In 1992, I took my first major international vacation since the divorce, a trip that has become known (to me) as "The Legendary French Trip". I planned to include Southern France, Northern Italy, and Switzerland.
One of my most important goals was to see the Matterhorn in Switzerland (I don't know why, but I had been fascinated by it since I was a kid - perhaps because of the "Matterhorn" in Disneyland.). Weather needed to be considered in this objective, so when I planned the trip, I told myself that when I arrived in Geneva (my port of entry for this trip), I would make a final decision based on the local weather whether to go 'clockwise', and see Switzerland first, or the other way, through France first. However, in planning the trip, I always actually pictured going through France first.
When I arrived it was unusually hot and hazy (this was in May). It was not raining however, so I considered going into Switzerland first. Nevertheless, the influence of planning dominated my decision, and I decided to go through France first after all.
Anyway, I found the Geneva airport to be very nice. It's tiny compared to the mega-airports (although I think I had to change planes in Paris on this trip). Unfortunately, the rental car wasn't even near the airport - I had to take a shuttle all the way into downtown Geneva (I hate it when that happens!). On the plus side, there was a babe in a mini-skirt at the rental counter, and getting back out of Geneva proved to be no problem (there's some sort of "corridor" into France).
On the way, I looked for the "Jet D'Eau", the 500 foot tall water fountain that should have been jetting in Lake Geneva, but was apparently offline. (It was still off when I got back. The only time I've ever seen it was from a plane coming back over the Alps from Italy. It was impressive to be able to see it from 30,000 feet!)
I had arrived in the morning of course, and I headed straight for my first night's stop: Annecy in France. I was there on my first trip to France in 1980 and knew it was very nice. It's not far from Geneva, only 30 miles or so.
I hadn't gone very far, though, before I had to stop, in some unusually hard to find shade from the hot sun, and take off some of the layers of clothing I had worn on the plane. I had just crossed over a fairly large bridge, and I turned off into the first copse of trees and shade I'd seen since starting out. I took off all my tops except my turtleneck and rested for a moment.
Then I headed down the small road I had turned onto looking for a place to turn around. I turned into a driveway with a sign I could just translate as "eggs for sale" and before I knew it ended up in front of an old farm house. As I was beginning to try to turn around, an absolutely classic little old French farm wife came out of the house waving her arms saying something which I translated roughly as "no eggs today". I tried to indicate I was just trying to turn around, but she didn't understand. About this time I discovered that I didn't know how to put the car into reverse! (Eventually I found that you had to pull up on a little handle on the gearshift knob to unlock reverse, but I had just picked up the car and this was the first time I'd needed it.)
Anyway I tried to turn around without using reverse, but came perilously close to the lady's garden when she called out, rather alarmedly: "attencion, le jardin!", which I translated quite positively into "look out for my garden, you American buffoon!". (OK, well I assumed that last part.)
I finally got turned around, in fact I think I found the reverse at that point, and I got out as quickly as I could, possibly calling out an apology, grateful that she hadn't gone back inside to get her shotgun. I like to think that, for years afterward, she told the story of the crazy American who came one day to try to drive over her garden!
So, after that little adventure, I continued on to Annecy, slightly cooler now in lighter clothes. By the way, my little cheapest rental car available didn't have air conditioning and also, for those reading this in the distant future, this heat wave in France was a few years before the famous one around 2002 or so that killed so many people. Of course, with global warming, who knows how many there've been since then.
I got to Annecy around lunchtime and found a very nice little restaurant with outdoor seating near Lake Annecy (no view of the lake though). I asked to sit outside, but had to indicate "sans soleil" to get a table with an umbrella. I had a delicious chicken dish with mustard, and caught my breath. You should understand that at this point I hadn't slept for over 24 hours and had spent 7 hours on a plane, so I was very tired. Also, I was disappointed to find all the new development around Annecy that one had to drive through coming in.
After lunch, though, I walked over to the lake and found a beach with topless French babes sunbathing. This perked up my spirits considerably. I was also close to the old town at this point and the new development was already out of the way. I walked along the lake and visited the "Jardin de L'Europe" (?), a gorgeous garden and arboretum along the lakeside.
