W e c r o s s e d o v e r t h e A l p s t o d a y

Just a reminder: You can click on the photos and make them bigger.

The Alps don’t do justice to the word “incredible.” I am still speechless. Even “speechless” doesn’t do justice to the inability to express what we saw and felt.

Every word I could use to describe the experience would be banal compared to the reality.

At times it was frightening. Some of them come up right out of the ground – no slopes or foothills or anything. They just emerge.

They have an immensity that is totally alien to human life.

At other times, aside from this “mystical” fright, was the more ordinary fear of just going over the side – a sheer drop, no fence, no nothing, and sometime an icy or wet road.

I sometimes felt dizzy looking up at them. The immensity (I’m using this word too much) was disorienting. I couldn’t be sure where I was standing, or the stability of the ground beneath me.

Shelley called Mont Blanc “the naked countenance of earth.”

The first photo was taken right at the top. It looked as though they had had a snow or ice storm either today or yesterday, or  . . . .?

Or maybe it’s always like that.

The photos, too, are disappointing because they fall so short of conveying what we saw.

It was so much more than my wildest imaginings!

I thought this would be a great day, but it’s hard to imagine that anything on this trip will surpass today’s exaltation.

As Shelley says,

Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,

Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene—

Its subject mountains their unearthly forms

Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between

Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,

Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread

And wind among the accumulated steeps.

how hideously

Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,

Ghastly, and scarred, and riven. Is this the scene

Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young

Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea

Of fire envelop once this silent snow?

None can reply -- all seems eternal now.

Anyway, enough of my lecture.

We are now in Torino. We leave tomorrow for Venezia. Matt and Tom are out on the town without the old fogey.

Matt is learning Italian con gusto. We practice in the car.

Gli italiani sembrano così simpatici.

I had a fondue in Switzerland and Matt had “spaghettis” with carbonara sauce.

When I ordered, the server asked if I had ever had fondue before! It made me think twice, but I went ahead with it and it was great. Very delicate spicing.

The other day Matt had carpaccio (whose works we will see in Venezia) and we were both more than a little surprised.

Tom helped us with all things Switzerland. We all generally dissed France.

A day near Arles -- The Côtes du Rhône & The Luberon

Je m'apelle Pierre.

The other day I came across two young travellers. We drank wine and discussed cheese in a small café. As the candles began to burn down we recalled stories of travel and shared laughs late into the night. This is their story.

On Wednesday the 23rd of September, Claude and his father, Jean-Luc, set out in a car to see the sights of southern France. 

The air was fresh and the sun was just over the treetops as the two men set out. They headed out of town with the windows down and one of Vivaldi's concertos boppin' from the speakers. The Oracle, Rick Steves, had said that they must start by seeing a ruin of a Roman aqueduct.* After a quick drive, they arrived on a single-lane country road and soon were there. The two lads walked along the ruin for a bit and Claude even managed to climb it. They didn't stay long as the mosquitos were mounting in number and were beginning to swarm.

Once back in the car, they set their sights on the town of Les Baux.** They wiggled and wound along the road, when all a sudden Claude called out, "Oo la la!" Jean-Luc pulled over, looked out the window, and to his disbelief, saw a stunning view. On a distant hill stood the outline of a large ruin.*** "We must go there," Claude pronounced in juvenile excitement.

"The Oracle**** has told me it is cursed and will disappoint you," Jean-Luc replied, but even he knew there wasn't much truth in The Oracle's words this time. He made a quick left and was soon on the road to the rocky ruin. They arrived, and with the entrance fee paid, they were now within the stony walls.

They saw the crypt, some weird-looking tombs carved into the bedrock, and some other giant halls. Claude and Jean-Luc***** then climbed the watchtower and marvelled at the view.

The fields of mustard spread below them as if the ground were bread, and the trees and roads were mere olives and ham. This made Claude hungry, so they descended the tower and left.

Once on the road again they drove, not really knowing where they were headed; but they both knew food must be had. The Oracle was not to be trusted anymore******. The road began to head up into the hills and hairpin turn followed hairpin turn as they got higher and higher. The rock face towered down on them as they passed little mountain towns.

They wanted to stop and eat but could not find any place to park, with all the spots taken by the early tourists. They began to descend the slopes and were soon weaving their way through the grape fields.

Shortly after, they found themselves in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. Jean-Luc decided to consult The Oracle for a nice food place, and they headed off in the direction of a café that was recommended. They got lost.******* That was strike three for The Oracle, so Claude insisted on the pizza joint that was just up the street from them. They both ordered pizzas and beer and a jolly time ensued. The pizza later came back to haunt Jean-Luc, but that's a story for another day.

They walked through the town after lunch and admired all the little canals and waterways. A true sight to behold. Jean-Luc then spotted a bookstore and the mood quickly turned sour.

"Ah! Come on!!!" Claude cried.

"Maps! I need maps!" retorted Jean-Luc.

