How it Started
The highlight of this trip was to be an 8-day trek via Spanish Steps in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France. For the trip segment prior to the hiking, we had planned to drive from Milan to Chamonix through the Mount Blanc tunnel but after booking our flight, we discovered the hefty surcharge ($1000+) for returning a rental car in another country. Trains are a longer journey because they cannot go through the tunnel directly to Chamonix, and the option of arriving up and over the French Alps by Gondola piqued our interest but faded away when we were unable to confirm if they were operational after having been damaged a few years back. We decided to save Chamonix for #nexttrip and keep to a southerly route, heading into Provence before starting our trek. We re-routed to Le Sappey-En-Chartreuse.
Milan to Chambrey
We traveled from Italy to France, taking the TGV at 8:44am from Milano Porto Garibaldi to Chambery, arriving at 12:52pm. We found it interesting that we didn’t scan or show our ticket anywhere prior to boarding and were on our own to find our assigned seat in a first class coach… no questions asked (yet). The announcements were in French and Italian. As far as we could determine, they’re mostly about food. After a stop in Turin, we are finally asked for our tickets. A stop in Oulx and then one in Bardonecchia where we wait outside “Entrée tunnel du Frejus coté Italien”, an 8.1 mile tunnel running under Col du Fréjus in the Cottian Alps. Walla! We pop out and into France picking up more passengers in Modane (and where we wait again as French police walk through the coaches and harass a few passengers).
We purchased the tickets via OUI.sncf and they conveniently download into our Apple wallet. First class tickets were $60 each and allowed you to select the seat type (we chose dual side by side). See picture of interior.
From Chambery we rented a car and headed south toward Le Sappey-en-Chartreuse.
