{"id":29755,"date":"2018-07-13T16:26:19","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T15:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/?p=29755"},"modified":"2019-04-11T14:30:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T13:30:12","slug":"abondance-and-the-fantasticable-of-chatel-savoie-french-alps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourtour.co.uk\/home\/abondance-and-the-fantasticable-of-chatel-savoie-french-alps\/","title":{"rendered":"Abondance and the Fantasticable of Ch\u00e2tel, Savoie, French Alps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zagan the motorhome’s been doing too much stuff! Arghhhh! Right, OK, good, I can do this. I can sum this up without boring the hell out of everyone. Hmmmm…<\/p>\n

OK, we’re currently sat by a telecabin in the Alpine village of Abondance in France (N46.27627, E6.72100<\/a>). The ski lift is out of use for the summer, and we’ve been asked to park here as the village’s official motorhome aire is being used for Bastille (National) Day celebrations this weekend. As a general rule, ski stations across Europe make great places to head for in summer, as they often have parking, no-one’s fussed by motorhomes being parked there, they’re in beautiful locations, and they’re quite often free. Many of ’em have low cost or free motorhome parking in winter too for that matter!<\/p>\n

\"Motorhome

Motorhome parking by the Essert telecabin station in Abondance<\/p><\/div>\n

The last blog post came to you from Switzerland, where we had a couple of fantastic nights overlooking the Valais valley<\/a> and the pure white 4000m peaks beyond. The sensation of cooking tea or knocking up a brew, looking out of the door to my left and getting hit with the view of the monstrous Dent Blanche (the same mountain’s on the medal from the 2018 Zermatt Half Marathon<\/a>), pumped my blood up and urged me out for another half marathon run up towards the Col de Sanetsch and back. I’ve got a taste for the running now, next up I’m aiming for a full marathon back in the UK then, finger’s crossed, an ultra-distance run or two after that. Watch this space.<\/p>\n

\"Ju

Ju knocked out a hill run too – respect! It was warm out there.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The

The distant 4357m Dent Blanche (White Tooth)<\/p><\/div>\n

Our aim the morning we left was to head back to France. Why so short a s\u00e9jour in Suisse? Dunno. The low-cost ACSI rate on the campsites were all ending, so the cost for sites was roughly doubling, but there are a fair few places in Switzerland where they tolerate free camping, or even provide official aires. Our rubbish was starting to stack up though, and 60 litre bin bags were coming in at roughly \u00a33 each in Lidl, as they have a special ‘bin bag tax’ on them. You can’t just chuck your black bin bag in the bins, oh no!<\/p>\n

A quick aside: Switzerland’s divided up into cantons, a bit like a small version of the US. The whole country pays a ‘federal’ level of income tax, but you also pay additional income tax which varies according to where you live, which canton your house sits in. So someone in an adjacent village on the same wage as you could easily be paying less income tax than you. If they’re married and you’re single, they’ll pay even less. Also, if you own your own home, you have to add a fictitious ‘rental income’ to your wage, and pay tax on that too. Not that all of this is necessarily a bad thing, as the state clearly looks after its citizens, it’s just interesting to me (more about Swiss taxation here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Where was I? Oh yeah, bin bags. So, until recently the Valais canton didn’t have special taxed bin bags, which weirdly introduced a sort of ‘rubbish tourism’ as surrounding cantons required the heavily taxed bags. Folks would drive into Valais, chuck their bags into the bins there, and head home, presumably laughing manically. Ha! Valais caught up in 2018 though and voted to introduce the bags, which explains why the campsite we stayed at with Phil and Jules were so shirty about handing ’em out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we fancied heading back into France mostly as it’s just SOOOO EASSSYYY to motorhome around here. The Alps are just as beautiful, the food as delicious, the folks as easy-going and the sun as yellow and hot as Switzerland, so here we rolled, via Lidl, where we discovered mixed nuts, wine, r\u00f6sti (shredded potatoes) and Swiss cheese were cheaper than France, and stocked up accordingly. Fancying a new route, we headed past the Col du Grand Bernard<\/a> (which Phil and Jules had used to get into Italy) and the Col de la Forclaz<\/a>, instead heading west over the smaller Pas de Morgins into the Portes du Soleil ski area and down past Ch\u00e2tel to Abondance for the night (N46.28017, E6.71507<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Heading

In Switzerland, heading towards the Zorro-slash of the Col de la Forclaz above Martigny – Lake Geneva is off down the valley to the right of this photo<\/p><\/div>\n

\"A

A tight bridge on the Pas de Morgins, otherwise it was an easy pass to cross<\/p><\/div>\n

