Le Franco Phoney

I recently wrote about the lovely baby goats I got to feed and pat at the refuge near Thônes called Le Ferme des Vônezins. The ones pictured here are different goats in a very accessible place, and I’m surprised that I haven’t written about this before, given the photo on my ‘About me‘ page features goats from the same farm.

The goat farm at the very end of the Les Confins area of La Clusaz is open all year ’round. In winter, the goats are kept in a big shed with barn doors that are only closed at night and during the coldest weather. Most days, you can stand by the barn doors and the goats will come to the barrier for a pat. The adult goat pictured in the photo was attracted to the brush on her side of the barrier, and she enjoyed scratching for about five minutes while we patted her and watched the antics of the others. They’re entertaining to watch and the farm is one of my favourite places in winter in La Clusaz.

In spring, summer and autumn, the goats graze in the fields higher above the farm. You can walk through the fields with them. Most of them are shy without the security of the barn, but if you’re calm enough, one or two might come over to say hello. Best of all, those green collars tell you the goat’s name.

At the start of spring, when there’s still too much snow on the grass, the goats start producing baby goats. The newborns have a special pen where they can play together. The pen is accessible to visitors who can experience the feeling of a baby goat sucking their finger, and the goats being generally adorable, as pictured in the top photo.

When visitors have had their fill of watching the goats, they can buy cheese at the shop next door. There’s a choice of ridiculously stinky cheeses that I would never attempt to eat right down to fresh goat’s cheese, covered with herbs or spices, which tastes as inoffensive as cream cheese.

Of all the touristy things available in La Clusaz, this is the most popular with my visitors  (apart from skiing and snowboarding, of course). It’s a crowd-pleaser with kids and adults alike, and in all the years I’ve lived here and taken visitors to the farm, I’ve never been bored. Now, if only I can talk the staff into setting up a goatcam…

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After looking up in a street in Annecy and seeing a sign that shows the pedestrianised area used to be a main highway, I’ve started looking up more frequently. My efforts were rewarded pretty quickly when I saw this cow on top of a bus stop!

Annecy has never hosted the Cow Parade, so seeing a random cow on top of a bus stop shelter does seem a bit unusual. However, the area is known for its local cheeses, especially Reblochon and Tomme Blanche, so maybe a cow on a bus stop shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. I’ve no idea why it’s there or how long it’s been there.  It reminds me of the big shark tail poking out of a house in Oxford, and I’m sure there are plenty of other examples of giant animal figurines in various parts of the world. Do you know of any others?

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You might remember my rant a few years ago about the lack of fly wire screens in rural France despite the high number of flies due to the cows. This year, the late spring has kept fly numbers down. This would be fantastic if it were warm enough to leave the windows open and sit outside. On the rare sunny day this spring, the flies have come out in force, and when summer finally arrives in St Jean de Sixt, the flies will be owning those mounds of cow poo in the fields.

Pictured are just a few of the fly eradication instruments I’ve tried using over the years. Let me give you the low-down on these. The giant fly swat was a gift all the way from Australia. It’s powerful, and I used it for a good few months before the fragility of the plastic gave way to the force behind the swats: the broken plastic makes the swat less effective. The size of the swat also meant that it was slow in comparison to its smaller counterpart, although I did once manage to kill two flies on the same hit with the big fly swat. The most frustrating part is that those holes are just a bit too big to make the flies stick to the swat after the initial hit. How to transport them to the bin?

The tennis racquet swat is actually a battery-powered zapping machine. A friend bought it for me: she knows how much I detest flies in my house, and she’s aware of my inability to use fly paper because, let’s face it, a quick death has got to be preferable to being stuck to a surface until you’ve run out of energy to live. This killer zapper has a button at the base of the handle that you press as the fly is about to touch the wires. I zapped, but the flies seemed to keep moving. I tried zapping for longer and I could smell the burning insects. It was horrible! On top of that, this one also has the same problem of transportation from place of death directly to the bin. There’s no easy method. The racquet now hangs alongside the oversized fly swat, unused, but on standby for emergency situations.

Meanwhile, the trusty everyday fly swat trumps both of them. It’s fast, accurate, and seems most effective for the quick death bit. Swat once more and the fly sticks to the swat for easy disposal at the bin. The smiley face on this one seems a bit merciless, and the corner has also fallen off after excessive use, but it still works. So, if you’re in the French Alps this summer, forget all the gadgets and buy the cheapo fly swat. It has the official Wendy-the-fly-assassin stamp of approval. What more do you need?