Claude was insulted. "I am the map," he sniffled.

Maps were bought and no hard feelings were had in the end, and they set out once more.

They came across the town of Vaucluse******** but the tourists damned it as well. They took a small nap in the parking lot there and were back on the winding road shortly.

They passed farms and wineries and fields of what they thought were pears, all the while dipping and diving in and out of valleys.********* They passed a city on a hill********** that looked frozen in time but with ruins of towers and walls shooting out of the sheer rock face. It too was now ruined by tourists, so they kept driving and found themselves in the city of Roussillon. It too was on top of a hill, which was ochre red. They admired it for a bit and decided to head home. It had been a long day.***********

*The remains of the Roman aqueduct at Barbegal, just outside Fontvieille.

** They never did make it to Les Baux.

***This refers to the Abbey of Mountmajeur, which Rick Steves calls "a brooding hulk of a ruin. Today, the vacant abbey church is a massive example of Romanesque architecture and an overpriced sight." It was 0,50€ cheaper than in Rick's book, so maybe he might have thought it was not overpriced now. He goes on to say, "Film buffs will appreciate the sight as the setting for The Lion in Winter. The surrounding fields were a favourite of Van Gogh's . . . ."

****The Oracle is, of course, Rick Steves.

*****This was his first climb of the trip, and he felt fine afterwards (and during).

******by Claude

*******Actually, Claude got hungry before they got there.

********Actually, they headed for it. It was the home of one of Jean-Luc's boyhood heroes, Francesco Petrarch. The Oracle calls it "the most overrated sight in France." But Jean-Luc was glad he had seen it.

*********Anyone who remembers Godard's 1967 film, Week End, would recognize the scenery. Straight-as-an-arrow country lanes lined with gorgeous trees (but without the violent carnage of automobile accidents strewing the shoulders as in the film -- not unexpected, given the French style of driving).

**********Gordes

***********Two captivating sites the two men had had to forego were the Museum of Lavender and the Museum of Porcelain.

 

Nîmes and Uzès

Hi:

So today we picked up the car.

But first we went to the market – held twice a week. Photos in the hotel from 1835 show it exactly as it is today. Wonderful! We got a bread and a Provençal sausage. (By the way, you can’t buy a baguette in the morning -- only in the afternoon, it seems. The closest thing seems to be a ficelle (a skinny baguette). Or a bâtard (bastard).) Luckily, they usually have labels, or I would be reduced for asking simply for pain (not having taken the Bread 101 option in university French). It looked so like markets in Toronto that we didn’t bother taking any pictures.

The car clerk insisted that we needed a paper copy of the voucher. Since they had sent me a new voucher, because they moved their office, I didn’t have one. Back to the hotel. Try to print. Etc., etc. We didn’t get out of the city until 11:30, having gotten up at 6:45 AM.

We are seriously hampered by having no road map. Will buy one tomorrow morning, or will not leave the city.

%$@!!%

Drove to Nîmes which has a perfect Roman amphitheatre (which is called the Arènes – don’t know how it got to be plural) from the first century. An amphi-theatre is two theatres (semicircles) stuck together. Learned a lot (too much) about gladiators. Walked around a lot. The cathedral has a 12th century Romanesque façade, but an unremarkable interior. Ate lunch in the amphitheatre. They have bull fights here.

The Maison Carée is a hoot. It gets two stars in our guide book, but aside from the fact that it’s being restored and you can’t get in, it’s totally bricked up (see the illustration: this seems to be its permanent state, restoration or not).

Then the Spring of Nemo, possibly the eponymous Celtic god of the city. A beautiful Jardain de la Fontaine in the middle, which is modeled in spirit after the Jardins de Luxembourg in Paris, or Versailles, but with the small difference that it was designed with common people in mind. We saw men playing boules. Behind that was a wonderful building called the Temple of Diana, but was probably a boring library. It was atmospheric, with a very nice garden in which we whiled away the time reading poetry in our guide book and drawing moustaches on our pictures in our passports.

Skipped the one-star Castellum.

Then drove to the Pont du Gard, which is not really a pont but an aqueduct. The Gard is the name of the river it spans. No one is allowed even to touch it now, but in the past, generations of people have scratched their names into the huge Roman stones. The earliest I saw was dated 1750. A great view. Matt climbed to the top (on both side) and got even greater views.

Then . . . the greatest serendipity of the trip so far: Uzès. It is the source of the spring that feeds the aqueduct. It is a wonderfully preserved medieval town 10 minutes away from the aqueduct with no cars allowed inside. Just my cup of tea. You park on the ring road and walk in. We got there after dark and had supper at the Bistro Burger, which serves Charolais burgers and onion rings. The French eat burgers with a knife and fork. When in France . . . .  It was truly magical. No photos. I want to live there.

The traffic and the parking are simply insane. There’s got to be some serious social psychopathy going on here.

More later.