Friday, 2 November 2012

A short holiday in France: from shorts to snow

It was school autumn break, and as usual we went to our house in France for a week. We had to leave Beau behind in the capable (female) hands of 4 of Mary’s friends, as it was too much hassle to take him along for such a short trip. We drove through the night, arriving early Saturday morning and went straight to bed, to wake up around noon under perfect late summer conditions: sunny, and temperatures in the low 20-ies. The weather stayed like this for the next days; we spend our time working in the garden, cycling, hiking, picking apples and doing two Via Ferrata’s. Village pony Image camped in our garden to eat the grass and get pampered by the girls. Payback was done through a few pony cart rides.
On Friday the weather turned sour, temperatures dropped, and it started raining almost continuously.  Piet still managed a wet and very cold ride op Alpe d’Huez, but most time was spend indoors reading and organising the house for winter. Early Sunday morning we woke to drive back home, and it was snowing heavily. We had to drive very carefully to Grenoble, as several trees had fallen across the road, and sudden breaking on snow is not easy. We narrowly avoided a few accidents, and halfway between Grenoble and Lyon we crossed onto save roads, and drove home in the sunshine. And 5 minutes after arriving in The Hague the ladies were at the stable!

Mary is working in our forest, preparing a training area for Beau 

Walking near Auris en Oisans, view over the village of Les Cours 

Walking near Auris en Oisans, with a spectacular view over the Romanche valley 

 Paula and Image riding near our village

Dorien and Mary in the Via Ferrata near Alpe d'Huez

 Paula, Mary and Dorien at the top of the Via Ferrata in Alpe d'Huez

Leaving on Sunday morning: snow everywhere!

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