(In researching this I found a very nice website at www.annecytourisme.com with movies and pictures of the town. I see I should have visited the Chateau for the view - I'll have to go back!)
Then I entered the old town and found a room at the very same hotel Mother, Cindy (my ex-wife), and I had stayed in in 1980. This hotel is right on the first open area where the canals begin in the old town, and the entrance is though the church next door(!) In 1980, there were cats everywhere and the whole hotel smelled of cat pee - very colorful, n'est pas? By this point, over 10 years later, the smell was gone but a new problem surfaced by evening.
My room was on the ground floor facing the square and it was Friday night. It was still very warm and I had to leave the windows wide open to let in the breeze. Unfortunately this also let in all the noise from the many sidewalk cafes open late into the night. As best I recall, I slept pretty well considering, since I was so tired. Before going to bed I had a nice poison, I mean poisson, dinner in one of the outdoor cafes myself.
The next day, I continued on toward my next stop, Le Puy in central France. If anything the day was hotter as I approached my first stop in Vienne, a very old town with the ruins of a Roman temple and amphitheater, as well as an archeological dig. Vienne is not too big and I was able to park fairly near the center of town, which is situated on a hillside above a river. First I visited the temple, a small classic structure which is a twin of one in Nimes that we had caught a glimpse of in 1980 (see that story). I had started up the hill toward the theater when I spotted a very modest snack bar with outdoor seating. Since it was about lunch time I went in to find two cute French girls behind the counter waiting to take my order. I asked for a hot dog and a coke (I had a lot of cokes on this trip) with "glacons" (ice cubes). After a short wait they produced a tray with the coke and a hot dog in a hollowed out mini-baguette. I paid and took the tray outside.
I began eating but before long I realized there was no hot dog in the hot dog! I went back inside just as the girls were discovering they had forgotten to put it in the roll. They were very embarrassed and we had a good laugh. I got my hot dog and finished my meal. Unfortunately the girls didn't offer me any compensation for their mistake - a kiss would have been nice!
I continued up the hill and visited the theater and then drove across the river to visit the archeological ruins. I then continued on to Le Puy, giving Lyon a wide berth since I don't like big cities for the most part. I stopped for another coke at a tiny hill town called Malleval where I had a conversation with the locals which went like this. Me: "C'est chaud! (It's hot)"; they: "Oui! (yes)". It was actually kind of nice.
Rising out of the Rhone valley, I passed through very nice country by ancient fortified farms and villages. As I approached Le Puy, I found a nice little hotel out in the country, so I went ahead and stopped there and got a room for the night before going into Le Puy, which is a moderate sized town.
Le Puy has several distinctions. There is an unusual hill (actually two) near the center of town with a church on top, and there is a castle. In addition, Le Puy is the starting point for one of the most famous pilgrimages of medieval times, still followed by many today.
Anyway, after trying to visit the castle, which was closed, I walked around the lovely park in the center of town, watching the fountain and swans, and the old men playing 'boules' or Petanque, a game like shuffleboard. Then I found a restaurant for dinner, a fairly good if rather oddly cut, 'pave' of beef. Then I returned to the hotel for the night. Actually, at some point, I guess when I arrived, I went for a nice walk in the country behind the hotel as well.
The next day I pressed on toward Carcassonne, a spectacular walled town in southern France near the Pyrennes which I had first visited in 1980. This day was the hottest yet, which was to catch up with me on my arrival.
My route took me through the Gorge du Tarn, the Grand Canyon of France, famous around the time of this writing for being spanned by a new high tech bridge, but then requiring a circuitous descent and climb on tightly winding roads. Actually, my intent was to descend into the canyon and then drive out to the end, but when I got to the bottom I found the road closed due to construction. I successfully communicated with the bartender in a little place in the village and learned that the road was open farther down, but I would have to climb up to the southern rim and then back down again. This route did have the advantage of taking me to a vista of a bend in the river that had attracted my attention in the guide books in the first place.
By the way, every time I say I stopped know that I had a coke with 'glacons' as well, seemingly thirst quenching, but maybe not the best idea as it turned out.
