Days 16 and 17, Thursday and Friday Aug 25-26
Bessans to Termignon to Modane
First a note about the blog. We write blog posts and send them later by email when we have a wifi connection, so they don’t always end up in order. Inge wrote the Val d’Isère post but forgot to sign it. Back to the story…
Two days of easy valley walking and good weather. Rain late in the afternoon yesterday and today, but not while walking. Strong wind with the rain today, but it didn’t blow away our laundry which we left hanging to dry in the window while we had dinner.
We made a silly mistake in not booking accommodation for tomorrow night well in advance. Tomorrow is Saturday and the weekend hikers will be out. The refuge is full. We will split tomorrow in two as there is a town half way to our original destination, but it costs us a day of progress. There are surprisingly few places to stay on some sections of the trail and if a place is booked, it is too far to walk on to the next. Lesson learned: we are booked for the next three days and will keep booking ahead. This is all made more complicated by the season. Some mountain resort towns shut down this weekend for three months until ski season starts late in November.
Modane is a working town, site of major rail and road tunnels to Italy. Busy, but not a bad spot to sit under an umbrella watching the rain come down.
After the next two short days (which should have been one day), we have two longer days and then we will be in Briançon where we plan to spend a day enjoying the historic city.
Roy