In the morning we had a very pretty walk along the river into town; the path started in our campsite so we left everything in camp and went in to have a look around. There were ducks pecking around our campsite looking for food but we didn't encourage them. The town is known for its "perched houses" which are built right out of the rock. We headed up the stairs to walk through town which was still just opening up and over to the bridge. From there we could see the perched houses really well and then continued back down another set of stairs to the park below. It was a beautiful morning although somewhat chilly so Tan and I kept hopping from sunny patch to sunny patch. We admired the houses from below as well since you could really see the rock they were built on. We laughed at the sign that said “no jumping” because it looked like the only way you could jump in to the pool below was from out of a window… perhaps it used to be a problem? We walked back to camp and Dad, Tan and Anoop got changed into their riding gear to do a loop along the scenic route.

They set off and I followed in the car. On the way, they stopped at the bakery; I had asked for a chausson or croissant, neither of which they had. Tan shook her head as I drove by so I figured that meant they didn’t have anything worth getting and continued on. Little did I realize that they actually had picked up a small lemon tart, apple tart and piece of dense cake which they then had to cycle with! I had stopped at the top of a hill and Dad rode up saying that he had carried the tart in his hand for quite a ways so as not to squish it, but then looked up at the hill and decided to fold it up carefully in his back pocket. Somehow it still arrived intact and we all enjoyed a sample of each partway along the ride. Afterwards, they continued on and I met up with them one more time before a very tiny squiggly detour because of construction. I let them go ahead since they were definitely faster going down all the switchbacks than I was. I said later that I knew it was a tight corner when I was looking out the passenger window to see if there was any oncoming traffic!

I drove on to the Grotte de Choranche and waited for them up there. By the time I had inquired what time the tours were at, they had already made it up the hill and arrived at the van. We had a very quick lunch and then headed in for our tour. We were lucky enough to only have the four of us and two others on the tour! We headed in to the cave and arrived at a clear blue underground lake which was quite something. The guide explained that the water seeps in from the ground so sometimes it can be quite murky depending on how much rain they’ve had. We saw the area where two rivers that run underground meet and the headed over to the main attraction of the caves. The stalactites that are so particular to this cave are called “soda straw” stalactites. They are on average 4 mm wide and hollow inside! They hang with lots in a group and look really fine. The longest one is 1.3 m long and 6 mm wide. They form when water drips down, running through the centre of the stalactite and depositing calcium carbonate at the end. They were incredible and we’d never seen anything like it! We walked by some tanks which had had newt-like creatures that are translucent. They are an endangered species and only exist naturally in some caves in Hungary. The ones we were looking at were bred in a laboratory. We continued on our tour and went up to the “cathedral” room because of its tall ceiling. They had set up a sound and light show which was kind of strange for a cave, but interesting nonetheless. They lit up different parts of the cave at different times and also had music that was synchronized with the water dripping from the ceiling. When they turned on all the lights at the end, you could see that the pool in the centre was really deep. We then headed back down to admire the longest soda straw stalactites and head out. Afterwards we wandered over to see a nearby waterfall and underwater lake. Both were really neat, but we didn’t explore for too long.

Shortly after this we had been planning on splitting up with Dad & Tan so that they could head over to Beaune and Venice and we would head over to the Berner Oberland in Switzerland. Unfortunately, the Berner Oberland was not cooperating with this plan as it was raining there for the next week or so. Since our plans involved mountain lifts and hikes, we decided that it was definitely not the time to visit. Instead, we asked if they would mind if we all headed to Venice together and we would take them through Cinque Terre since Tan said she loves being near the water. They said that was not a problem with them and it meant that they didn’t have to take a complicated and expensive train ride and we got to head south for a bit where it was warmer! So we got out the maps, checked out the route and headed off to get as close to the Italian border as we could. It turns out that the perfect spot to camp was back in St. Michel de Maurienne where we had been just over a week before to do the Telegraph/Col du Galibier ride!