Road Trip!

My intern buddy, Pete and I decided earlier this week to rent a car late Friday night and take a road trip around the countryside the following day. We woke up early (4:45am) on Saturday and headed off for Aosta, Italy. It took us about 2.5hrs to get there with a slight unplanned detour, but was well worth the drive. We drove over part of the French Alps, parts of which were covered in giant glaciers which were really impressive. A portion of this leg of our journey took us through the Mont Blanc tunnel which took us under Mont Blanc for about 7.25 miles and spat us out into Italy. Aosta was exactly how I pictured an Italian town to be. The center was full of narrow, winding, cobbled roads with colorful tall buildings housing restaurants, stores, and old apartments on either side.



Aosta was also once a Roman outpost, so as a result the town has some impressive old Roman ruins, including a theatre,



an old city wall and gate, and what they call a triumphal arch which was built in 35 BC in honor of Augustus.

From Aosta we drove back over and through (another lengthy, pricey tunnel) the Alps. The Italian Alps were just as, if not more amazing then what we saw of the French side. They were dotted with tiny postcard villages surrounding ancient churches. Once on the other side, we were back in Switzerland and made our way to Zermatt (about a 3hr drive from Aosta). Zermatt itself was only somewhat impressive. We actually drove all the way into the town, which we heard we were not allowed to do - but no one stopped us... well, until we got right into the town. We had to turn around and head back to the last village we passed on the way in and catch a train back to Zermatt. Like I said, Zermatt was a nice little town, but not exactly what I expected. However, the Matterhorn definitely made up for it.

The weather was good and the skies were clear - so we got some good views of the mountain and the surrounding Alps.

After spending a couple of hours in Zermatt we headed back for Geneva. On the way back we passed through Montreux and Lausanne which are some pretty cool cities on the north shore of Lake Geneva. We stopped in Montreux to see a really cool old Chateau right on the lake.

The rest of the trip was spent driving in between the lake and terraced hillsides covered in vineyards - it really was a beautiful drive. We also happened to stumble upon an amazing little village of narrow winding streets connecting old vine covered homes,

- the whole place was probably no bigger than 1 city block.

We arrived back in Geneva that night, just in time to drop the car back off at the airport and ride the bus home. It was a good day - the weather was good the entire time (warm and clear skies) and we were able to hit everything at just the right time… I think I could get used to living here; the only thing missing is family. Traci, Emma and Jack - love and miss you guys!