Salut! We are back! Online that is. In fact, we got our dial-up internet connection at the house in Montauroux last week, but daily French life has started to take shape. That, of course, includes our quota of wine, and so sitting down at the computer to record our adventures and misadventures loses its luster after a few glasses of Côte de Provence rosé. I’ll try to summarize our earlier travels and then get into the past three weeks that we have been here at the house. We left the French Alps after a week of fantastic hiking, eating, drinking and indulging the girls in pony rides, adventure park aerial courses, swimming pool and water slide visits. The place that we stayed had the most incredible Kiwi chef, who managed to pack at least 10 lbs. on Dave and me each. That, and the Savoyard cheese that could be found in restaurants at every village along the mountain paths. We knew France was a land of cheese, but they lay it on thick in the Haute-Savoie region. One of our favourite dishes was called tarteflette, a baked treat of cheese, savoie ham, potatoes and butter. No wonder red wine is mandatory – we have been told it is necessary to keep cholesterol levels in check. Breakfast In France, Lunch in Switzerland, Dinner in Italy. We decided to go to Italy for a few days before heading to Provence and chose to travel through Chamonix, across a mountain pass in France to Martigney in the Rhone valley, through southern Switzerland and then over the Simplon Pass into Italy and then down into the Lake District (where George Clooney does hang out, but unfortunately, no encounters.). The roads were so twisting and winding that Bronwyn turned green after the first 10 minutes out. She managed to toss into a discarded celophane wrapper from a block of writing paper and was congratulated heartily by Hannah for her good aim as well as her good humour. I, on the other hand, made sure I leaned into every turn, so that the car would not roll over the edge of the road and plummet to the bottom of the mountains. Dave seemed to enjoy my squirming. We stopped for lunch in a small medieval hilltop town called Leuk. It ‘leuked’ kind of cool: authentic, in a mid 12th century kind of way, and very sleepy. We were, as it turns out, not aware of where the border between French speaking Switzerland and Swiss-German Switzerland lay. Apparently, we had crossed it. German is not a language that either Dave or I have had any exposure to and so we were high-fiving each other when we managed to order a baked cheesy-hammy-with-an-egg-on-top sort of thing for lunch - after giggling at all the hilarious German, and completely unrecognizable, words on the menu. Then the bill arrived for 55 euros. We thought that we were being had, as tourists. Maybe the waitress didn’t see the humour in German menu items. Largely annoyed we paid the bill, only to get a lot of our euros handed back, along with a good number of what we discovered were Swiss Francs. Who knew? Maybe we should bone up on this EU thing and figure out who’s in on the currency, and who’s out. Obviously the Swiss are up to something, because they are keeping it separated. Back on the road and up, up, up and over the Simplon pass. It was an incredible drive. Very close to the Matterhorn and a magnificent, barren plateau at the top, surrounded by snow-capped peaks. It reminded both Dave and I of Nepal above the tree line. The drive down into Italy follows a deep, rugged river gorge with stone huts dotting the hillside. Down lower into the valley, we drove through vineyards on the flats and could see massive marble quarries on the cliffs rising up into the hills surrounding. I pulled out my Italian phrasebook and started rolling off my best Italiano. Dave grew tired of this after about the first 30 seconds. We decided to head for Stresa, on Lake Maggiore, after a client of Dave’s had told him it was a favourite spot. The thing about Europe that we find so shocking, as Canadians, is that every square centimeter of land seems to have been conquered, cultivated and built upon. For example, the islands in Lake Maggiore, just off the shore of Stresa, were covered entirely with houses, a castle, churches and cobble-stoned roads. A far cry from our island in Georgian Bay! The shore of Lake Maggiore was lined with large, gated villas obviously built in a grand era. Some looked unoccupied; maybe still owned by the families who first built them. (This got Dave’s real estate curiosity piqued – No Dave we do not need to look into buying an Italian villa.) The hotels facing the lake in the centre of town were colossal and the most glamourous of them were from the belle epoch; full of wrought-iron and glass entrances, the most enormous chandeliers, and beautiful iron balconies, covered in flowers off every room. (We didn’t stay there.) We did stay in a great hotel though. We had a huge room with a terrace and they brought in an extra bed for the girls, complete with white Frette bedspread, and a cot for DeeDee made up with crisp white linens and beautiful Italian baby blankets. Each morning we had to drag the girls away from their dose of Italian cartoons – like Giorgio Shrinks. La dolce vita! It was all very beautiful. I was loving Italy and the waiters in the restaurants were digging my Italian. Sigh. Time to pack it all up and head to Provence to see what we had in store for the year to come.
