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Thursday 3rd August 2006 - Chamonix to Torino (Turin), Italy

During the night it absolutely poured down! And for the first time in their 9 years of use, the trusty tents let water in, through the groundsheets. The post-mortem of this "surprise" suggests that maybe the spray that Martin had used to clean the inside of the tents whilst getting ready for the trip had somehow affected the water-proofing. Who knows. All we knew was that we were very soggy indeed!

The plan for the day was this: go to Italy. But not by train. After research, Martin had concluded that it was possible to cross into Italy from Chamonix *over* the Alps, by cable car. This was to be the highlight of the trip for Martin, and Bekky and Jack thought it sounded a very cool idea too. But.....! The weather was to be our enemy and whilst the cable car was running from the foot of the mountain to the top, the middle section that takes you across to the top of the Italian side, was not.... because up there it was... snowing! So, disappointed, we had to make alternative plans. We happened to talk to someone from the UK who worked for the met office, and he told us that the forecast was bad weather for the whole week. So staying in Chamonix in the hope that the weather would clear, allowing us to make our Mont Blanc crossing, was not really viable. We considered heading back into France by train and then crossing the border into Italy elsewhere, but this rather roundabout route would have taken a long time. So in the end we settled for paying for coach tickets to take us through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Courmayeur in Italy.

Upon arrival in Courmayeur, we had to take another bus to Aosta, the nearest town that had a train station. From Aosta we travelled by train to Torino where we checked into a hotel for the night and headed out "on the town" for the evening. This meant a bit of a wander and then settling in a local bar for drinks and italian snacks (olives, salami etc) and our usual family game of cards.

Taking our tents down in Chamonix in the pouring rain

The cloud level was very low

The Chamonix train station

We caught our coach through the tunnel from outside the railway station

Bekky and Jack giving each other a bit of support :-)