It took about 10 hours of train travels with 6 trains connections with Swiss cog gear rail lines to high speed rail lines from Milan central station. we decided to stay initially in the town of Rapallo Italy on the Mediterranean and spend a day hiking here during some big rains.

We finished the TMB with a 4-5 mile back to the start of the trail and headed back to Chamonix.

We hiked about 12 miles and 6000 feet of climbing and ended up at refuge de Bellachat. This day included several famous TMB ladders that the trail takes to get one up very steep and pure rock climbs on the trail.

We hiked 8 miles to Argentiere near Chamonix France. We have 14 miles of trail to complete which will be broken into a few days. We hiked about 3500 feet of ascents and stopped and chatted with other friends we have met numerous times on the TMB all going in the same direction and about the same pace. Most others are refuge staying and having luggage driven between refuges and hotels and a few others are camping.

Today we hiked 15 miles past a few Swiss towns and still in Switzerland tonight. camping tonight in peuty Switzerland.

We hiked 13 miles over the summit called col de ferret at 8,300 feet.

We hiked 11 miles into the town of Courmayeur in Italy. Some very steep ascents and descents.

We hiked 12 miles to refuge mottets and stayed that night at the refuge with the dinner and breakfast.

We hiked 14 miles from Les houches to refuge de la balme campground. It was a cold night with our tent completely iced over during the night. we are doing the TMB in a counter clockwise direction. The trails are often very steep up or down often dropping 3,000 feet in only 3 miles. On a single day we often have about 5000 feet of ascent and descent.

We trained from Paris to Chamonix to get ready to backpack the tour Mont Blanc – TMB for short. We are staying with some pct hikers we hosted two years ago and supported during their hike.

Today we spent the whole day and evening walking the streets of Paris. We met up with my brother Ted for dinner near the Eiffel Tower who just arrived in town too.

Today we walked around Amsterdam in the morning and learned about Van Gogh from books in the museum store. We jumped on the euro star train for 4 hours and arrived in Paris.

We cycled back to Amsterdam and dropped off the touring bikes as significant rain is forecasted for a few days starting tomorrow. We completed our western Netherlands bike tour with more small towns stops before jumping back into the Amsterdam congestion. An area directly south of Amsterdam is filled with amazing canals and large houses and boats going up and down the canals.

We stayed at another farm campground just outside of Gouda and revisited Gouda before cycling about 40 miles to a Utrecht and then to another farm camping site. It was a warm Sunday with many cyclists out for a Sunday bike ride or stroll.

For a few nights we have stayed at farm campgrounds which appears to be a popular thing. Toddy we rode about 50 miles from Leiden to the ocean and to Gouda.

We bike thru several towns including Haarlem and Leiden. We are staying our second night on a farm campground.

We arrived in the evening to Enkhuizen about 30 miles north of Amsterdam.

Today we biked about 30 miles passing thru volendam and hoorne.

We arrived about 5 pm after two flights of about 14 hours of travel. We spent some time renting touring bicycles for our 10 day holland tour.

We packed up the cabin and headed to Los Altos Hills where we visited and stayed with family. We also went hiking in woodside before jumping on a flight to Amsterdam.