Mark Higgins at CERN: More Italy, back to France (by Mt. Blanc).

The view out our window in Neive.

A visitor at breakfast

More Nieve.

Left Nieve and toured a castle in Grinzane Cavour. Grapes on the vine!

The castle tour contained a lot about the history of wine making and the unification of Italy in the 19th century. Everywhere you looked was beautiful countryside.

After the castle we went into Alba looking for truffle oil and lunch, but everything was closed! So we started heading back to France, looking for gas and lunch along the way. Found some little place where we had a beer and a sandwich, and also got gas at a Shell station.

We had some misadventures getting fuel where there wasn’t an attendant. Things wouldn’t work, instructions in Italian etc. At this Shell a guy ran out and pumped it for me! I didn’t realize why until I saw it said “servizio”, so I guess this was a special station where they pumped it for you. Like New Jersey. Except it was about 10 bucks a gallon. Then there was the problem where we couldn't get the gas cap cover to open...,

Then back on the highway, through the Italian Alps to the Mt. Blanc tunnel. No wait this time. Not far was our hotel, Les Campanules, in Les Houches, a few miles from Chamonix.

Back through the Italian Alps.

Into the tunnel. There are many long tunnels leading up to Mt. Blanc, but this one is almost 7 miles long.

Back in France

The view from our room. 3 for 3!

We walked down a big hill into town and found a Pub where the staff was English. It was very nice to have a conversation in English. Looked around a bit and decided we didn’t want to walk up the big hill at night so we went back to the hotel for dinner.