Our Perfect Weekend in Bellegarde

S’est dommage -- this will be the final blog post from France this year. We are cleaning up the Barrands’ house, we bought our last batch of chocolates and other goodies to take back with us, we got the car washed and vacuumed it, checked the British Airways site for the latest news (today, both of our flights were OK, and it looks like some of the restrictions will be lifted so we can at least take a book on board with us).

We all are very sad to be leaving. We have had a wonderful time here. Much different than our trip to Paris last year, and in some ways better. In particular, Suzie and I both feel that we got a much better idea of what life in France is like this year. We had a number of occasions (the last being our weekend in Lyon, described below) where we spent extended periods of time interacting in French with regular people here, which was not the case in Paris. It also helped that none of the TV channels we receive here are in English, so the boys could not constantly watch American shows. As I mentioned in a previous post, both Suzie and I notice that our French has improved immensely; situations that just to be difficult for us now seem very easy.

Our last weekend here was very special. Suzie’s sister Yvette has a very close friend named Florence who is French. Before we left, Florence gave us the name of a couple who grew up in her small hometown, whom she referred to as her “second family,” and arranged for us to meet. Suzie called last week, and they invited us to come to stay with them. So on Saturday we drove from Le Sappey to Bellgarde, which is located northwest of St. Etienne, close to Lyon, to visit Irene and Bernard and their two children, Morgane and Martin.

It would be hard to describe how hospitable they were to us, or how very delicious the food was that they prepared for us. They work in Lyon, but have a vacation house in Bellgarde, in a farming area in the Loire valley. Their next door neighbor raises chickens, and the house is surrounded by pastures and fields of corn. On Saturday we were first treated to Pate, a light pastry filled with fresh fruit, which apparently is one of Florence’s favorites, the presentation of which was celebrated with a photo:



Afterwards, we went to visit an eleventh century fort in the nearby town of Montrand-les-Bains. It was unfortunately closed, but we were able to walk around the grounds and have splendid views from the outside.



We then went to an ecological preserve in the Loire floodplain. My Water Agency friends will appreciate this – it was located on an old gravel mining site that various environmental groups had purchased and turned into a protected area. It was very beautiful, with many birds, and a very nice interpretive center.



The most interesting experience happened while we walked around the lakes. Bernard seemed to be a fairly avid outdoorsman, and he had brought with him in the car a small wire basket for … holding snails. Escargot being a traditional French dish, he would go and collect snails for eating. So we all participated in a snail hunt, which, from the snails’ point of view, was a bit of a mismatch, I’m afraid.







After hunting snails, Bernard and Irene treated us to escargot that evening. I’m not sure I remember all of the steps you have to go through, but I think the process is this – after catching the snails, you have to leave them alone in a cool place for two weeks, to cleanse their interiors. Then (I think), you have to put them in salt water so that they swell up and pop out of their shells. Then (I think), you boil them in hot water, after which time you can freeze them for eating later.

Bernard already had a batch of snails frozen, and he had taken them out to defrost in the afternoon. He then mixed up, by hand,butter, garlic, parsley, and maybe other ingredients. To bake the snails, you put snails in the bottom of little ceramic snail-cups and then fill the rest of the cups with the butter/garlic concoction.





The snails in their butter and garlic sauce are so rich that you would not think you could eat many of them, but between the eight of us we polished off 138 snails ... which we ate with yet another entrée (first course) of hot sausages and saussison, followed by a dinner of beef and pasta, and cheese for dessert! All of it absolutely incredibly delicious.



That night, I slept as well as I had on the whole trip.

But in the morning, more eating lay ahead. First, a breakfast of fresh fruit, various cheeses, a delicious pastry made with fresh cherries, homemade bread, homemade confiture (preserves), including an incredible apricot and cassis preserve, pate, and coffee. All of it simply wonderful, yet not too heavy (the fruit was all prepared without much sugar, making it very light).



After breakfast, Irene and Bernard were so kind as to drive with us to Lyon, to show us around the city. I had heard that Lyon was not nice, but to me it seemed to be much nicer than Grenoble, and much larger and more bustling. We toured several beautiful cathedrals, walked along and over the Soane River, and then had a huge, delicious late lunch (including a Lyonnaise dish consisting of a type of baked pasta in a lobster cream sauce, unique and wonderful, and the best, most decadent, thick, moist, chocolate cake I’ve ever had) at a restaurant in the old section of Lyon. We walked around a little more (to avoid falling asleep in the car) and then said our goodbyes.