After getting back into the canyon I drove on, under overhanging rocks and by a beautiful estate of some kind, before exiting the canyon and passing through a town called St. Affrique. From there it was down out of some hills and on to Carcassonne in the middle of the hot Sunday afternoon.
Although there is a limited amount of traffic allowed into the narrow one way streets of the walled city, this didn't apply on Sundays and I had to park my car outside the walls a little downhill from the town. It was walking up into town where the 3 days of heat and too many cokes and not enough plain water caught up with me. I nearly fainted! Subsequent research revealed that I had the symptoms of "heat exhaustion" which comes on over a longer period than, say, sunstroke.
Fortunately I found a nice hotel immediately and they gave me a ride in a golf cart down to pick up my luggage. I took a lukewarm bath, had something to drink, and rested through the hottest part of the afternoon, pretty much the right thing to do. The streets were quite crowded with weekend tourists as well, so I didn't really miss out on walking around.
I could see and hear a small restaurant across the narrow street from my room on the second floor, and, when I was sufficiently rested, I went down for dinner. The menu showed "lamb cassoulet", a dish I very much wanted to try, so I sat down and ordered that plus my standard coke with ice, only to be told "pas glacons, messieur". I left without the lamb cassoulet and still haven't had the dish to this day, but I can't kick myself too hard - I really needed that ice! I had a fair sausage platter in another restaurant and looked around the town in the evening. Carcassonne is a living city with permanent residents, schools, and a cathedral, as well as shops and restaurants, and is one of the great walled towns of Europe. I also dropped by the hotel that Mother and I stayed in in 1980 which is in the walls and looks over the new town. It has become fancier and would have been too expensive even if I had been able to get to it before fainting! I hope to visit again someday.
The next morning I had breakfast in the hotel, including some vile looking orange juice (it was such a dark orange) which turned out to be delicious, and then proceeded on toward Arles, site of a large Roman colosseum. The weather began to turn cloudy which cooled things off considerably, but ultimately turned to rain and incipient depression, but I'll get to that later.
On the way I stopped at another major destination, the awesome Pont du Gard, an incredibly large Roman aqueduct built between 40 and 60 AD to carry water to nearby Nimes. It's about 150 feet high and 900 feet long. One of the coolest things about it is the fact that it continued to carry water after the fall of the Roman Empire, roughly as if a hundred years from now nuclear power plants continued to provide power after the fall of Western civilization (although I hope you, dear reader, are not enduring such a fall!). Quite a few science fiction books have been built on a similar premise (that technology might continue to work after its creators are long gone), here is an example of that actually happening.
After seeing the aqueduct, I continued on to the vicinity of Arles, again finding a hotel in the country before going into town. The hotel was very pleasant, with a cool frog pond and a church that had been converted into a restaurant. I would have dearly loved to have eaten there, but the menu was just too darn fancy!
So I went into town to visit the amphitheater, which is still in use to this day nearly 2000 years after it was built. Contrast that to the way we tear down and rebuild our stadiums after 10 or 20 years! (Portions of these couple of days of the trip are a blank in my memory, so pending finding the notes I kept, this section may be a little sparse.)
The next day I continued on toward the Riviera, visiting Avignon (the home of the papacy during the Great Schism), the Palaix des Papes, and the bridge upon which the French children's song "Sur le pont, D'Avignon" is based. In Avignon, I also sought out a music (CD) store to look for some contemporary French pop music. When I asked to see the popular music section they showed American pop(!) and I had to clarify my desires. I bought a few CDs.
Again pending a review I believe I also visited Aigues Mortes this day. This is another large walled town, but its location on very flat terrain near, but not on, the Mediterranean is not as picturesque as Carcassonne even though it may well be a little larger. It was nice, though, and I had a shrimp lunch in an outdoor cafe that was pretty good, or bad, I'm not sure now!
I finally reached the Riviera at a town called le Lavendou and stayed in a hotel on the road at the anti-beachward side of the older part of town. Le Lavendou looked like it would be very nice in season, but it was nearly raining by this time and the town was pretty dead. I had an incredibly good variation on Cole Slaw, I think made with "celery root", in a little food shop, and a definitely bad dinner nearby later.