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One of the great things about Annecy is how quickly it sprouts from a wintery, quiet town into a lively hive of activity. By May, vibrant flower pots line the gushing canals, and the ice cream shops already have queues of people shuffling sideways to see what flavours are on offer.

You might remember that I wrote about the old highway signpost in the pedestrianised zone of Annecy. This has prompted me to look up around town more, and I’ve already seen a few interesting things. I snapped this photo a week later on one of the rare blue-sky days in May. The weather was so agreeable that these two guys decided to have their lunch on the balcony, surrounded by lots of flowers and streaming sunshine.

The pedestrians at ground level walked on, unaware of the guys on the balcony watching them pass every now and then. They looked over at me when I got my obvious SLR out of my bag to line up a photo. I smiled and they returned the gesture, apparently not bothered by the lens, and turning their attentions back to their conversation. Their reaction is the type of laid-back feeling I love in Annecy at this time of year, before it’s swamped with summer visitors, but warm enough for the locals to enjoy.

The only downside is that the lake is still far too cold for this Australian to even dip a toe in. This year, I’ve solved that problem: I’m off to Greece and various other places for a month! I’ll still be posting some blog entries, which I’m madly preparing before I leave. So sit back like these guys and enjoy the upcoming views and stories.

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One of the most challenging things about living in a foreign country is learning their language and culture. I’m not sure out of those two which is the most difficult in France: the language takes time to learn, with exceptions to every rule (and exceptions to some of those exceptions), but the culture really has to be observed rather than taught. It’s a time-thirsty task, and a very enjoyable one, although at times it can be just as confusing as all those language exceptions.

Some aspects of French culture, such as song lyrics and plays, are impossible to understand until you have a grasp on the language that is good enough to get you through. Song lyrics are hard enough to catch in English let alone French, and I’m still often lost trying to figure out what some songs are about. You can be sure, however, that every song will mention birds at some point. Why birds? I have no idea, but try finding a song that doesn’t mention them; it’s tough.

I’ve been putting off seeing a play for years, worried that I wouldn’t understand what was going on. Last weekend in Paris, that all changed when I attended a play called ‘Une semain… pas plus‘ (One week… no longer’). The story was about a guy whose girlfriend said she loved him and he got scared about being in a relationship. He wanted to keep the house they moved into together, so he had to make her the one to want to leave. He begged his best friend to stay for one week (no longer) so that she would get jealous, but as you’d expect, things backfired.

Relief overtook fear as the play carried on and I understood the storyline. Some of the jokes were still lost on me, but the play was humorous enough for that not to matter. Indeed, I was impressed — and not at all surprised — when the actress legitimately used the phrase ‘menage à trois‘ during the closing scene of the play. Given that so many French movies seem to revolve around threesomes and it all working out in the end, getting the phrase in seemed appropriate. Sadly, the ending was less happy for one of them, but the closing line was hilarious, so nobody minded. The audience clapped emphatically, and as the actors took their many bows, the claps became uniform beats, in typical French style. I’ll write a blog entry about French clapping another time. For now, I’m still reveling in the relief that my 26€ on a play was well spent.

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One of the great things about living in the French Alps is that it’s so totally different to life in big French cities. When I go to Paris, I’m a tourist: loud noises grab my attention, the Metro is confusing, and I need a map if I want to know where I’m going.

If this alternative-angle photo of one of the world’s most recognised landmark doesn’t already give it away, I spent the weekend in Paris with the French in-laws who live there. Although their local knowledge and unaccented language makes me a less obvious tourist, it turns out that my French partner had never been up the Eiffel Tower. So, there we were in Paris, acting like it’s normal to watch some guys dealing crack at a Metro station then smoking some, and to see a man having a wee in one of the Metro’s corridors, on our way to the Eiffel Tower. If you want to visit the least French part of Paris, go to the Eiffel Tower. It’s just you and the tourists getting confused about when to cross roads, and street sellers with bags of 1€ mini-Eiffel Towers being chased by French police on push bikes.