More Lyon pictures here, here, here, and here.
In the short time we were with them, we ended up feeling very comfortable with Irene and Bernard and their kids. (I should add that my son, Will, was somewhat taken with their daughter, who is the same age, who is cute, bright, confident, and utterly without guile).



We feel very fortunate to have met Bernard, Irene, Morgane and Martin, and to have been able to share a few days with them. Thank you, Florence, for giving us that opportunity.





Everyone wish us luck tomorrow traveling home. We hope to see you all soon.

Food Photos

My sister-in-law Yvette has requested some pictures of food we've had. I haven't taken many pictures of food, it seeming odd to me to aim the camera at a plate, but it turns out I do have three, one of a salad plate Suzie got one evening, one of the dark pancake-type thing filled with ham, cheese, and egg, whose name I now forget, and one of two sweets.







Were off this morning to visit some friends of a friend of Yvette (Florence) near Lyon. We may spend the night, so there may be no entries for a couple of days.

For as good as French TV can be at times, Saturday morning is a wasteland. Of the six channels we get, three are cartoons, one is a shopping network, one is a call-in-answer-correctly-and-win-money game, and one is a combination of the last two. Bleh. We have, however, become somewhat hooked on a game show called Cresus, which features, oddly enough, both a host and a huge animated skull/skeleton dressed in a suit and tie that appears on and gives funny commentary from a huge screen behind the contestants. We like the show because the questions are written on the screen, so we actually have a chance at answering them.

The Caves of Sessenage, the World's Most Beautiful Hydro Plant, and the 'Cinematic' Tennis Coach

Since we’ve had to get up and get the boys to their tennis camp by 9 am each day -- which requires us to go down the mountain, then across most of Grenoble -- we’ve started to feel like regular commuters. It’s a pretty commute. First you pass this sign:



Then you continue down a winding mountain road, with views of Grenoble below:



Even after you come out of the “country” part of the commute, you have to drive through the relatively narrow streets of two suburbs, Corenc and La Tronche, before getting to Grenoble. (As an aside, one of the big differences between the U.S. and France is that the French still have main roads and highways going through the narrow streets in the centers of villages. Through La Tronche, the main roadway up to the Chartreuse is so narrow that two cars can barely pass.) Once in Grenoble we pass along the Right Bank of the Isere until we take a left and head south on the Rue de la Liberation:



Until we arrive at the Grenoble Tennis Center. After dropping the kids off, Suzie and I usually stop somewhere for an espresso, then head off to explore.

Grenoble is situated in a valley at the confluence of two rivers, the Isere and the Drac, and is surrounded by three large mountain ranges, or massifs, the Chartreuse (to the north), the Vercors (to the east) and the Belledonne (to the west and south). Unlike the Sierra Nevada, there are no foothills to these mountain ranges; in places they just arise straight up from the valley floor. We had read about a town called Sassenage, a suburb of Grenoble about 4 miles to the east, located on the north edge of the Vercors, which is near a couple of caves that you can tour. So on Thursday, after dropping the kids at tennis camp, we headed for Sassenage.

It was a short drive, and we parked near the old center of the town:



Near the town center was a park, and beyond the park was the beginning of the trail to the caves, The trail ran parallel to a small stream, which had cut a deep gorge into the massif. The trail was very steep at first, but then leveled off. About 15 minutes up was the cave, which we decided to wait to do until the afternoon. Instead, we hiked on up the trail, going further into the gorge and higher and higher in elevation.







If you look closely at the last picture above, you’ll notice something that you would never, never see in the U.S., evidence that the trial lawyers have not yet taken over France: There is only one rail on the bridge, despite the fact that it is high enough that falling off of it could lead to serious bodily injury, economic damages, emotional distress, loss of consortium, and even wrongful death. It seems to be the case in most public places all over France that people are expected to take care of their own damned selves, and are not able to sue if they don’t. Another example: At the Air Park where Suzie and the boys climbed on Wednesday, no one asked them to sign a release. They were given some training and told to always follow the instructions given, and that it was a very dangerous activity if they did not … and then they were free to do as they wished. Very refreshing.