The bad dinner was an attempt to get "Coq au Vin", a dish which ought to be good, but was ruined here by the European penchant for cutting meat in odd ways. In this case, the chicken was simply chopped at random with no regard for its natural divisions, resulting in the odd sharp bone or cartilage throughout the dish. Why do they do this!
The next day I continued along the Riviera, the rain definitely in evidence. It was around about here that I definitely started to get depressed about the possibility that I wouldn't be able to see the Matterhorn, and that I had screwed up the trip. The Riviera is now fully developed along its entire length at least from le Lavendou to Menton at the Italian border, and that was depressing as well. The only remaining open country, and it's not much, was the park at Massif de l'Esterel , a rock formation that comes down to the sea along the way. I skipped Nice and Monaco this trip, although I did see both of those places back in 1980.
I think it was along the way this day that I also visited Les Baux in Provence, site of a famous 3 star restaurant and a famous ruined hill town. It wasn't time to eat though, and I didn't find the restaurant, but I did climb up to the ruins for a look around.
In Menton, I had a hard time finding a nice place for lunch and ended up getting a very bad one in a little hole in the wall along a pedestrian street. I felt like I just had to get out of Menton even though it was still early, so I headed north away from the coast toward the mountain border with Italy. I didn't get very far inland before I found a little mountain inn that looked fairly nice, and I stopped for the day.
The inn was nothing special, just a convenient place to slow down and catch my breath. After a nap, I got ready for dinner at the hotel's relatively modest restaurant.
The reason I'm mentioning any of this is the soup I had at dinner. Called Soupe au Pistou ('pistou' being a Provencal basil-garlic sauce), it was one of the best dishes I've ever had. It was basically similar to a very good American Minestrone soup with an incredibly rich garlic flavor. It was, to be more specific, what I expected real good Italian Minestrone to taste like. I was to test that theory the next night.
The next morning, I continued on toward Italy in weather that remained depressing. The border was at a mountain pass and there were two money change kiosks, one on the left side of the road, and one farther along on the right. I passed by the first and stopped at the second, only to find it closed. I looked back to the other but decided to go on, figuring I could change money somewhere along the way. Bad Idea.
Because, when I got to the Autostrada, I still didn't have any cash. I asked if a credit card would be accepted, but the answer appeared to be 'no'. I parked and looked for someone to help, but couldn't find anyone at all. Finally, I just went though the entry to take my chances.
At the exit, they simply gave me the equivalent of a traffic ticket for an amount equal to the toll plus a ridiculously small fine, and told me I could pay it at any post office. By the way, when I say that someone in Italy told me something, understand that they did so with a few English words and a lot of hand gestures!
Anyway, I drove straight through Turin looking for a bank without finding any. That was partly because I was on a parkway through the center of town and I was hesitant to leave it for fear of traffic and getting lost. I continued all the way to Stresa on Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy near the Swiss border, a spot that would have been gorgeous if it weren't for a combination of the bad weather and air pollution, but still wasn't bad.
I found a temporary parking place and set out to find a hotel. On a short pedestrian-only street near the lake I found the Hotel Moderno which looked pretty nice. After checking in, I asked where I could park for the night and they gave me a little map and indicated the closest city lot. With some difficulty, I negotiated my way through the narrow streets to the lot and walked back.
The hotel was modest but really quite nice. It didn't have a view of the lake, but there was a nice little balcony over the narrow pedestrian street and, close by on the other side, a large church which dominated the view completely. In the morning, I was awakened by the church bells, apparently designed to wake the dead!
But before that, I had dinner at the hotel, and as promised, I ordered real Italian minestrone. Well, it was no better or different than good American minestrone, certainly not as good as what I had had the night before. In subsequent visits to Italy, I have never found a minestrone that was as good as that Soupe au Pistou I had in the little nondescript mountain inn above Menton.
Before dinner, I also went to the post office to pay my ticket. There was a lady there who spoke English fairly well and there were no problems.
