Roaming Rocks

Neuchatel just celebrated it’s 1,000th birthday in 2011 and we were lucky to spend 2 weeks there. Most of the historical places in the city date back to 15-18th century, including medieval buildings, decorative fountains, cobble stone roads and just a beautiful atmosphere.  The small city is very easy to get around by foot and  was fun to walk thru because something new was discovered around every turn.

Below are some random pictures from the time we were there.

The alley near our Airbnb was full of street art. The artists were very talented.

We walked up to the highest point in the Old Town and got to the  Chateau de Neuchatel.  The views were awesome and had a great overlook of the town and the lake. They have converted the castle/chateau into an administrative building for the local counsel. There wasn’t much to see inside aside from offices and meeting rooms. One interesting fact is that it houses the cantonal administration and the Hall of the Great Council of Neuchâtel. It was quite the contrast from our visit to the Grandson Castle!

We had a lovely tour guide named Amelie who took us around the castle and provided us with the history and changes it has gone thru over the years.

Our favorite part of the tour was to see the Hall of the great Council of Neuchâtel which is where the parliament for the local government is held here as well.

We came across a bike obstacle course that all Swiss school children participated in. The course taught them about reading road signs and helped them to have practical experience on a simulated course. I talked to one of the organizers and found out that children first attend when they are 5-6 years old as pedestrians. When they turned 10-11 they move to bikes.  We need this in America.

Due to my love of clocks we also went to the International Museum of Horology (the study and measurement of time) in La Chaux-de-Fonds which is on the outskirts of Neuchatel. The museum deals with the study of time, timekeeping, and timekeeping devices.  We had some fun with the statues outside and enjoyed the audio tour and 3D movie which described the museum’s history.  I was in heaven with all of the clocks. The birdcage was my absolute favorite but I also enjoyed the celestial clocks as well. The museum even had a creepy maniquin which told a story in french!

Neuchatel was good to us and we will definitely be back!

The day we went to the Asphalt mines, Cat and I had a minor detour that wasn’t mentioned in the blog. I saw one of the “scenic signs” that said: “Cruex du Van”. We decided to follow the sign and see where it took us because we had an hour to waste before our tour was to begin. The road quickly turned into a single lane and the incline got steeper and steeper as we continued. I was taking it slow when another car appeared out of nowhere and dangerously passed me. I remind the audience of my lack of confidence in my own ability of hill starts and started to get very nervous that another car was going to come down the road or try to pass me and require me to do one. Cat and I drove about 4 miles straight uphill in our powerless car and then decided to turn around as I didn’t want to risk slipping down the mountainside because of my lack of ability to do a hill start.

Only after I got back and researched the “scenic sign” did I realize that it was an amazing natural rocky cliff that is almost a mile wide on the north side of Le Soliat. From that day, I knew I wanted to get back to walk around it.

Another side note: I made a bet with Cat that I lost and her prize was that we wouldn’t go on anymore hikes that had a lot of hills.

My solution to the 2 points above was to have H drop us off at the summit of Cruex du Van. Caitlyn and I could then walk down the 5 miles back to the car. I thought it was the perfect solution. H had to work in his Couvet office again and the plan was to meet him for lunch and then get dropped off. On our way to the lookout, we came across tons of cows. Their bells were on and ringing! We drove for 40 minutes and found ourselves on the wrong side of the mountain facing the lake. (Note: Google maps is awful here! We have ended up in pedestrian walkways, on bus lanes and driving the wrong way down one-way streets so it isn’t surprising that Google took us to the wrong place.) Because of meetings he had to attend for work, we had to abandon our charge to the top of the mountain and settle for a walk back to our car from his work (3 miles away along the river).

Because of meetings he had to attend for work, we had to abandon our charge to the top of the mountain and settle for a walk back to our car from his work (3 miles away along the river).

I kept thinking about this rocky cliff the entire walk back to the car. With Caitlyn’s help, I mustered enough courage to tackle this hill again.  We figured out the right path and got to the parking lot for the trail head to the cliffs. The road to the Creux du Van wasn’t marked very well. In fact, a person actually had to use permanent marker to make notes to one of the signs to point out the way to get there. Once we got there, we had about a 1/4 mile walk to get to the cliffs. As soon as we crossed a small wall we were met with the straight drop down.

I stuck my phone over the edge and took a picture to show how drastic the drop was.

There are tons of hikes you can do from up here. Truth be told, I think Caitlyn was happy that she didn’t have to hike down.

Cat thought it was fun to throw the rocks off the cliff and listen to them hit below.

I was so scared that she was going to fall off.

On our way back to the car we made friends with the cutest goat that loved having his head scratched.

As we left, Cat decided to become a cow whisperer to help move them out of the road. It worked!

They looked into each other’s eyes and the she sent telepathic messages to tell him to get off the road!

Although the day didn’t end as we expected it to, we had a a great experience and wouldn’t have changed a thing. (And I was proud of myself for conquering my fears of driving up the steep road!!)

