A meeting in Bourg St Maurice turned into an epic today.
Normally, in clear conditions, Bourg St Maurice is about a 45minute drive for me.? Today it was different!? Leaving home it was starting to snow but nothing out of the ordinary for Savoie in January and being a Thursday and not a changeover day in the resorts of the Tarentaise I didn’t expect much traffic.
All went well at least as far as Moutiers when the road reverts to a single carriageway.? Now apart from a few opportunities to overtake it was down to about 50 kph but I wasn’t in a hurry.? I was slightly incredulous to see a Dutch car towing a caravan stopped in the carriageway with a rather frustrated tail of vehicles behind.? I got to Bourg St Maurice in time to buy the local rag, the Dauphine Libere and drink my first expresso of the day.
After a good meeting over lunch it was time to make tracks home in the growing blizzard.? My car, equipped with snow tyres, didn’t have any great problems but there were a lot of vehicles only managing about 30 kph a combination of poor equipment and not being used to driving in the snow.? I do carry chains, a spade and other equipment but it’s reasonably rare that I have to resort to it.
Signs on the “voie rapide” indicated that lorries not equipped with winter tyres/chains had to come off and stop and at this point I quit the voie rapide for the side roads with the snow becoming more and more wet.? The final climb to my home was a bit more awkward but I finally got there relieved to be off the roads.
Tonight it’s stormy with a lot of homes without electricity and the meteo announcing an avalanche risk of 5/5 which means there’s a threat to habitations and roads.? Now cosy with the log fire burning!
