Tour de Mount Blanc

We went to hike the Tour de Mount Blanc in July. Absolutely fantastic. Took us 10 days. Didn't know a word of French. Started in Chaminox, then through Italy and Switzerland. Then back to finish at Chaminox. What a beautiful place. We were so taken by the culture, people, and scenery, that we are learning French. Hoping to return in 09' with some language skills. The language is a bit of a struggle, but with enough repetition we hope to learn. Thank you Rocket French for helping us out.

We also gained inspiration from our Tour of Mont Blanc. We wrote a trip report which can be accessed at http://hiking.topicwise.com/doc/montblanc2009 . We had high school French from 45+ years ago and were able to scrape by at the four locations where the proprietors spoke no English but felt that our experience would have been better with more knowledge of French. We intend to return to the Tour this fall and have been watching French TV on the internet and have just signed up for Rocket French. We know that we will have to keep focused. This time we hope to spend two weeks in Paris after completing the tour so additional French should make our visit more enjoyable.
Looking forward to our trip and to learning better French.

Dave