La Fete des Bergers

It is 9 p.m. and I am exhausted. We are leaving for Italy tomorrow early, and we still have stuff to do (and when I say “we” I mostly mean Suzie, since I’m sitting here at the keyboard).

We had a memorable day today, thanks mostly to our neighbors here in Le Sappey, Jacques and Madeline. They invited us to a local fete, a big outdoor picnic (although that does not begin to describe it) on a high alpine meadow beneath the Chamechaude, a huge expanse of bare limestone seemingly pushed straight out of the ground, topping out at 2052 meters. The fete was called the “Fete des Bergers,” and is either a celebration of the time when the herders move their sheep from one side of the mountain to the other, or a celebration of the beginning of the time when the French “partir en vacance.”

We started out at 10 a.m., and drove a few miles up a gravel road to the beginning of a trail. The trail at first followed the road, then led off into a dirt switchback trail. About and an hour and fifteen hundred feet of altitude gain later (the first part was hard, and yes we were sweating and thirsty by the time we arrived), we came out of the trees to the site of the fete, at the edge of a vast meadow beneath the mountain, near a small, fairly primitive house whose occupant, Jesus, a sheep herder, lives during the summer. (Jesus later told us that the fete was for locals only because he tried, unsuccessfully, to get permits for it from the authorities, and got tired of the "papier, papier, papier." Clearly the whole affair would not have been allowed, if only because there were no toilets (only one source of running water, as far as I could tell), forcing everyone to scurry off into the woods from time to time.)

It is hard to describe the magnitude and the majesty of this place. The best I can suggest is to click on this link -- http://static.flickr.com/59/202021313_8c3181c34a_b.jpg -- but the photo does not do the place justice. A short way from the fete is a sign indicating the altitude, 1512 meters, and standing above that sign you have a 210 degree view of mountains, all around. The morning was so clear you could see for hundreds of miles to the east, south, and west. Later in the day at the same spot, Suzie and I sat and watched the clouds that had formed above the many peaks, making the scene, if possible, even more beautiful, the peaks mottled by shadows, the puffy white clouds adding contrast. Even in midday, the crickets (or something akin today) chirped loudly and constantly, adding a strange constant black noise to the scene. And a few hearty alpine flowers managed to blossom, along with stinging nettles, which Will and Andrew managed to get into a few times.

The fete itself was a catered affair, but not catered in a small-puffy-things-on-a-plate way, but rather catered in a this-is-how-you-serve-three-hundred-people-without-a-real-kitchen way. We spread a blanket on the ground next to Jacque and Madeline, amidst families and friends and couples of all ages. A band (two guitars, violin, and saxophone) played traditional music, lightly amplified. The prelude to the meal was sangria, chips, peanut, and fruit juice (cassis and water, actually), which you had to go get yourself, but the rest of the meal was served. First came the napkins, which brought a cheer from the crowd. Then came the knives and forks. Then came the plastic plates. Then came the first course … brought by two men carrying what looked to be a large flat square metal trough, and a ladle, which the used to scoop huge portions of something that consisted of various vegetables in a light creamy sauce; a second man brought rolled pieces of thinly-sliced jambon (ham), which was very tasty. The next course took a while to come – lamb or mutton, which had been cooking on an open charcoal fire, wrapped in foil, since we had arrived. Somewhere before then a man passed out dense French bread sliced in large pieces. And sometime before that had come bottles of wine, red and rose (which seemed to be in short supply, and was much sought after, especially by the women). After the lamb there was another short break, followed by the service of two cheeses (one soft and one semi-soft), followed by coffee (brewed in a huge metal kettle), followed by a magic liquor made by steeping some kind of plant found on the mountain in pure alcohol, which Suzie seemed to enjoy.