So, we went to the Eiffel Tower. Here’s a top tip for anyone planning to visit: book your tickets at least four days in advance online. As we decided the night before we went, it was too late to do this, so we had to wait in a queue for about half an hour just to buy tickets to join the first of many more queues. The queue led us to a turnstile, and once on the other side, we queued for the lift to the second floor. Once out at the second floor, we joined a very long queue to get to the top. It felt like hours with a cold breeze chilling us all to the bone in the shade of the massive structure, but it was probably only 45 minutes. Once we got through that turnstile, we queued for about ten seconds before a lift door opened up next to us, (much to the annoyance of those queuing further ahead in the corridor of lift doors). The views were great, and going with a genuine French person is a huge bonus: “What’s that building?” questions lead to answers. The answers might be totally made up, but as long as the stories behind the fiction is good, I’m fine with that — and actively encourage it.

Now, if you’re in a hurry, remember to allow time to get back down the tower. The lift from the very top to the second floor has less of a queue to get back down, but further down queues can build up. If you’re not already frozen from the wait to get to the top, you have the option of walking down too. You can also stop off at the first floor and wait for another lift if you want to take in the views from behind the shelter of glass. Although it’s lower down, the views are still amazing — and somewhat more enjoyable than higher up on windy days. You may need to properly Frenchify yourself and barge into one of the full lifts, or walk down the remainder of the stairs to get to the bottom.

More Eiffel Tower visit tips:

• If you haven’t pre-booked, check the queue lengths at each of the four towers: the closests is likely to be the longest!
• If you need to go to the toilet while visiting the tower, there are toilets on every level and they’re likely to be less crowded than the ones on the ground.
• Allow plenty of hours to visit, and if time is short, go directly to the top first, then trickle down to the lower layers if you have time.
• The queue gets longer later in the afternoon, when people want to watch the sun set over Paris.
• Go with someone who knows Paris landmarks if possible.

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In December, I went to the prefecture in Annecy to switch my British driving licence for a French one. Since Britain is part of the EU (for now at least!), a British licence is accepted for driving in France unless you are caught doing something wrong, like speeding. For the first time in my life, I was pulled over for speeding around Lake Annecy last year. This is an area where the speed limit changes between 30 and 70 with a few 50s thrown in, and I was careless. Two gendarmes with a handheld speed camera pulled me over. The bad one of their good cop/bad cop combo told me I wasn’t allowed to drive in France on a British licence and that he would have to charge me for that too. I stood up for myself and said I knew that was incorrect, and the good cop agreed. Phew! Feathers ruffled, bad cop insisted I must change my licence to a French permis de conduire immediately. Most of the Brits I know have never bothered changing their British licence even if they’re legally meant to, but exchanging my Australian licence for a British one only took a couple of weeks and it was a very simple procedure involving the post office and a form, so I decided to do the right thing.

I kind of regret that now.

Three visits to the prefecture later, all well-spaced thanks to letters being sent backwards and forwards demanding to see paperwork they had already seen, and I was given an A5 sheet of printed paper with the blank spots handwritten as a temporary permis de conduire.

It was March!

The paper had a two-month limit. No problems, I thought. The British one took less than two weeks to arrive. How much more difficult can this be? Well, there’s either a backlog, or it’s very, very difficult. As the end of the two-month limit loomed, I wondered if I should no longer drive. Six days before the deadline, I called the prefecture. Bad news: two public holidays in a row, so no chance of getting through. Counting down to four days, I called and was told that nobody was there that day to take my call. Ah, that’s why it takes two months perhaps. It was a Friday, so I called back Monday — the day the temporary paper ran out — and spoke to a lady who seemed totally confused as to why I was calling. “But we sent it out to you more than a week ago!” she gasped. Perhaps she lives in a different France where mail takes only a week to arrive.

Two days later, the licence arrived. The accompanying letter said I’d need to replace it in 2014 due to a new law to update the current tri-fold style permis to a more standard credit-card-sized permis. Of course I’ll need to replace it. Why on earth would the French government offices be any more efficient than offering a driving licence for a year and a half? If nothing else, the extra workload is bolstering the French employment figures at a time when France has officially entered a recession. So, well done, I say.

Besides, the tri-fold permis is enormous. It doesn’t fit in my purse at all, so I’m looking forward to the next round of switching licences next year when I will once again be able to fit the card in my purse. I’m guessing it will arrive some time in 2015.

