If Paris wasn't enough of a spontaneous trip, the following weekend I somehow ended up in the little town of Chantelouve in the French Alps. I definitely never expected taking a trip to the alps, but this ended up being probably the most amazing weekend of my whole trip.
I had never even heard of that town before, which was about an hour outside a bigger city called Grenoble. I don't think any of us really knew what this weekend was going to be like, but it exceeded all of our expectations and more.
It ended up being a pretty relaxing weekend, because when you're living in the mountains in a tiny town there isn't much to do. It was a nice break from the craziness of the other trips and from all our schoolwork. It was a weekend of hiking to waterfalls, driving through the alps, swimming in lakes, guitar jam sessions, and puzzles. I think it was what we all really needed. We even became friends with our wonderful AirBNB hosts who lived only a few steps away. They were a really sweet couple who had two kids that we got to play with while we talked to them about almost everything.
The magic of that weekend is hard to explain in words when we really didn't do that much. It was mostly a weekend of hanging out that led to a lot of bonding and a game that almost drove us all crazy trying to figure out. Ending each night laying out under the stars and listening to music, it couldn't have gotten much better.
This was at the halfway point of the 6 weeks of studying abroad and we couldn't believe it was already half over. I didn't think we could ever top that weekend there. If you ever have the chance to visit the French Alps, I would highly recommend it and making a little stop at Chantelouve along the way. Since words can only began to explain it, here's some pictures from that weekend that do a little better job.
