June 10, 2011: Alexandria, Virginia - A Colonial Wedding

This morning Jenn and I woke to cooler temperatures in New York - thank goodness. We took a taxi over to the airport where we'd reserved our car rental (there are better deals if you're from out of town and renting). Turns out the rental depot wasn't quite at the airport - typically a renter would just be taking the shuttle from the airport to get their car. Our helpful but somewhat heavily accented taxi driver tried asking an airport employee for directions, but couldn't make himself understood - finally I had to roll down my window to ask. How bizarre - I've gotten used to miscommunication after all this time in France, but we were all speaking the same language here - the airport employee just didn't want to make any effort at all.

Apart from that our drive was fairly smooth sailing. It took several hours to get to the Washington DC area, and it was only at the very end, when we got off the highway in Alexandria, Virginia, that we got turned around trying to find our hotel. And then turned around again as we set out for Mount Vernon - you'd think it would be impossible from there to miss the signs leading you to the home of George and Martha Washington. But we made it in time (just)!

Delores and Quoc's shared love of all things historical inspired their colonial-themed wedding, with historic costume for the wedding party and traditional ballroom dancing like you may only have ever seen before in the miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. One of the most unique and memorable weddings I've been to, not to mention a lovely evening to catch up with friends who we see far too infrequently.

 

Starting the procession into the garden

 

The wedding vows

 

The married couple

 

A very modern iPhone metronome on an old-fashioned harpsichord

 

Dancing!

 

Delores lifted her skirt to reveal her old-fashioned silk hosiery

 

More dancing!

 

The musicians (harpsichord and violin) along with a caller to guide everyone in the unfamiliar dance moves

 

Us!

June 9, 2011: New York - Pedicure, High Line Take Two, Mexican, NY History, Sherlock

For the first time in months I'm in an English-speaking country - and it's surprisingly liberating being able to talk without mentally rehearsing first! I've flown in to the USA for the wedding of my friends Delores and Quoc. First stop is New York City, where I'm staying with Jenn, with a chance to do a little sightseeing. Then we'll drive down together to Washington DC. Delores and Quoc are getting married just outside of the city in Virginia, at Mount Vernon, the home of George and Martha Washington.

When I got in last night it felt quite late with the time change, but I wanted to stay awake long enough to make the adjustment more easily. So I planned a dinner outing with Jenn and Gloria, at a restaurant serving Southern-style comfort food - fantastically different from what I've been eating in France. I had kale! Bizarrely I have been unable to find kale for sale anywhere in France's extensive vegetable markets; here it was braised and flavoured with a cider vinegar - very tasty. I also had a delicious meat loaf and mashed potatoes.

Then this morning I went for a pedicure - which is such an easy and inexpensive thing to do in NYC, even more so that in Toronto (and something I hadn't even ventured to attempt in France). I had picked out a place I was interested in, and called up and easily got an appointment for first thing in the morning. After getting all buffed up and polished I headed over to the High Line Park. It's one of my favourite things to visit, especially since it's in the early stages of the plants getting established, so I every time I go it's different. But especially exciting this time was that phase two of the park had just opened the night before.

The weather was very hot and humid, so I stocked up with an icy drink at Starbucks before heading over to the park. By the time I got there my drink was half gone, but happily there are water fountains up on the park, so I could refill with water as I went. It was a bit of an ordeal to walk the length of the park in the heat, but there were some great innovations in the new section of the park - a "double-decker" area, a square of lawn that people were lounging on, and a water "run" for splashing in.

After the park I met Jenn for lunch at a Mexican restaurant - again, another cuisine that I've missed while in France. Then off to the Museum of the City of New York. There was an interesting collection of transportation-themed toys (old-fashioned firetrucks look radically different!), a retrospective of the career of Joel Grey (the father of Jennifer Grey, and a well-known theater guy in his own right, although I think the only role I've seen him in is the bit part on Buffy where he almost kills Dawn at the end of Season 5), and a photography exhibition about the New York Green Cart program. This last one interested me the most - the city has been encouraging the sale of fresh fruits and vegetables in food "deserts" by licensing vendors for those areas.

