Mountain climbing Europe’s Tour du Mont Blanc was a very completely different slice of European tradition for me: Coming upon a distant farmhouse-turned-thriving-cafe serving fantastic lunches…flowers and cows (with basic bells) scenically sprinkled all through…and an esprit de corps the place everyone seems to be like household.


As practically everybody hikes in the identical route (counter-clockwise), you grow to be buddies with fellow hikers. It appeared like half the folks on the path had been from the US, and I met a number of Seattleites.


And within the curiosity of mountaineering gentle, lunches had been quite simple — only a sandwich from the resort, perhaps a carrot, a chunk of fruit, and water. However upon reaching the mid-day summit, lunch was a marmot’s banquet. (Talking of marmots, we noticed no wildlife besides a few mice that had been squished beneath mountaineering boots on the path.)