We woke up to blue skies and were super excited for the day ahead. The cool thing that you can’t see in this photo is the 20+ para-gliders flying around the mountain. It was such an awesome sight. I think I will try it if we ever come back.

We walked to the train station and caught the train to the Mer de Glace – Sea of Ice. The Mer de Glace is a valley glacier located on the northern slopes of the Mont Blanc massif.

We hopped on a cute red railway train and enjoyed the ride as we traveled thru tunnels cut thru rocks, over viaducts and thru the forest. Ironically there was a group of 40 ASU students on our train.

Once we arrived at the train station we were met with a beautiful panoramic view of the glacier.

The glacier itself is 7.5 km long and 200 meters deep but you would never know it by looking at the space. The amazing thing about the glacier is that it looks like a barren desert but the sound of the gushing water underneath is really loud.

From here, we boarded a gondola which brought us closer to the Ice Caves. H is deathly afraid of heights and held on for dear life. We had a giggle over his death grip on the handle.

Once we got off the gondola, we still had to walk down 500 stairs (40 flights of stairs) to get to the ice caves. There were signs that marked the level of the glacier to give perspective to the amount of ice that has regressed over the years. To think the glacier was as high as this sign 30 years ago is frightening. They need to create a new cave each year due to the melt. If this isn’t evidence of global warming, I don’t know what is.

You can see the current ice cave entrance in the bottom left hand corner. It is under the white tarp.

This picture is of last year’s cave.

This is the machine that is used to create the ice caves:

Below is a picture looking out onto the glacier from the ice mine. It is hard to imagine that there is a river flowing underneath us. 

It was absolutely beautiful once we got into the cave.

For a few minutes, H had me convinced that this was a fox’s head that was frozen in the ice millions of years ago. In reality it was just a rock that looks like a fox’s head.

They did a great job of carving different features throughout the cave.

We tried our traditional upside-down selfie but it was too dark.

Sadly, after leaving the caves, we had to climb the 40 flights of stairs to get back to the restaurant/gondola.

We enjoyed a great lunch with a view (see below) and then headed to what could be called the rooftop of Europe.

In the Chamonix Valley, France is home to the highest peak in Europe, the Mont Blanc, which stands at 4,810m. To get there, one must take the highest vertical-ascent cable car which transports people from 3,400 feet in Chamonix, France, to over 12,600 feet by the time they arrive at the upper reaches of  the Aiguille du Midi. This is as close as you can get to Mount Blanc before climbing. The Aiguille du Midi is topped by a complex set of buildings and viewing platforms, accessible by cable-car.

We arrived to get tickets at 2:30pm, waited 30 minutes to get tickets and another hour to catch our gondola. We were boarding group number 75 and boarded at 4:05.  We had an hour wait once we purchased our tickets. For future reference, it is important to get there early. We were too late to go to some of the offerings at the top of the mountain because they closed at 5:30pm. I would recommend getting there earlier or booking online whenever possible.

H decided to skip this one due to his fear of heights. In hindsight, he made the right decision. The entire trip to the top of the mountain was very scary. It actually took 2 separate gondola rides to get to the very top.The first gondola ride was mild but had 3 pillars that shook the gondola each time we went over them.

Although she would never admit it, I think Cat was even a little scared on the way up.

While we were waiting for the second ride, we saw a marmot sunbathing on the hillside. That was an unexpected treat. I was surprised at how big they were. I would guess it was easily 50 pounds and at least 2.5 feet long.

The second gondola was very scary. After about 3-4 minutes into the ride the gondola stopped in mid-air. It swayed in the breeze for a minute while the tension mechanism changed. Once it started moving again, it went straight up. Cat and I were at the front of the gondola and had a scary view going up.

The views from the Aiguille du Midi were amazing. There were several different vantage points that afforded spectacular views of the Mont Blanc range.

There was also 35F (20C) degree drop in temperature from the bottom of the mountain to the top. Cat was frozen!

The top bump on the upper right hand corner of the picture was Mont Blanc.

The views were just amazing. As I stared into the horizon I did think I noticed something…

..and then I realized…there was actually a guy rock climbing in front of us!

We enjoyed the view one last time before we got back in line to take the gondola back to town.

Cat really liked the shadow of the gondola on the mountain.

H took a picture of our gondola as we returned back to the station.

We got back to town and found a very cute restaurant. A girl couldn’t ask for a better view at dinner.

We had to try the racelette which is a popular local cheese dish.

First, the cheese block is placed next to a heat source.

Then melted cheese is scraped off the block and spread over your food. They served us potatoes, ham and bread to eat with the cheese.

Dinner was amazing and we almost finished the whole block of cheese.

Full from dinner we went for a walk around town. The sunset was stunning as it moved it’s way up the mountain range.

We also came across a local church that looked like it belonged on a jigsaw puzzle with it’s beautiful backdrop.

We finished the amazing day with an ice cream and couldn’t have been happier with how the day went!