But the best thing about the experience was … the experience itself, the experience of being privy to something genuine, not something created for tourists, but something real. And being able to watch, and interact with, Jacques and Madeline and their friends. Most of the time we could not understand much, but when people spoke slowly, we could understand, and we found that, with little effort, we were able to communicate in French, something I never thought I would be able to do. Everyone was friendly, without exception, and it seemed that everyone there was having a good time, in good fellowship, with good-natured ribbing, good-natured arguments, and a feeling of genuine affection. The French love to talk, love to dispute, love to contradict, but in a seemingly gentle way. Even when the crowd was whooping and hollering, it was somehow civilized.

And when we packed up and were ready to leave, all of the people sitting around us made a special effort to give us an “au revoir” and to smile and to wave their goodbyes (they all knew by now that we were, as Jacques would introduce us, Americans from California). This has been our experience everywhere we have gone.

I would write more, but I am tired. Maybe Suzie will add something. For now, I leave you with pictures:

Chamechaude




Suzie and Andrew Picking Raspberries


The Four of Us


The View East

(Click here for a larger view: http://static.flickr.com/76/202053217_8ae6870845_o.jpg)

A View of the Fete


Alpine Liquor and its Magic Ingredient


Jesus, Our Host


Jacques and Madeline


Le Sappey en Chartreuse

La Vie, Elle est Bonne

Mostly the photos will tell the story today … we had an absolutely fabulous time traveling to and from and exploring the old part of Annecy, a splendid city situated on a splendid lake hemmed in by the Alps. Even the drive (about an hour and a half each way, had we done it all on the expressway, which we didn’t, partly by choice, partly through a slight failure on my part to catch all of the road signs) was excellent – through valleys surrounded by the massifs of the Alps, through fields of corn and cows, through small, small villages. The older part of Annecy looked like a movie set of an old French town, and was obviously a tourist destination, yet somehow seemed authentic and genuine. After a long walk around town, we drove to a public beach, where we all swam and people-watched until drove back home. The day was perfect; the storms yesterday drove away the heat and left the air clear and pleasantly warm. Enjoy the pictures (but forgive their slightly lower quality, I used another program and it didn’t turn out as well, but I’m tired and didn’t want to redo all of them)….

Trempe Jusqu'aux Os....

Every vacation, I think, has its odd day or two, and today was one of ours. The weather forecast this morning was for thundershowers, which made us change our original plan (to drive to Annecy) and go into Grenoble instead. Our thinking was that if it were to rain, there would still be things to do inside, and we wouldn't get wet.

So still a bit jet-lagged (me feeling it especially), we drove down to Grenoble. The first task was parking. Several unfortunate turns and we found ourselves in the center of the city, on narrow, narrow streets, surrounded by pedestrians and other vehicles. Giving up on free parking, we spotted a garage and headed for the entrance. Unfortunately our car (a small, four-wheel drive vehicle made by Renault called a Kangoo, very functional and very French-looking and fun to drive -- the manual transmission taking me back to my younger days) is very tall, over 2 meters, and the entrance to the parking garage was very small, not much more than 2 meters, so we got right to the entrance gate, decided we shouldn't chance going in, and had to back into traffic. The driver is now stressing and saying mild swear words in a forceful manner, while his wife is remining him that he is on vacation in France. But a further five minutes and we found another lot, this one with spacious high ceilings (and, it should be noted, very clean and shiny concrete floors).

We had a map, but didn't follow it, and walked to and through a neighborhood of what looked to be lower-income appartments. A few blocks and we turned up a more commercial, but still fairly low-traffic, street. On this street there was a coiffeur, and because my oldest son Will had wanted a haircut before we left, and because the price was right, we stopped in and he got one. Meanwhile, Andrew and I scouted about, and found the beginning of the nice, main shopping and restaurant area. We wandered about indecisive about where to have lunch, choosing finally a place on the Plaza de Notre Dame, in the center of which stood an interesting fountain with wild bat-gargoyles spewing water:

The food was OK, not great, but we felt better after lunch and walked around the old center of the city, the main portion of which is a pedestrians-only zone. The boys were lobbying to ride the telepherique up to the Bastille, the telepherique being something akin to a gondola, and the Bastille being a fort high above Grenoble on the other side of the River Isere. We managed to put the boys off for a while by getting them ice cream, and we found a nice bookstore to browse in awhile. Then we headed for the Gare de Telepherique.