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A few weeks ago, I took some friends to look at the picturesque views from the Col des Aravis. There was snow, green grass and wild mountain goats all visible nearby, and Mont Blanc was bright white in the distance. A rumble murmured in the distance when I took the photo, pictured above. I wondered if it was thunder, but the sky was blue and the only clouds are the light, fluffy ones you can see which caressed the mountain peaks of l’Etale as they climbed up from the other side and dropped down into the Col des Aravis.

The rumble became louder, and I noticed that snow was sliding off a rock (pictured above the red square in the photo above), causing a white and brown flow of ice and rocks which you can see in the other photo.  In the first photo, the snow has fallen more than 50 metres below the massive rock drop. It looks tiny, but the photo doesn’t show the depth as well as the height. My trusty map does! Imagine standing nearby when so much compacted, icy snow and large, sharp rocks are tumbling, and it’s easy to see how suffocation isn’t the only risk for those caught in avalanches.

The second photo shows just how far an avalanche can travel. The brown river started off slowly, then gained speed over the next rocky outcrop before slowing down towards the bottom right of the photo. It took more than a minute to get there, which seems long and very slow until you remember that the red square alone is more than 50 metres. Nobody could outrun an avalanche of this size, force and speed. Luckily, we were at a safe distance to appreciate the beauty of the snow falling to the left of the rock where it started.

My friends, who were visiting from Australia, had never seen snow, let alone an avalanche. Mother Nature put on an impressive show for them, and I hope they enjoyed it. I certainly did.

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Today, the 8th of May, is a public holiday in France and various other European countries to mark the end of World War 2. For the locals around these parts, including Thônes (where this war memorial photo was taken in November), La Clusaz, St Jean de Sixt, Le Grand Bornand, Entremont and Annecy, this was the day that relief swept through the villages. The local French were finally able to start rebuilding their lives and communities after the horrors of the lost Resistance battle at the Plateau des Glières the year before, amongst other typical wartime stories of occupied areas.

Although peace has now reigned for more than fifty years, I’m told that one battle continues in the underbelly of the villages. Not everyone around these parts supported the Resistance movement. Indeed, under the Vichy government, the French military police, Gendarmes (originally from ‘gens d’armes‘, literally meaning ‘people with arms’ — basically armed men) had to side with the Nazis whether they liked it or not, and so they found themselves handing over French Jews to the Nazis. Much worse than that, a radical group known the Milice headed the battle against the Resistance at the Plateau des Glières before calling for German backup. The Milice force was formed by the Vichy government specifically to fight the Resistance. They had a reputation for torturing and being especially dangerous to the Resistance due to their fluent French and local knowledge.

Families split apart and neighbours stopped talking to each other, depending on where their allegiances lied. It’s these battles that, according to my French friends, continue to this day. The memories of war are everywhere, from this war memorial in Thônes and the museum beside it to the monuments dotted in every village, listing the name of the dead. Is it that surprising that grudges remain? But this is all rumour: for all I know, neighbours are having BBQs today and families are out shopping at the many shops that advertised opening on the public holiday. Hopefully, the only grudge held today involves the last baguette at the bakery. Wishful thinking?

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Annecy bursts into life as soon as winter ends, as you can see from this photo from just a few days ago. The old town of Annecy becomes a labyrinth of tourists and locals lounging over long lunches on chairs and tables speckled over the cobblestone roads.

The intersection of Rue Royale and Rue Carnot, pictured, is no exception, with café patrons and shoppers filling the streets. This area is pushed to capacity during festivals such as the Venetian Carnival and the Annecy International Animation Festival, when people flock to Annecy. Rue Carnot links the old town to the new town, and is lined with shops on either side, making the road into a mall where cars do not enter.

This crossroad has a very different past, and one that I knew nothing about until an old man in Annecy pointed out this sign. The plaque appears right above the road sign on the crossroad of Rue Carnot and Rue Royale. The top line refers to the road being the ‘Route Nationale 201‘ – the main highway in the area. It lists some cities nearby, including Geneva at 41.8km away.

Now pedestrianiased, these two roads are the main arterial for nothing more than foot traffic these days. And if you’d asked me last week if these roads were ever part of a Route Nationale, I would have been certain that such narrow roads couldn’t have been.

The plaque is a fantastic reminder to look up regularly when you’re in a city, and finding it has motivated me to find some other interesting objects at height. Feel free to share any you’ve found, and watch this space for new ones!

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