After a good night's sleep and the aforementioned rude awakening, I checked out and went to get my car. When I got to where I was pretty sure the parking lot had been, I found a very large open air market full of booths and people, but no cars. As I doubted myself as to whether I was even in the right place, I wandered around confused. And then there was my car, right in the middle of the market, which had been built up around it overnight! And on the windshield: another ticket, this one for 50,000 lira (actually only about $45).
Fortunately, there was just enough space for me to maneuver my car out of the market, much to the amusement of some and irritation of others. Unfortunately, in my confusion, I failed to take a picture of the car before I moved it, so my only record of the event are these memories. In years since, I also realized I failed to look around the market itself - it was probably quite interesting - and I was already parked!
What I did do was go back to the hotel to tell them what had happened. When they realized they had failed to recall that I shouldn't have parked in that particular lot on that particular day of the week, they were very embarrassed and apologized profusely. They didn't offer to pay the ticket though, so back I went to the post office.
When the lady there saw it she said "This is too much!", and insisted I go to the police station to complain! Reluctantly, I did so. There, the policeman on duty spoke very little English, and didn't really understand me when I tried to tell him that I had about 30,000 lira left and was going out of the country and would he accept that amount in payment of the ticket?
Later, after I left, it occurred to me he could have thought I was offering him a bribe and I could have gotten in a lot of trouble. What he did do, however, to my surprise, was tear up the ticket and send me on my way! I couldn't help but think this would never have happened in France or Germany - in either of those countries, and Switzerland, too, I can only imagine them being very serious and sticking to the letter of the law. In Italy things are a little more relaxed.
Of course, I also wondered whether tearing up the ticket would actually make it go away, and half expected a big bill to be waiting for me when I turned in the car some days later in Geneva. But nothing more ever came of it.
From there I went on to Switzerland through mountain passes covered with light snow, my weather worries dominating my thoughts once again, getting to Zermat fairly early without too much difficulty otherwise, but with the weather worse than ever.
Zermat is reached by train as, nominally, no cars are allowed in the city. In reality, local cars and trucks are common, which kind of spoils the effect. Anyway, I tried taking the cog railway to Cornergrat hoping that it might take me above the clouds and allow a view of the Matterhorn, but it was completely socked in at the top, and you couldn't see more than 30 feet.
After dinner in a too warm and smoky crowded restaurant, I went to bed that night thinking I had screwed up the trip royally by not going the other way round.
After a poor night's sleep, I got up early and rushed out in the desperate hope that it might have cleared up. The sky was such a light blue I wasn't sure whether it was clear or overcast, until I saw the Moon! I nearly ran to the town square and looked up, and there it was - the Matterhorn in all its glory. And thus began my best day ever on a trip.
I took the cog railway back up to Cornergrat by flocks of Swiss sheep, and this time the top was glorious. I stood above the glaciers, flowing like rivers of ice below me, to look across to the Matterhorn and many other vistas of the Swiss Alps and the Zermatt valley. It was Heaven.
After coming down the mountain I bid farewell to Zermat and continued on toward my next destination, the picturebook village of Grindelwald, literally selected based on its picture in a Swiss Alps calendar.
Grindelwald was in the next major East-West valley north in Switzerland so I had to go through the mountains to get there - literally. I took a train-tunnel (the ---) where you put your car on a train, driving it on yourself, and ride in your car as the train goes through the tunnel, about -- miles long. It didn't take very long and I was approaching Interlaken before lunch time. From there you go up into a another smaller valley to Grindelwald.
Grindelwald is at the foot of the Eiger, the mountain made famous in the book "The Eiger Sanction" by Trevanian, and the movie of the same name starring Clint Eastwood. In addition, the Jungfrau range (the Jungfrau is the highest mountain in Switzerland) is visible from the valley. Also in the valley is the Wetterhorn and the Wetterhorn Glacier, about which more later.
After parking in the town parking lot, I found a restaurant with an outdoor patio overlooking the Eiger and the lower valley and had lunch. I don't recall that the service or food were particularly good, but the view couldn't be beat.