I seem to have wandered off the trail, metaphorically. On the way back (and I post this especially for all my good friends at the Water Agency), we passed what had to be the world’s most beautiful hydroelectric plant, quaintly producing electricity by taking advantage of the extreme elevation drop we’d just come down. No fish protestors, and the residents right next to the plant (second picture) don’t seem to mind it (although they must enjoy the sound of falling water).





We then took a short drive up into the Vercors a ways, resulting in this picture of the Chartreuse:



After finding a boulangerie and sharing an absolutely delicious chicken, egg, cheese, lettuce, and tomato sandwich (why is the bread so much better here?), we went back to pick up the boys, stopping on the way at yet another small, homey café for coffees. We then went back to Sassenage for the cave tour, which was remarkable in two ways. First, the caves themselves were extraordinary, with underground rivers and waterfalls, enormous open chambers, tight, narrow passageways, stalagmites, stalactites (bonus points for anyone who knows which grows up and which grows down without looking it up), flints, fossils, and a cold, cold chill throughout. Second, we made the tour, as luck would have it, with a contingent of 24 French children from day care, ranging in age from six to eight. When we saw them coming up the hill while we were waiting for our guide, we thought, ‘Oh, no, there goes the experience,’ but in fact it was kind of cool being around so much enthusiasm. Bravo, I guess, for the woman who was leading them, for being brave enough to take them there; she tried to keep them quiet, constantly telling them to shut up (in an anything but gentle voice; in some ways she was more annoying than they were), but it was just impossible given the circumstances. We still enjoyed the experience very much, although by the end I found myself very glad to get back into the warm, open air and sunshine.

That night we took it easy. The boys wanted to off by themselves to the village to eat dinner, so we gave them some money and let them go. Odd that we feel more comfortable doing that here than back home. Suzie and I watched some TV, then we all went to bed early.

Suzie and I are both noticing how much better our French, and particularly our French comprehension, has become. Suzie has become a very good French speaker (a number of people have complemented her on this), and I can at least hold my own on most transactions. The thing that always throws me is when someone says something that is totally out of context. It’s happened to me twice on this trip: Once, while I was negotiating through traffic (perfectly legally and appropriately as far as I could tell), someone who was acting as an unofficial traffic director stuck his head into the car and said … well, I have absolutely no idea what he said. When I said, “Pardon?” he simply motioned me on. The second instance was while I was buying some groceries; after scanning my groceries I expected the checkout lady would look at me and say, “Dix-huit quatre-vingt euro, s’il vous plait,” but instead she looked at me, rather earnestly, and said … well, again, I don’t really know, although in retrospect I think she was asking me for the equivalent of my Safeway Card. Aside from those types of instances, I’m getting much better. I can actually sometimes follow the newscasts, and, as I said, Suzie is quickly climbing up the fluency ladder.

Sorry for this post being so long, but I’m combining two days. Today was a short day, taking the boys to and from tennis camp – wait, this requires a diversion….

I may have mentioned that the boys were having some difficulty at the camp, because the instructor and the other participants are serious players. At the end of the day on Thursday, the coach told us that Andrew, my usually wonderful 11 year-old with the sunny personality, was being very competitive and disputatious. Andrew denied this, of course, and all the way home, as they have more or less all week, the boys complained about their coach, especially how he’d say “Ooh la la” if they’d miss a shot, and how any time they complained or were dramtic, he’d say “Cinema, cinema,” (or, as the boys say it, in their faux French accents, “sceeeen-ee-maaaa, sceeeen-ee-maaaa.” It got to be a joke, and I’m sure "cinema" will stay in our family’s internal repetoir for a long time.

But you wouldn’t suspect any of this from this sweetness-and-light picture, would you?



Suzie and I just puttzed around Grenoble today, and on the way home we stopped at an overlook. A few pictures follow. I should add that we are not looking forward to flying through London on the way home. I don’t think we’re scared (although thank God for the British police), given that the security is so tight now. But it may be a long, long day, and as of now, we can’t even take a book on the plane with us. So, if I’m not there on Thursday, you’ll know our flight was cancelled or delayed.







And sorry, one final weird observation; To get the pictures properly sized, I had to use the calculator program in Windows, which on my machine is the (presumably, "La") "Calculatrice." I prefer working, I think, with La Calculatrice, rather than the calculator.

