Chamonix staycations

Chamonix in the summer is, for me, the best time of year.  There’s so much to do and see, the days are nice and long and you can do heaps after work as well as at the weekends.

Take this week for example – I’ve been sitting out for lunch every day on the parapente landing field with views of Mont Blanc and the Aiguille du Midi working on my tan.

Thursday night my colleague and friend Megan went to see a bird of prey show up the mountain at about 2000m altitude. You can read my article about it here.

It was amazing to see a condor up close, my god it was HUGE! The falconer said they are becoming endangered in the wild which makes me feel even more lucky to have seen three in my first afternoon mountain biking in Peru in April (see my earlier blog posts on the trip).

We got tickets for free to see the show in trade for an article, but to be honest I’d have quite happily paid the 79 euros for it myself. The food was amazing, the views were stunning (I’ve seen that view loads before but never as day turned to night) and the birds were really gorgeous creatures to look at and learn a little about.

Today is Saturday and I’m sat at the bus stop waiting to head up the valley to Le Tour to catch a bit of live jazz on the mountain in one of the Cosmo jazz shows. They’be been on all week, day and night, but this is my first chance to get up and join in.

My backpack is filled with a bottle of rose, a picnic blanket and a few nibbles, and I’m meeting a few friends up there to see the 11am gig and mayb e hang around for the 3pm one aswell but its gonna hit close to 30 degrees so I’ll see how much I can handle the heat!

This time next week I’ll be in the Ardeche checking out the closest to where I live, and possibly the best cave art site in France – Chauvet cave. I’m taking a work car and camping by the Pont d’arc on the river. I can’t wait!

Life is good 😊😎😆