At the end of the day we stayed in with leftovers, escaping the heat and, as it turned out, a wicked thunderstorm. Hopefully this will cool off the weather before we head down to the South!

 

Water streams down a section of the walkway, forming a splash pad of sorts

 

The lawn, which I would have loved to have lounged on, if not for the heat!

 

This stretch of the park had two levels - you can walk above and below, creating a shady level

June 5, 2011: Chamonix - Snow, Rain, Sun, Marmots, and Mont Blanc

Today we woke to cloudy skies, which wasn't a surprise - the weather report for this weekend hadn't been great. But it was our only chance to see Mont Blanc, so we were going to go up regardless. The Aiguille du Midi cable car is infamous for very long lines (in fact, reservations for scheduled departure times are recommended). But this morning the station had warnings that visibility at the top was zero, so the line-ups were almost non-existent. In fact the ticket sellers were actively discouraging anyone from buying a ticket to ascend. Since we'd already paid for our two-day Mont Blanc pass we didn't have anything to lose by going up, so we did.

At the top we understood better why the visibility was zero. It wasn't just that there was dense fog (although there was). It was that it was also icy cold and about to start snowing. When we first stepped out at the top (3842 m) it was eerily quiet, and the rocky peaks that the station is mounted on disappeared right below us into nothing. We walked around a bit, went inside to get a snack, and came back out. By this time it was snowing - the first snowfall we'd encountered in France! We could feel the altitude change a bit too - I was a little winded climbing up and down the stairs in the station. We were up higher than we'd been at the top of Haleakala in Maui (3000 m), with a faster ascent (about 20 minutes versus 2. 5 hours). It is the highest vertical ascent cable car in the world (going from 1000 m to 3842 m).

We headed back down to the halfway point at Plan de l'Aiguille. Here we were below the clouds, so we could see rolling green hills and rocks - it looked quite a bit like the mountain plateaus in Norway. We got off to take a few quick photos, but since at this altitude the snow had become rain we didn't want to walk around for long.

So, back down to Chamonix. We found a place to eat our sandwich lunch under shelter, looked through some souvenir shops, and tried to find something else to do. There were some good movies at the theatre, but it wasn't open for business until the end of the afternoon. But as we started to run out of options the sun was breaking through, so we took another chance.

Back up in the cable car. This time our luck improved - no more rain and periods of sunshine. We had a good long hike around the midway point, seeing many marmots en route, encountering a beautiful blue lake, and seeing many birds wheeling overhead. It felt a lot like Norway, although with fewer meltwater streams and rivers.

After our hike we took the cable car on the second leg up to the top, then the elevator the last little distance to the observatory and had glimpses of Mont Blanc through the shifting clouds - amazingly dramatic as it shone out, bright white with its snow covering. It was hard to believe that it was June - it looked like the dead of winter. It was also hard to believe that it is in fact possible to hike to the peak, but there was a cabin visible just below us (but no sign of anyone there today!).

We would have liked to take the additional cable car that follows a largely horizontal trajectory to Hellebronner, crossing to the Italian side of the border, but it had been closed all day due to the zero visibility. So, alas, no Italian visit for us during our time in Europe.

Our SNCF bus ride home was a big improvement over the trip to Chamonix - just one bus, with a few stops along the way. As with all our bus trips there was a very narrow twisting road; this one leapfrogged on bridges back and forth over a river at the base of a steep valley, wherever there was enough space for the road to cling to. In many parts it was roofed over with heavy duty concrete structures - I can only imagine the snowslides/landslides/rockslides that can come crashing down from the almost vertical walls rising above. It's apparently the most expensive stretch of road, per kilometer, to maintain in France. But I guess the allure of the resorts in Chamonix Mont Blanc make it all worth while.

 

A path of flattened trees on the steep mountainside - an avalanche route?

