Student Blogs/Sarah in France
The Savoie region is rich with opportunities to get out and go on an adventure. It’s full of various small towns tucked into mountain valleys that make the mountains easily accessible all year long. Since I arrived in September, I've been really trying to take advantage of all the mountain activities that the Savoie region has to offer.
My first taste of a Savoie adventure happened during my first week in France when the international students office organized a hike up to the Croix du Nivolet, overlooking the city of Chambéry. From down in the city you can see this small cross on the top of a mountain but after a fairly intense hike, you can see that it is actually a massive monument standing on a mountain peak at about 1,500 metres.
Shortly after, I was in Chamonix near the Italian border hiking to a glacial lake called Lac Blanc. Only the brave went in for a swim when we got to the top. I preferred to relax with some friends and take in the spectacular views of Mont Blanc, the highest point in all of Europe.
Not two weeks after that, I celebrated Thanksgiving with two fellow BIB students and a huge group of exchange students living in Chambéry with a hike in the Chartreuse mountain range. Luckily, I was well-prepared with some good hiking boots because little did we know we would be getting our first taste of winter. A cold spell had covered the majority of our route in snow and the winds at the top sent us running for some shelter after a brief photo-op.
The urge to go on another adventure overcame me shortly after my trip to Chamonix and I signed up to go bungee jumping just outside of Grenoble, another large city in the Rhone-Alpes. With a group of exchange students, a few new French friends and a spectacular view of the nearby mountains, I dove head first off a bridge into a massive gorge, plummeting about 103 metres.
Once the organized hikes ended for the season I began to take advantage of the beautiful park areas around Chambéry. The city is full of beautiful parks with some not-so-little hills that make you really work for that cheese fondue or raclette that you will be sharing with friends later that night. In addition, there are many other beautiful little towns close by such as Modane, St Jean de Maurianne, Bourg Saint Maurice, to name a few, with easy access to hiking trails that always end with a perfect view of the surrounding Alpine peaks and another quaint French town.
The access to the mountains and the ability to really benefit from the natural surroundings of the Savoie is what really attracted me to Chambéry in the first place. It has certainly inspired me to keep up this new routine of regular mini-adventures once I return to Canada. In Ottawa, we are so close to Gatineau Park but when I lived there before I rarely took advantage of having such an amazing place close by. It really goes to show that sometimes you really need to get out of what you know in order to truly appreciate what you have. I will miss the Savoie dearly when I leave, but I will returned to Canada inspired to keep up with the lifestyle I have developed here in Chambéry.