Salut! We are back! Online that is. In fact, we got our dial-up internet connection at the house in Montauroux last week, but daily French life has started to take shape. That, of course, includes our quota of wine, and so sitting down at the computer to record our adventures and misadventures loses its luster after a few glasses of Côte de Provence rosé. I’ll try to summarize our earlier travels and then get into the past three weeks that we have been here at the house. We left the French Alps after a week of fantastic hiking, eating, drinking and indulging the girls in pony rides, adventure park aerial courses, swimming pool and water slide visits. The place that we stayed had the most incredible Kiwi chef, who managed to pack at least 10 lbs. on Dave and me each. That, and the Savoyard cheese that could be found in restaurants at every village along the mountain paths. We knew France was a land of cheese, but they lay it on thick in the Haute-Savoie region. One of our favourite dishes was called tarteflette, a baked treat of cheese, savoie ham, potatoes and butter. No wonder red wine is mandatory – we have been told it is necessary to keep cholesterol levels in check. Breakfast In France, Lunch in Switzerland, Dinner in Italy. We decided to go to Italy for a few days before heading to Provence and chose to travel through Chamonix, across a mountain pass in France to Martigney in the Rhone valley, through southern Switzerland and then over the Simplon Pass into Italy and then down into the Lake District (where George Clooney does hang out, but unfortunately, no encounters.). The roads were so twisting and winding that Bronwyn turned green after the first 10 minutes out. She managed to toss into a discarded celophane wrapper from a block of writing paper and was congratulated heartily by Hannah for her good aim as well as her good humour. I, on the other hand, made sure I leaned into every turn, so that the car would not roll over the edge of the road and plummet to the bottom of the mountains. Dave seemed to enjoy my squirming. We stopped for lunch in a small medieval hilltop town called Leuk. It ‘leuked’ kind of cool: authentic, in a mid 12th century kind of way, and very sleepy. We were, as it turns out, not aware of where the border between French speaking Switzerland and Swiss-German Switzerland lay. Apparently, we had crossed it. German is not a language that either Dave or I have had any exposure to and so we were high-fiving each other when we managed to order a baked cheesy-hammy-with-an-egg-on-top sort of thing for lunch - after giggling at all the hilarious German, and completely unrecognizable, words on the menu. Then the bill arrived for 55 euros. We thought that we were being had, as tourists. Maybe the waitress didn’t see the humour in German menu items. Largely annoyed we paid the bill, only to get a lot of our euros handed back, along with a good number of what we discovered were Swiss Francs. Who knew? Maybe we should bone up on this EU thing and figure out who’s in on the currency, and who’s out. Obviously the Swiss are up to something, because they are keeping it separated. Back on the road and up, up, up and over the Simplon pass. It was an incredible drive. Very close to the Matterhorn and a magnificent, barren plateau at the top, surrounded by snow-capped peaks. It reminded both Dave and I of Nepal above the tree line. The drive down into Italy follows a deep, rugged river gorge with stone huts dotting the hillside. Down lower into the valley, we drove through vineyards on the flats and could see massive marble quarries on the cliffs rising up into the hills surrounding. I pulled out my Italian phrasebook and started rolling off my best Italiano. Dave grew tired of this after about the first 30 seconds. We decided to head for Stresa, on Lake Maggiore, after a client of Dave’s had told him it was a favourite spot. The thing about Europe that we find so shocking, as Canadians, is that every square centimeter of land seems to have been conquered, cultivated and built upon. For example, the islands in Lake Maggiore, just off the shore of Stresa, were covered entirely with houses, a castle, churches and cobble-stoned roads. A far cry from our island in Georgian Bay! The shore of Lake Maggiore was lined with large, gated villas obviously built in a grand era. Some looked unoccupied; maybe still owned by the families who first built them. (This got Dave’s real estate curiosity piqued – No Dave we do not need to look into buying an Italian villa.) The hotels facing the lake in the centre of town were colossal and the most glamourous of them were from the belle epoch; full of wrought-iron and glass entrances, the most enormous chandeliers, and beautiful iron balconies, covered in flowers off every room. (We didn’t stay there.) We did stay in a great hotel though. We had a huge room with a terrace and they brought in an extra bed for the girls, complete with white Frette bedspread, and a cot for DeeDee made up with crisp white linens and beautiful Italian baby blankets. Each morning we had to drag the girls away from their dose of Italian cartoons – like Giorgio Shrinks. La dolce vita! It was all very beautiful. I was loving Italy and the waiters in the restaurants were digging my Italian. Sigh. Time to pack it all up and head to Provence to see what we had in store for the year to come. 
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