 

Icy conditions at the top of our cable car ascent

 

A tiny church in Chamonix

 

Cable car emerging from the fog

 

Marmots! Can you see both in this photo?

 

Blue mountain lake

 

A small stream (you could hear it under the rocks before it finally emerged into the grassy area)

 

A hiker's chalet

 

Another marmot, enjoying the view of Chamonix far below

 

A huge glacier flowing down the mountain

 

The view from the top!

 

Even up at the observatory there were birds

 

A tunnel of snow en route to an observation deck

 

Part one of the descent

 

Part two of the descent 

 

The buildings in Chamonix couldn't have been any more "alpine" - gingerbread trim, flower boxes, heart-shaped cut-outs, reindeer, skis and snowshoes as decoration

June 4, 2011: Chamonix - 1 Bus, 3 Trains, A Rack Railway, a Cable Car and a Glacier

For our last full weekend together in France (we'll be traveling throughout the rest of June, so still in Grenoble almost another month, but not on weekends) I wanted to do one last trip. On the almost unanimous advice of my French friends we chose to visit Chamonix Mont-Blanc.

Chamonix would have been easier to reach by car. It's not a long drive, whereas the train and bus options were a bit tedious and convoluted. But we've managed to travel lots of France so far without needing a car, and we stubbornly wanted to stick to that. I also dread the notion of driving narrow hairpin turns while resurrecting my rusty stick shift abilities. It was hard to say without having been there before, but if you're visiting Europe's tallest mountain it seems like a safe assumption that there could be some twisty mountain roads.

So, no car. The trip home on Sunday would actually be quite decent (just one bus direct to Grenoble, run by the SNCF train company). But getting there was more difficult. Our best option was to head out before 7:00am on Saturday, catching an early SNCF bus to Chambéry. Once there we'd have a short 20-minute layover, then our first train to Annecy. A layover of just a few minutes and we took our second train to St-Gervais-Les-Bains. Then an hour-long layover and our third and final train to Chamonix. It took almost five hours in total, but the scenery from the train was beautiful and the ride was relaxing.

One of the final wrenches thrown into the works was that the woman at the SNCF train station in Grenoble who issued my tickets did it incorrectly. I had spent considerable time researching the best connections (not easy, since the SNCF website only calculates journeys of three legs or less, and we needed four) and I had written down the time and train number for each leg of the journey, but she didn't pay attention to that - just typed in the destinations, and ended up issuing tickets that would have made the journey more than an hour longer. I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she was being cautious about us not having missed connections. Happily we were able to use the tickets for the earlier trains, since the prices were the same. I really appreciate the flexibility of the SNCF over Via Rail in Canada!

Chamonix is definitely the most touristy place we've visited, apart from some parts of Paris (like the Eiffel Tower). It felt a bit Disneyfied, since it was nothing but hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops, but you can't deny the genuine beauty of the surrounding mountains. We checked in to our hotel, then headed up on the Montenvers rack railway to the Mer de Glace. I greatly enjoyed our trip by this historic method of transit (I really do have a thing for unusual trains). It didn't follow as steep a grade as the funicular railway at Saint-Hilaire, but it was still quite steep.

There was an additional cable car at the end to take us down to the Mer de Glace, France's largest glacier. After dismounting from the cable car there are about two or three hundred more steps down to the "tunnel of ice", which is freshly carved every year so that visitors can walk INSIDE THE GLACIER! If we'd visited in 1980, however, we would have had almost no steps down from the cable car - because that's how high the glacier level was at that time. On the walk down there are multiple signs recording the glacier level in 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2005. It is astounding how much the glacier has shrunk.

After returning to Chamonix we had a pleasant dinner sitting outside on a plaza that passes over the Arve river. It's a very fast-flowing river with an unusual opaque grayish-turquoise appearance from all of the mountain sediment - not exactly pretty, but very striking.

