would expect to be teeming with visitors were quite empty and most of the boutiques, shops and cafés were closed.
Briancon really does not push its historic town. No walking tour, no descriptive plaques on key buildings and the tourist office has leaflets on nearby attractions, white water rafting etc but nothing at all about its own historic town
Stopped for a snack lunch just in in time to sit out heavy rain and thunder. When it cleared, the weather remained very cloudy so we retreated in drizzle down the hill and back to our auberge. The auberge had given us an upgrade to a room with a balcony at no extra charge. But as the balcony just looked straight into a building site we did wonder if the upgrade should have been to give people with balconies a quieter room on the other side without a balcony!
Clouds and rain remained – felt a bit like the Lake District, just a lot higher.
John looked up various things on the internet and did a bit of work correspondence.
Sheila went to sleep.
Decided not to venture out in the rain again during the evening, so stayed in for dinner. Thought we might have escaped football stuff by going on holiday at this time, but the big screen television in the corner of the auberge lounge was churning out World Cup soccer. By careful selection of our seats we managed to be too far away to know who was playing whom and with a mixed French, Belgium and English clientele (but no obvious Brazilians) we thought it best not to ask who was winning in case it was the ‘wrong question’.
Forecast for Wednesday not too good either, will have to check later in the day and in the morning.
Non-cycling car transfer day
Drove to Briancon via the Frejus tunnel, thereby giving us a short excursion into Italy.
Set off to explore the old town, described as artistic and historic with its Vauban fortifications designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Obviously not the tourist season. Narrow streets that one would expect to be teeming with visitors were quite empty and most of the boutiques, shops and cafés were closed.
Briancon really does not push its historic town. No walking tour, no descriptive plaques on key buildings and the tourist office has leaflets on nearby attractions, white water rafting etc but nothing at all about its own historic town
Stopped for a snack lunch just in in time to sit out heavy rain and thunder. When it cleared, the weather remained very cloudy so we retreated in drizzle down the hill and back to our auberge. The auberge had given us an upgrade to a room with a balcony at no extra charge. But as the balcony just looked straight into a building site we did wonder if the upgrade should have been to give people with balconies a quieter room on the other side without a balcony!
Clouds and rain remained – felt a bit like the Lake District, just a lot higher.
John looked up various things on the internet and did a bit of work correspondence.
Sheila went to sleep.
Decided not to venture out in the rain again during the evening, so stayed in for dinner. Thought we might have escaped football stuff by going on holiday at this time, but the big screen television in the corner of the auberge lounge was churning out World Cup soccer. By careful selection of our seats we managed to be too far away to know who was playing whom and with a mixed French, Belgium and English clientele (but no obvious Brazilians) we thought it best not to ask who was winning in case it was the ‘wrong question’.
Forecast for Wednesday not too good either, will have to check later in the day and in the morning.
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