Photo Site Links

I think that I've changed my settings now so that it should be possible for you to get larger versions of the photos from either my Photobucket site (click here, or paste this into your brower's address window: http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g266/ssshupe/) or my Flickr site (click here, or paste this into your browser's address window: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ssshupe/). As I said, some of the pictures really benefit from being seen in a larger view.

Italy, Post No. 2

Better late than never … now, where were we?

Driving, sadly, from Camogli to Asti. As I may have mentioned, we had such a good time in Camogli, and thought it was such a perfect vacation spot, that we were very depressed to have to leave. It didn’t help that it rained heavily during part of our trip, or that we had difficulty finding our hotel, or that we couldn’t check in when we arrived, or that when we went into the city of Asti to kill some time (our hotel was in the country, some 6 miles away), we were not very impressed; while old, the city did not looked run down and slightly seedy, at least the part we were in, although we did manage to luck into finding a restaurant that provided us with an outstanding, cheap meal, including the best pizza I have had on the whole trip (cooked in a woodburning oven that looked to be several times older than me(, and also the best gnocchi with pesto that I have ever tasted (obviously the pasta was homemade, it seemed both light and substantial at the same time). Later that afternoon it started to rain, and after we checked in we drove to a small market nearby and bought bread, cheese, yogurt, and fruit to have for dinner in our room.

Our hotel in Camogli had been among the best we’d ever stayed in. We were on the top floor of an old, old building, and our room had high arched ceilings, beautiful hardwood floors, and large windows overlooking the sea. In contrast, our hotel in Asti was in a modern building decorated with modern furnishings. We were in a large room that was really a small suite, since the boys had a separate sleeping area, and Suzie and I had a separate bedroom, which was nice. Off the boys’ room there was a small patio, which overlooked a corn field, which of course the Iowa boy loved. We ate dinner on the patio and watched a storm pass, lightning and thunder close but not too threatening. We were all feeling let down, and it didn’t help that (1) the main guy who ran the place was completely unfriendly (he seemed to be this way to everyone, not just us) and (2) we seemed to be the only people staying in the place, which was eerie and, when combined with our complete lack of Italian, made us feel very conspicuous.

Nevertheless, we had a good nights sleep and decided the next day to visit some old castles or towers in some of the nearby towns. From our experience in Asti, we were afraid that these towns would be old but also somewhat decrepit.

It was an unbelievably beautiful day. The storm of the previous night had passed through, leaving the air cool and crystal clear. We headed to our first small town, which was off of the main road up on a high ridge (as, not surprisingly, were all the towns with large old castles, this being apparently an early example of the scourge of the large ridgetop home). We didn’t know what to expect … and were completely blown away. The town was very, very small, with narrow, narrow streets and old, old houses and buildings. But it was completely clean, and seemed very vibrant, with small shops and restaurants and people walking the streets. Unfortunately the castle (actually, something more akin to a chateau, an enormous chateau given the size of the rest of the town) was closed, but we had fun walking around the town, met a very friendly lady with two small children who gave us advice for where to have lunch, and partook of the incredible views. A view of the town (Gavone) follows:



If you can imagine a somewhat hillier, lusher, greener Sonoma County, with fields of corn next to vineyards, that is what the Piedmont region is like. See for yourself here (three views taken from three different little towns):







We had lunch in a city called Alba, a lovely older town, also very clean and vibrant. We had an excellent lunch in a restaurant/jazz club, then spent an hour or so walking around the city. This picture gives a good flavor of the town:



We quite by accident saved the best for last. After Alba, we went off in search of our final castle, and went to a small nearby town called Neive. This was a charming place, slightly bigger than the other two towns we had visited, and with an obviously thriving population.


There were also two beautiful older churches in the town, very different, one older and more simple, the other seemingly newer and very ornate inside.





And now, some pictures posted at the request of Will and Andrew. As I mentioned, the hotel we were staying in had a very nice, large pool with a diving board. So after our castle-hunting excursions, we put on our swimsuits and headed to the pool. The boys dived and flipped,





The boys tried to teach (re-teach, actually) their dad to dive, which he did, but for some reason he could not get his brain to keep his legs straight, in spite of his kids’ repeated encouragement to do so. The ugly result:



After their swim, the boys found an Italian boy about their age to play soccer with. So, from a bad start, we ended up loving Piedmont, vowing to come back someday without the kids. It was nice to see a part of Italy that was not a tourist spot.