 

On the Montenvers railway

 

One of many small waterfalls coursing down

 

Note the high zone of eroded land at the base that's been scraped bare by the glacier

 

The historic hotel (from the late 1800s, even before the railway existed)

 

Cable car down to the glacier

 

There was a little British boy in our cable car - just as I pointed out the fallen wrench to Mark, he piped up with "Look - a spanner" (until that moment I didn't know the British had a different word for a wrench)

 

Mark would have been encased in glacier at this point in 1990 - now it is far below

 

We touch the inside of a glacier!

 

Slightly odd decorating scheme of the glacial tunnel - illuminated historic photographs. There was also carved ice furniture - but you couldn't sit on it, so what's the point?

 

Amazing turquoise light coming from within the ice

 

Standing inside the glacier looking out

 

Old entrances to ice tunnels of years past; the glacier advances so far each day that eventually the tunnels deform too much to be passable

 

A group of hikers carefully picked their way down the glacial crevasses

 

A small museum of mountain animals had some very odd taxidermy - this appears to be a squirrel dancing with a marmot!

 

The Mer de Glace

 

The early steam locomotive used by the Montenvers railway; if I understood the French signage correctly it had to stop periodically to "refuel" with ice, and consumed 400 kg of charcoal en route

 

Mark standing on the bridge over the Arve River

 

A restaurant overlooking the river (they must have really good spring flooding control over the river's flow)

June 2, 2011: Grenoble - Rain, Croutons, Crypts, Hannibal

Today was a rainy day, which left us a bit at loose ends.

First: lunch. During which I attempted homemade croutons for the first time. Why have I never done this before? They were fantastic - stale baguette cut in cubes, slowly pan fried in butter and olive oil, seasoned with herbes de Provence. I have a new obsession.

Next: the St. Laurent Crypts. After enjoying my solitary visit so much I wanted to share the experience with Mark. It was noticeably busier today, which was probably due to the fact that it was raining - everyone else was seeking out indoor activities. But the museum was still great.

Finally: the Hannibal exhibition at the Musée Dauphinois. I'm fascinated by the idea that Hannibal and his troops (including the elephants) may very well have trod across some of the same Alpine land as us. Of course we'll never know for sure - there are umpteen competing theories of the exact route. The exhibition was a little disappointing though - skimpy on artifacts, and without more advanced French it was tedious to read panel after panel.

May 29, 2011: Saint-Hilaire du Touvet - Hiking Up and Down, Parapente

Oh French breakfasts. Even though we were going to be spending the day outdoors in sporty pursuits, much like the majority of the B&B guests, breakfast was the usual light fare for France: bread, more bread, croissant and yet more bread. With juice and tea or coffee. And butter and jam. I ate as much bread as possible, and then we found a grocery store so that we could get a little additional protein and fruit to keep us going. We picked up enough to make ourselves a sandwich lunch, and then we were off.

Today we headed up into the escarpment that towers above Saint-Hilaire. If we were really ambitious it seemed like there might be a way to get to the top, at which point we'd be getting up into the Chartreuse area. But we weren't quite that ambitious. The trail was a lot of up. And more up. With eventually some across, which was more scenic and enjoyable. Along the way we passed a rowdy group of French partiers, who offered us drinks as we hiked past. We declined - it wasn't even lunch yet! Eventually we hiked back down again - not an entirely satisfying loop, but at least the up was a welcome change from the unrelenting down of the day before.

So for the rest of the afternoon we relaxed - hanging out on the hillside watching the parapentes glide by. Today the wind conditions were ideal for take-off, so there was a constant stream of parachutes inflating and dropping over the precipice. Some very skillful parapenters were even doing tricks in the sky, managing to swinging about in sommersaults.

 

We passed an adorable family of sheep as we started our hike

 

Another glorious day of sunshine

 

A stone wall along the path through the forest - seems like a huge amount of effort, but maybe it was more of a major roadway in the past?

 

The white stones of this dry stream bed reminded me of large bones

 

Parapente drifting past the village church

 

Parapentes taking off over the precipice

 

There may be two people up there together - an instructor and a neophyte?

 

We could watch the parapentes for hours, peacefully sailing through the sky