Brünnhilde’s rock

Auf hohem Felsen sie schläft,

Feuer umbrennt ihren Saal

‘On a high crag she sleeps/Fire burns round her home’: Wagner, who at one time came to roost below a different neck of the Alps, might have approved the illusion here as the setting sun cast flame on the Aiguille de Blatière in the Mont-Blanc range. There was no need to take any of the hiking trails I’ve written about further down for this view of the Aiguilles or needles of Chamonix; just as our salon in the town looked directly out on to Mont-Blanc and the Glacier de Bosson beneath it, so the kitchen window kept these spires in sight. There’s little more to add to this intermezzo-post before the next chronicle of a walk  – which will be on flatter territory - except to wonder at how quickly the light could change on the Aiguilles. Here they are on another, this time nearly cloudless, late evening

and exactly half an hour later.