 |
Double Waterfall - on the way to Grenoble |
Today we went to Grenoble for the OFII part of our visas. It's a little over an hour south west of Albertville and a beautiful ride. We left about 10:30 after a late breakfast and a quick walk to the park to look for my bike key (accidentally dropped last night on the way home) - didn't find the key but ran into the neighbor from our first apartment who found Kristin's hat (I could understand and talk to him this time! It felt Great!). Unfortunately, it was hot already. By the time we found the park it was HOT!
We ate lunch at the park and then Megan stayed with the kids while Chris and I walked over to the office for our appointment. We waited for the office to reopen at 13:30 and were the first in line. I must say everything was quick and professional. Checked in with paper and passport; next waiting room- one at a time for x-rays to check for TB (small changing room, no paper 'tops' like in the US, one male technician who politely turned his head); another waiting room; visit to nurse to answer health questions and give shot record; waiting room again and then the doctor (or nurse?) took bp, height, weight, family medical history, and listened to heart and lungs; upstairs to clerk who checked the paperwork, took the 241 Euros each in official French stamps, took our pictures, and stuck the OFII part of the visa in our passport. The whole thing took about an hour. That's pretty amazing!
Next we got the kids and drove to the center of town, parked and walked around a bit. We stopped in a needle work store for Megan, looked at gems for the kids, and finally stopped at a little ice cream shop by a playground. The ice cream tasted SO good on this hot day: chocolate, passion fruit, pistachio, cookie dough, and I had licorice. The kids played for a few minutes and then we had to go- time was up on our parking place.
 |
City views... |
 |
An ancient church |
 |
Megan taking pictures |
 |
Another fountain |
 |
See the giraffe? Cool! |
 |
Churches- |
 |
The playground- |
 |
Bike/horse and buggy to rent at the park. Fun to watch! |
Last before we left town, we tried to drive up to a geocache, just for fun. It turned out you had to park by the river and walk up. It didn't look far, so off we went. Stairs. A lot of stairs up the hill were part of the bastille there. We kept thinking we were at the top, but there were always more stairs. We could have done the switch backs on the path, but we did more stairs.
|
But the view after a mile of stairs was incredible!
 |
At he top~ |
 |
Sane people ride up to the top. But, we saved 35Euros... and we have a story! |
 |
Not sure what these are, but they were pretty fruit- |
 |
Stairs |
 |
Geocache. I give up, but Chris doesn't! |
 |
More than half way up only 380 more stairs. |
 |
3/4th of the way up |
 |
Not there yet- |
 |
We made it! |
 |
See! The cable car comes here too... |
 |
Ben found a giant bug on the way down~ |
 |
Up was hard, but now my legs are jelly going down! |
 |
This sign is close to the bottom. 2.9 km up |
 |
School zone markers- |
 |
The ride home... |
And the wildflowers~ I took pictures all the way down of the flowers. So beautiful!
We had pizza for dinner tonight. I'm tired. Megan and the kids are asleep already...
Those pictures are incredible! What an experience you are having.
ReplyDelete