Abondance has an official motorhome aire, a free one at that, although the massive \u20ac3.50 charge for the service point irked a few of the commenters on our aires database (really? bring your motorhomes to Britain my friends, we’ll immediately fleece you rotten as soon as your wheels stop turning, and you’ll be loving paying \u20ac3.50 for a couple of night’s free parking and 100 litres of water back here in France, LOVING IT!!!). Ahem.<\/p>\n

\"The

The free aire in Abondance, complete with sat TV reception through a gap in the mountains<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyway, installed in the aire the satellite dish went straight up (don’t judge us, we could give the TV up at any time if we wanted to – honest), and we checked to make sure we could watch the England-Croatia game. TV says yes, so we waited out the afternoon walking around the village, watching sporadic rock falls on a nearby slope, watching a fellow motorhomer walk his kitten on a lead in the aire, craning our necks at a local bloke’s drone which he was using to measure the car park (and he had a chicken statue stuck to the front of his van), and generally being nervous. We all know what happened next, but the England lads did a fantastic job getting to the semi finals; we bow down before their nerve and skill. Onwards and upwards.<\/p>\n

Talking of nerve, during the long wait, Ju had spotted there’s a zip wire back up the valley at a place called Pr\u00e9 la Joux, near Ch\u00e2tel – wonderfully named Fantasticable<\/a>! As part of dealing with Charlie dying, we’ve been working on what we want to do next in life, seeking out the positives, and one of Ju’s goal list items has long been the Zip World zip line in North Wales. Eyeballing photos of the Fantasticable we agreed: this looks even better, and headed the 30 mins back up the valley. It’s high (very high) above the hamlet of Plaine Dranse, and is in fact two zip lines which take you back and forth above the valley, over the trees, chair lifts, mountains bikers and lakes far below. \u20ac36 apiece includes two chair lifts to the start of the first wire, and gives you a decent sick-buzz as you look up and see tiny horizontal figures flying through the air far above. Whhoooooaaaa…..<\/p>\n

\"On

On the way up to Fantasticable. I was feeling a tad ill at this point.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"VTT

VTT (mountain bikers) at Pre la Joux, in full-face helmets and with full body armour<\/p><\/div>\n

If you fancy, and if you and your partner’s weights fall within certain boundaries, you can buddy up and do the zip wires together. We were right on the weight limit (150Kg for both of us), but decided to do it separately anyway. Up at the top we found zero queue, stared down the valley for a minute, then were ushered in to get weighed and harnessed, helmeted and (for me with me specs) goggled up. Ju got ’em to relax the rules and let her hold our GoPro Hero4<\/a>, so she grabbed the video below, saving us the additional (eye-watering) \u20ac13 each for the official photo.<\/p>\n

\"Ju:

Ju: calm, happy, ready for Fantasticable action! Me: none of the above…<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The

The view down the valley the Fantasticable crosses at between 80 and 100 kph<\/p><\/div>\n

Ju was first up, as she was too slow in stepping backwards when we were called. Onto the ‘launch stage’ thing, they took the big metal pulley she’d been given and placed it on the wire, then hooked her on, got her to lay down suspended below the wire and push back with her feet onto a ‘stand’ which pulled the harness tight. They then called the station below on a radio, gave them the weight and name of the person ‘flying’, and attached a sort of triangular flag above her, which we guessed was to manage our speed. After asking if she was ready, a safety line was pulled and with what I’d describe as a ‘happy scream’, she was off, flying!<\/p>\n

\"Ready

Ready to fly on the Fantasticable!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"She's

She’s Flying!<\/p><\/div>\n

I watched as she turned into a dot, and heard the line buzzing until finally there was a sort of thudding noise, and I was up. At this point the nerves disappeared and I can honestly say the whole experience from that point on was pure serenity. The flight didn’t feel too fast, and I just seemed to float along above the valley, looking down with a sort of detachment at the tiny stuff below, as the air pushed at my face. It really felt like flying, quite an experience! There was some adrenaline when I came into ‘land’ though, as everything suddenly seemed very fast! A kind of ‘aircraft carrier’ mechanism grabs you at the last second and slows you down with a HUMMPPHHH. Cool.<\/p>\n

\"Coming

Coming in to land!<\/p><\/div>\n

Ju was already being hooked up to the second cable above me, and I dragged the big metal pulley thing up there for a quick exchange (she was very happy!) before she was off again on the longer flight across the valley. I followed a few minutes later and after escaping the clutches of the photo-booth-flogger-bloke we giggled our way down the road to the chair lift where we retrieved Ju’s bag from a locker and headed back to the van, watching the gnarly mountain bikers below negotiating the steep burns and jumps of downhill tracks.<\/p>\n