On our way, we passed through a nice park with a lovely garden (which we viewed while a rock bank loudly warmed up for an evening concert, so add that aural image to this visual one).

Immediately past this garden was the telepherique. It consists of two sets of four clear round balls hanging down from a cable strung from the terminal up to the Bastille. Each of the balls seats 6 people, and the four of us had one all to ourselves. The ride up was not a scary as it seems it would be; even Suzie, who has a fear of heights, did OK.

Once we arrived at the top, we noticed that the clouds, which had been building over the past hour, were now thicker and blacker, as this picture (dramatic, if I do say so) shows.

Although you did not need to be a weatherman to see that a storm was moving in (apologies to Bob Dylan), we figured that, like the day before, any shower would probably pass through quickly and be brief. So off we went. Andrew had seen come caves on the way up, so we headed toward them. It was very cool inside, a relief from the humidity, and here are me and the boys standing outside one of them.

About this time rain started lightly falling, and we decided that we had better head back to the car. We had ridden the telepherique up, but planned to hike down, which takes about 45 minutes. Various photos taken during our descent follow. (I should add here that the fortress, the Bastille, is very impressive, if only for its immensity. It consists of very, very high walls covering an enormous amount of ground, perched on – and on the face of – a severely steep hill. It is one of those things that makes you ask how it could possibly have been built, particularly when it was, in the 19th century. Also, we never figured out who it was protecting Grenoble from. Presumably the Germans, but maybe the Italians, too.)

After about 20 minutes, our luck ran out. To that point, the rain had been intermittent and light. But then the storm blew in with full force. The rain became heavy, forcing is to stand beneath a steep rock outcropping to try to keep dry. Meanwhile the lightning and thunder became intense; at one point it struck right about ¼ mile away, a bright flash followed by a tremendous crack. The boys were lobbying for heading back uphill to a cave we had gone through on the way down, but Suzie and I told them not to worry, the storm would blow over soon.

This is why children don’t end up believing their parents much. To our dismay, the storm did not let up, it intensified, the raindrops becoming bigger, heavier, more frequent, the sky blacker, the thunder and lightning continuing. As the vegetation above us became saturated, and the wind picked up, our location was of less and less assistance to us, and we became more and more soaked the longer the storm went on. Once we saw the sky begin to lighten, and we said, ‘ah, this is the end,’ but right then the rain put on an extra spurt of strength, as if saying, ‘ah, not so.’ It did, of course, finally let up, relatively speaking, turning into a moderate to light rain, at which point we continued down, now wet and cold, our shoes soaked, our shirts soaked, following the rivers of muddy water also draining down the trail. I was never so happy to get back to a parking garage, to have the deluge on me cease, to turn on the heater, to be dry in traffic, and heading home.

An Easy Day in Le Sappey

We took it very easy today, and mostly remained in Le Sappey, the small village where we are staying. We walked downhill into the center of town, had an excellent prix fixe lunch for 10 euro (a first course of salad and a leek tort, which was like a flatter, cheesier quiche, followed by veal served with a strong, dark red sauce that Suzie says was a red wine reduction) -- completely satisfying. We walked around a little more before a thunderstorm came in, and forced us back home.

I realize I forgot the beginning. Le Sappey is known for its pure mountain water. Across the road from our house is a spring-fed public fountain, which the Barrands told us to use to get water for their plants. We were fetching water this morning when we met one of our neighbors, an extremely nice retired gentleman who proceeded to (1) invite us to his home for drinks in the evening and (2) offer to have us follow him and his female companion into Grenoble (actually, a near suburb) to show us where the supermarket is. So after we came home, we piled into the car (a cool car, sure to be subject of a post) and drove down the hill (through incredibly narrow streets) to the Carrefour market. This was a huge, huge store, a seeming combination of an upscale Wal-Mart and a super-sized Pacific Market on steroids. We got groceries, unpacked them, then went to the neighbors. They could not have been nicer to us. Both were retired engineers, and the man worked for many years at the big nuclear research facility in Grenoble. Amazingly, we were actually able to have 2 hours worth of conversation with them in French, sitting on their patio overlooking the mountains. Very, very pleasant.

