A Montanan (and his family and friends) heads to les montagnes

The train strike continues to remind us that we are indeed living in France. Thankfully, after learning Kathy and Alex's scheduled trains to Paris were canceled yesterday, we were able to help them get on an earlier train and they made it to the airport after a bit of reorganizing (we kept talking about how you have to be flexible when you travel... this train strike is proof of that!). They should be on their way home right now.

It was a great visit -- and I think the highlight for our family was the trip to Chamonix-Mt Blanc in Les Alpes. (As an aside, Jack has been learning in school of all of the mountain ranges in France, and spent much of the trip describing not only where we were -- "Oh, we are now in Les Juras!" but describing the geography and history of the area (granted, some of his measurements were quite a bit off -- he told us, quite confidently, that Mt Blanc was 8,400 meters... when in fact it is closer to 4,800 or so). Still, I continue to be impressed with the schools here and all he is learning.)

It was Alex and Kathy who suggested heading to the Alps... we hadn't considered going there (just so many places to choose from), and now are so glad they did. Our friends John and Alli recommended heading to Chamonix, the site of the first winter Olympics and one of the four main cities of the region (the others-- Grenoble, Annecy, and Chambery, are much larger). Because they haven't steered us wrong so far, that's where we went. Since we are in a shoulder season (not the prime skiing time, nor the gorgeous summer mountaineering time), I was able to find a great deal on a little apartment right in the town, complete with small kitchenette and an indoor heated swimming pool (virtually guaranteeing that our kids would be thrilled, mountains or not).

To get there, we had to drive through The Autoroute of the Titans. Now, I am coming to believe if someone has taken the time to give a road a really great name (I'm thinking more "The Going to the Sun Road" versus "The New Jersey Turnpike"), it probably is going to be a great drive. That theory held up here, as we soared high above the valley on a road that included 12 viaducts and three tunnels and that did seem to be built by, or for, giants.

We had a picnic lunch at a beautiful rest stop on the amazing autoroute and headed into Chamonix in the afternoon. The mountains seemed to swallow us up as we drove into town, and with the high clouds, we couldn't see the tops of them. Our kids went swimming while Kathy and Alex went off to explore town.

The next day, after a morning swim and a bit of clearing of cloudcover, we decided to head up a cog railroad to Montenvers (and I mean UP, straight up), where we had a cheese-filled lunch before riding a gondola halfway down a mountain and then climbing down 300 steps into an ice cave drilled into a glacier.

Yes... the adventure involved: train travel practically straight up a mountain, a gondola ride straight down the other side of the mountain, a precarious walk down hundreds of stairs, and an adventure in an ice cave, which is slowly moving along with the rest of the glacier. It's like they made it just to make kids happy.

The glacier is called Mer de Glace (Sea of Ice) and it's the largest glacier in France (the picture to the left is from Wkipedia -- we didn't get that kind of view or blue skies on our trip -- but it shows the wavelike look of the grand glacier). The caves were incredible (and a tiny bit creepy... would they *really* stay up?) and the depth and vastness of the glacier as well as the markers that show how much it has receded in the last decades were awesome in that "awe" sense of the word (versus the Valley Girl sense).

We saw some skiers making their way down the glacier and then back up all of those stairs, despite all of the ice and melting snow. I think John contained his envy quite well -- this is one of the first years in the last 34 or 35 that he hasn't been skiing. I told him we'd come back, just us, to ski and explore more some day. I really hope we do.

After marching back up those 300 stairs (Jack said he counted just 296), we rode the gondola back up the mountain in clouds, had a chocolat chaud in the cafe, and rode the cog railway back down (down, down) the other side of the mountain. Dinner for the kids followed, then one more swim, and the kids were out. That's when John and I found the non-cheesey Japanese restaurant and enjoyed a rare date night.

The next morning gave us our best views of "the mountain", Mont Blanc, which is the highest mountain in the European Union. We could easily have spent the whole day watching parachuters landing outside of our window with the beautiful background of mountains.

We could even see the mountains from the pool . As another aside, Kate and Liv have made huge strides in their swimming during these two April trips we've made... by the last day, both were floating on their own with no life jacket or arm floaties, both were plucking pennies off the floor of the shallow end, and both were jumping into the deep end without holding on to our hands (we were there to catch them, of course... but until now both were nervous about jumping in without a hand to hold on to).