Well, there was one other minor problem, this was the weekend, which is apparently "let's go to the shooting range time". You see, Switzerland encourages gun ownership (rifles anyway), and I saw a number of men on bicycles with rifles slung over their shoulders. And there was a shooting range somewhere in the lower valley (fortunately several miles away), and gunshots could be heard throughout the lunch. Fortunately, this wasn't really a serious problem and I enjoyed my meal.
Afterward I drove over to the aforementioned Wetterhorn and walked up to the foot of the Glacier where they have carved an ice cave! Basically, I was able to walk inside a glacier. It was really, um, cool! And very blue.
After that I looked around for a hotel, and, although I'm sure there are some very nice ones there, I didn't happen to find one. So, despite the fact that it was fairly early, I left Grindelwald and headed down the valley, thinking I would make some headway toward Geneva and home since I had met all my objectives by this point.
About halfway down the valley toward Interlaken, another road branched off up another valley to destinations unknown. I passed by this and continued on toward Interlaken and Geneva, but then stopped and asked myself: "I've got time, why don't I see what's up that valley?"
Well, to jump to the chase, up that valley was Staubach Falls, the highest waterfall in Switzerland (nearly 1000 ft high); another picturebook village: Lauterbrunnen; at least two other waterfalls nearly 1000 ft high, one of which had cut its way completely _into_ the mountainside; all in a glacial valley comparable to Yosemite, but without the crowds. I had no difficulty finding a nice hotel there, and had dinner on a patio overlooking the falls.
People dream of stumbling across the perfect spot on a vacation by luck - I actually did it.
So, I went to bed that night a happy guy, having stood above glaciers gazing at the Matterhorn in the morning, walking inside a glacier midday, and serendipitously finding the highest waterfall in the country in the evening. Not bad for one day!
The next day I finally did continue on toward Geneva, stopping to visit the self-consciously picturesque village of Gruyere alone the way. Gruyere is very nice: it's small and the center of town is a wide pedestrian only "street". I had lunch in yet another outdoor cafe with studiously incompetent matronly waitresses. It had turned hot again, and I watched as my waitress brought out my coke and set it down not 10 feet from while she went off doing other things! Oh well.
Before getting to Gruyere I tried to go through the Jaunpass, but found it closed after climbing a narrow winding road from the valley. There was an awesome view of the mountains to the south across the valley but I ran out of film! I also nearly ran out of gas but found a station with a credit card operated pump. This was Sunday and there were no towns nearby and nothing open, so it was a close call.
It's not far from Gruyere to the east end of Lake Geneva and I drove along the north shore by Chateau de Crillon, an often photographed castle on a little peninsula in the lake. Apparently I should have visited it but I didn't for some reason, although I stopped nearby to walk along the lakefront. As has been the case every other time I've been to or seen Lake Geneva there was smog over the lake which made it difficult to get good pictures. The lake is pretty much surrounded by mountains that hold in the smog from Geneva, Lausanne, and the other cities in the region.
I stopped for the night in Lausanne, or really a little town sandwiched between Lausanne and the lake. I drove into Lausanne, but wasn't very impressed and went back for another walk along the lakeshore.
After that walk, I went back to the hotel, which had an outdoor cafe in front, and ordered a Coke with ice, saying "J'aimerais un demi-bouteille de Coca Cola, avec un verre plein de glacons" as usual, although I didn't always use "J'aimerais" (I would 'love') rather than the less forceful "Je voudrais" (I would 'like'). Anyway, apparently this (and my pronunciation, no doubt) struck the waiter the wrong way, and he said something I didn't understand. I said "Pardon?", and he said, in English, "I could care", and walked off!
The funny thing is he came back promptly with exactly what I'd ordered, his waiterly instincts overriding his French rudeness. Later I thought I could have said (in English): "I love you French waiters!", to which he would have replied haughtily: "I am Swiss, messieur!", to which I would have said: "Enh, French, Swiss, what's the difference?". Whereupon he would have spit in my coke and really walked off!
The next day I drove the short distance back to Geneva, returned the car without difficulty and flew home, thus ending the Legendary French Trip.To Carcassonne
To Arles
To The Riviera
To Menton
To Stresa
To Zermat
Best Day Ever
To Lausanne
And Home
