Europe 2010

Day 22		Sunday 11th July

We left the hotel at Desenzano at 8.30am and drove along normal roads towards Milan past Brescia until nearly Bergamo. We then joined the A4 Autostrada and continued. We stopped for coffee at a MyChef at 10.00. It was a very small services with hardly any parking. The same happened at lunchtime. We stopped at MyChef near Chantillon and wished we had not. We obtained a sandwich and continued along to a parking area where we ate.
We then continued along and decided to stop at Aosta to explore the town, Elaine having looked at the town plan and detecting evidence of Roman origins. She was right, there was an arch dedicated to Augustus, a very large gate and an almost continuous town wall. There was a theatre ruin, which we explored, and an amphitheatre, which we did not explore. As it was Sunday, there were very few people about and little traffic.  Eventually we left there and continued on the Autostrada towards the Mont Blanc tunnel. Just short of the tunnel we were stopped by the Carabinieri for a document check. All was well so, after a brief comfort stop, we continued to and through the tunnel – over 11 km long. (€35.10 toll !!).
We arrived in Chamonix just before 4.00pm and drove around the town until we found the hotel. Parking was the usual mess, but we found space on a public space (I hesitate to call it a car park) opposite the hotel. The town was very crowded with tourists and walkers.  After a walk around we found a bar where we could get a reasonable meal at a reasonable price. Chamonix is quite pleasant and would probably look really lovely in the snow. The hotel is very nice with a swimming pool and our room had a small balcony with a view of Mont Blanc complete with snow and glacier.

Miles travelled today – 227					Total trip miles – 2383
			(of which about 25 miles underground)