We reluctantly said goodbye to Chamonix at noon, and decided to take a bit of a scenic way home. John plugged some coordinates into the GPS, and at first I thought it was leading us far, far astray, and up a precarious tiny road that seemed to be zigzagging to the summit of Mont Blanc! With complete calm, John just kept driving up and up and up (while my fingers returned to the well-worn grips in the same minivan we rented when his parents were here and we zoomed through the autobahn in Germany) and eventually the road started gradually going down and down, through some of the most beautiful small mountain villages and countryside I have seen.

We stopped for a picnic lunch in a small village along Lac d'Annecy, then went into a cafe for dessert, coffee and bathrooms. (Yes, that is a tattoo of Dora the Explorer on Liv's head. Sometimes you just can't prevent these kinds of things from happening).

A few hours later, and we were "home". We are definitely thinking of this house in Villers-la-Faye as home, and are trying to block out all the thoughts of how hard it will be to leave it in just a few weeks. But they will be good weeks, at least (not that the last weeks and months have been so bad!). The kids will return to school Monday, and my mom and our friend Sharon will come for a visit in late April, and more and more flowers and trees are blooming each day. And the best part of all -- we have no train trips planned for a while!

A view of things to come

We are happily back in Villers-la-Faye, and had a wonderful time in Les Alpes. I will post a proper update and photos tomorrow, but here is a sneak, um, peak of our quick trip to the mountains. Note the parachuting/hang-gliding dude just above the top of the peaks on the right side of this first picture -- this was taken from our hotel room balcony, where we all had a good time this morning watching people nearly land in our living room. (Photos courtesy Alex P., because I was too lazy to download my own pictures, but he thoughtfully shared all of his with me already).

I also realized sometime this morning that Chamonix and the Alps have felt the least foreign of all places I have seen so far in France (I say this despite the fact that this revelation came to me when returning with my two baguettes from the boulangerie... something that has never once occurred in the delicious bakery-deprived southern Alberta). 

I think part of the reason is simply that it is a newer town than most we have seen in France, "discovered" in the late 1700s and developed in the late 1800s. So the buildings and town layout and lack of Roman ruins, moats, castle walls and convents had a familiar feel from the beginning -- at least more familiar than most places we've been here. But I also realized that it just had that great mountain town feel -- natural beauty and blue skies and smiling people -- something I am happily quite familiar with, having grown up in a town with an altitude of 8,500 feet (2,590 meters) above sea level, nestled at the base of Pike's Peak.

And as always -- however good the trip was -- I was also so glad to be home this evening. Next step: trying to help Kathy and Alex get to the airport in the midst of ongoing periodic rail strikes tomorrow. I want to just shrug my shoulders (one very French response), but instead I am stuck at the sigh (another French response). On verra.

Springtime at Le Chateau de la Rochepot

We decided to take a short day trip to a nearby castle while John was in Lyon (his talk went very well, by the way, and he enjoyed meeting with some of his European counterparts and talking shop. He did get caught up in some more train strike dramas (possibly a different strike altogether, but he eventually made it home), and he certainly didn't fall in love with Lyon, a city of nearly a half million to the south of us. If anything, he returned a bigger fan of Beaune than ever before).

So while he was hard at work, Kathy and Alex and the kids and I all headed to the Le Chateau de la Rochepot, about 10 kilometers south of Beaune. It dates back to the 13th century, and although much of it was torn down after the Revolution in 1789 (many of the stones were used to build houses in the village), the Carnot family restored this rocky-topped chateau in the 19th century.

These things (old castles, monasteries, churches, moats, dungeons, convents, cobbled streets, etc) *still* take our breath away (young and old).

We had to walk across a real drawbridge to get to the door, and it said to knock three times. Then we waited... and wondered who would answer. A very nice young French woman did, as a matter of fact... although one who (I found out later) lived in Hannah, Alberta, for two months last year to practice her English!

We got to wander through a few of the rooms, and then waited for a guided tour (with English notes for non-French speakers). I was worried Kate and Liv wouldn't do well during the tour, but they loved it. I think they are beginning to understand quite a bit of spoken French, even if they still aren't using much French themselves.

Jack's comprehension is just great. As if I needed proof -- after we left the tour, I started to ask the guide a question about something she had said. Jack answered me (fairly accurately) before she could!  Pas mal, n'est pas?

Editor's note (after adding pictures): Jack was clearly the most photogenic today. I have so many great shots of him, and not as many of Kate and Liv. I think it speaks to just how much this (not-so-) little boy loves castles (ask him about the guard room and its many magnificent weapons if you want to get some good stories) -- and how the girls were a bit tired, too (Liv's meltdown when it came time to leave -- she did NOT want to leave -- was proof of that, I suppose).