The next day we awoke and drove back to France. I’ll end this post with a picture taken in the Italian Alps, just shy of the Frejus tunnel.



Now I’m only a day behind, whoo-eeee, and we didn’t do a whole lot today. Our days in France are coming to an end and we don’t want them to. We’ve become more and more attached to Grenoble the more time we’ve spent in it. More on that tomorrow.

Road Rants, Etc.

OK, I promised some rants, and here they area, all relating to driving.

We have driven over 1200 kilometers in France and Italy, in big cities and small, small villages, and I have yet to see any road in as poor a condition as almost all of the roads in Sonoma County, especially those in the unincorporated area. Maybe I’ve become more sensitive to it because I’ve started bicycling more; I frequently ride up Faught Road and Chalk Hill Road, and those are painful because of their condition. It doesn’t seem like heaping more and more asphalt piles on bigger and bigger holes is a very good maintenance plan. Particularly given Sonoma County’s tourist economy, you would think the roads in the unincorporated areas, especially those frequented by tourists (and especially Faught Road and Chalk Hill Road) would be better maintained.

As I said, the roads in France are impeccably maintained. This no doubt has to do with the high taxes the French pay and the high percentage of people employed by the government. I don’t want to start a political discussion, but I personally would pay a little more to have the roads kept up as well in Sonoma County as they are here. I'm sure the Board of Supes would, too, if they had the wherewithal to do it. (You can take this to extremes, though: Yesterday as we were driving into Grenoble we saw a truck with a strange arm-like attachment sticking out to the side, and realized that it was in the process of mowing the grass, not at all long as it was, on the embankment beside the road, work that was, as far as I could tell, completely unnecessary, even for aesthetic reasons. I suspect this was a way to keep snowplow drivers employed during the summer, since the operation took five men (one to drive the truck, one to watch/guide the arm, one to watch those two, one to man a warning sign downhill from the work, and one to man a warning sign uphill from the work. Did I mention that I think I read somewhere that almost 50% of French workers are employed by the government. Not that there is anything wrong with that, necessarily.) Driving here is really a joy: The roads are so smooth, and so well signed, really a pleasure.

I was also thinking about traffic circles or roundabouts, which are at almost every intersection on two-lane roads that go into the country, and at many large intersections in cities. I started asking why you didn’t see many of them in the U.S. They have a number of advantages. First, you cannot overshoot a turn, since you have the option of going around again until you can turn off the way you intended. I myself have gone almost twice around one until I found the right route, just on this trip. (In principle, you could stay in a traffic roundabout all day, I suppose, without anyone really noticing that you were going around and around and around, since most cars are only there for a short time). The second advantage is safety; it would be very difficult to get injured seriously in a traffic roundabout, since everyone has to slow down going into it (traffic in the circle has the right-of-way). Roundabouts would do away with deaths that occur when someone pulls onto a highway from a smaller road and doesn’t see an oncoming car.

So why aren’t they used in the U.S. Driving around today it occurred to me that part of the reason is precisely that traffic roundabouts treat smaller roads and larger roads exactly the same. It doesn’t matter if you are on the main road from Vizille to Grenoble, or on a smaller road from Poduncville, you still have to slow down and go around the circle. Why shouldn’t traffic on the big road get preference? Why should cars going 90 kilometers/hr have to slow down just because some idiots pull out from small roads without looking, and get killed? Me, I love the roundabouts; they are safe and remarkably efficient, and do away with the need for stoplights.

Those are my traffic rants. Fix the roads in Sonoma County, and install roundabouts.

Now for the day – a trip to the Grenoble Museum in the morning (preceded by a walk around the market area and followed by a lunch of foie gras, cheese, and bread), and a trip to an “Air Park” (a kind of do-it-yourself ropes course) in the afternoon, which was mostly for the kids. A few pictures follow, of the Grenoble Museum:



One of my favorite paintings in the museum, of God casting out Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which I've named "You're outta here" (God looks like he's calling Adam out on a third strike). Check out the body language on the man – ‘Hey, man, it wasn’t my idea ... come on, God, we’re tight, I never would have eaten it if she hadn’t told me to, what’cha say she goes and I stay, eh?’



My favorite object in the museum (which had a quite good modern section, very refreshing after an hour and a half of crucified Jesuses and martyred saints), a large wire ball that would show different internal shapes depending upon how you looked through it.