Tomorrow we are going to Annecy, to look around and hopefully to swim. We are starting to get less jet-lagged, a very good thing. A few pictures follow. The first one is the house we are staying in, from the rear (click on it for a larger view), click here and here to see the other two.

Long Hot Day

We made it to Le Sappey en Chartreuse after a long, long day of hot travel. Everything was hot: the air conditioning on the flight to London wasn't working right, we had a three-hour layover in a mostly unairconditioned Heathrow Airport that included three long, long waits in what were (logically) unnecessary lines, a long hot wait in Lyon to go through passport control, it took a long wait for the bus to the parking lot and then a long walk through the parking lot to find the car (I had gotten off at the wrong stop), and it was about 95 degrees in Lyon;

But ... other than that, we had a good trip. The flights were all on time, and Suzie had decided to take a limo to the airport, instead of the Airporter (not that much more really), and the company screwed up and had to have another company fill in, and all they had available was a huge stretch limo, which we got to ride to the airport. What a treat; it felt like cheating.

We just got up this morning. It is stunning here. We are staying in a large, old alpine chalet in a very small village up a narrow winding road in the mountains about 15 minutes from Grenoble. We will probably check out the village and the nearby town, get some groceries, maybe go into Grenoble. More to come. Pictures follow (click on the links for larger versions: The boys and the limo; Andrew at Heathrow (we all felt the way he looked); and the view from our back deck.

We love France.

The Unofficial Start to our Vacation

Our vacation got off to an unofficial start on Sunday, when we went to pick up the Barrands, the French family with whom we are exchanging homes. Their flight was uneventful; they arrived on time but were slightly delayed through customs. Unfortunately for them they arrived on the hottest day of the year, made worse by the fact that there were some troubles at their motel (the Sandman, one of Santa Rosa's finest): First we were sent to the wrong building, then when we found the right building, the room they were given was not made up, so we had to go back to the lobby, then back to the building we had originally gone to. This required eight people carrying various and sundry bags to walk back and forth, up and down stairs, in 105 degree heat. After they got their room, we took them to Mary's Pizza Shack for a pizza dinner (which they devoured with pleasure).

Yesterday they came over in the late afternoon so we could show them the house. They are the nicest folks you would ever want to meet. Jerome is a professor in the Business school at the University of Grenoble; his wife Anne works at the Grenoble chamber of commerce. They told us all about the quirks in their house, and we told them about ours.

We also introduced them to root beer. When we were at Mary's Pizza Shack, we asked them if they were familiar with root beer, and they weren't, so we bought a six-pack before they came over, figuring they might be interested in a taste. We opened up a can and poured it over ice, then each one of the five of them took a sip. Without exception, the expressions on each of their faces said 'this is among the most noxious stuff I have ever tasted.' One of them said it tasted like bad medicine. Which just goes to show that root beer is (like beer, now that I think of it) an acquired taste.

Here's the first of many (I hope) pictures: The Barrands and the Shupes (minus me, preferring to be behind the camera). For a larger picture click here.

More when we arrive in France....

Elsie as a Puppy with Chester

Elsie as a Puppy with Chester

While cleaning up the house for our French guests, Suzie found this old picture of Elsie and Chester, when Elsie was just a puppy. She's so young that her eyes don't quite work right yet. Larger photo here.

Nous allons aller en France!

Oui, you read that right ... we are off on another trip to France (and Italy) in a week. So it's time to make sure the blog is still working. Here is a picture I took during a recent short trip to Lake Tahoe. The picture was taken looking Northeast while on the way up to Virginia City, Nevada. Remember that clicking on the picture will bring up a larger, full size version.