And Suzie and the boys at the airpark (j’ai eu peur).

Vizille and Charmant Som

After travelling around so much, it is only in the last day or two that we have really come to appreciate the great natural beauty of the area around Grenoble. Notwithstanding my slightly underwhelmed post about the city itself, it is easy to see why people would choose to live here -- in 30 minutes you can be in any number of places that seem like they are at the end of the world.

Today after dropping off the boys at their tennis camp (this camp is for serious tennis players, which they aren't yet, and boy did they complain about how hard it was, and boy were they tired at the end of the day, so much so that we decided to leave them there just in the morning and for lunch, picking them up at 1), Suzie and I drove south to the town of Vizille. It is famous for its Chateau and accompanying grounds, and for a meeting at the Chateau of nobles, clergy, and elected members of the middle and lower classes, known as the Assemblee de Vizille, held a year before the French Revolution began, at which the assembly protested against Louis XVI's supression of Parliament, and called for a national assembly to discuss the individual freedom of all French citizens. Thus the Chateau has been called the cradle of the French revolution.

It is a beautiful buildings on large, green, beautiful grounds, with specimens of plants and trees from throughout the world (mostly the U.S. and Europe), a fish hatchery, and a large narrow pond containing large carp. Some photos follow (I encourage you to click on the pictures to go to the page where you can get a larger view of each of these; some of them do better in a larger size):











After we left Vizille we drove south a ways, along the Lacs de Laffrey, then, low on fuel, we turned around and headed to Grenoble to pick up the boys. For the first time this trip, we got seriously lost. I took a wrong angle off of a roundabout and ended up on the expressway; when we exited we found ourselves in Grenoble Big Box Heaven, with every store looking like Wal Mart. I was totally turned around, and finally, admitting defeat (I would not have been defeated had I not forgotten the Grenoble map, I should point out), we asked for directions and, wonders of wonders, actually understood them. As it turned out, we were within minutes of the tennis facility, and actually made it ahead of schedule.

We picked up the boys and headed back to Le Sappey. After a little break at our house, we decided to go on a hike up to Charmant Som, one of the highest elevations in the Chartreuse (but easily accessible because a road goes most of the way up). The drive there (which duplicated part of the drive we took on Sunday to St. Pierre en Chartreuse) was terrific, first a winding narrow two-lane mountain road, then a smaller road up to the parking lot, through dense forests that alternated between deciduous and conifer trees. The day was brisk and only partly sunny, and we were bundled up in sweaters and jackets. The first part of the hike was up a steep (very, very steep), grassy, barren ridge. By the time we’d gotten to the first peak, we were huffing and puffing pretty good.







After cresting a first hill, we still had to go up a second, less steep but more rocky, ascent in order to get to the top.



Once at the top, we were given a 360 degree view of the other peaks and valleys of the Chartreuse. We spent about 20 minutes at the peak, and met while we were there a very nice French family, the mother and father of which live in St. Pierre en Chartreuse, and the daughter of whom lives in Paris. Our discussion led us to talking about home exchanges; they also have a house in Tahiti. No, you read that correctly. They were very excited about the possibility of a house exchange in California, so we’ll see what happens. They were also very, very nice, and we walked back down with them after we’d had our fill of views. Pictures from the top include all of us,



Suzie taking a picture of our French friends,



And a view of St. Pierre en Chartreuse from on high,



We took a different way down, which seemed a lot easier (and not only because we were going downhill; this trail cut off the first hill and thus wasn't quite as steep), and which took us right through the meadow of grazing cows, leading, of course, to the mandatory photo des vaches:



This picture reminds me that one of the most memorable experiences was being on top of the peak and hearing the chiming, chiming, chiming of the cow bells rising up from the slope and meadow below. The ringing chiming, ringing chiming, and the whisk of the wind was magical.

We finished off our day by going back to St. Pierre en Chartreuse and having an early dinner, then driving back home. A few pictures from there follow tomorrow; it's late and I'm tired.

I apologize if I’ve been blogging not quite as well this year. The computer I’m using is slow, and the internet connection is slow, so it takes quite a lot of time to download, process, and upload the pictures. I still have some odd rants and observations stored up, perhaps one day I’ll do a picture-less entry, although this is such a beautiful area I’m not sure my descriptions could do justice without them.