Le Franco Phoney

Following on from my remarks on my local pizza box, I received this photo of a Swiss pizza box by Geoff in Switzerland. He wrote:

This is the box they use for pizza round our way. Not as bad as the man with the stick and the young girl, but do I really want to take a pizza from a toothless, homeless urchin? Still, I guess it is Naples, which probably means my wallet is being nicked as I take delivery of the pizza…

So, it looks like France is not solely responsible for weird pizza boxes. I particularly like the guys sitting down behind the urchin’s pizza, almost as if they’re holding it up in a two-dimensional world. And is that a seal that the men on the right are pulling from the water? Or a dead body? At least the pizza is the classic Margherita. They got something right.

Goeff actually found the photo of his local pizza box elsewhere on the web. It turns out that Mike from Zurich put it in a photo album and wrote:

I bought a pizza at my local döner joint because their pizzas come in boxes that have this lovely picture on them. It’s lovely kitsch art.

The ‘artwork’ has also made it onto Photo of the Day on a pizza blog, where it’s described as ’slightly creepy’. My interest in pizza boxes is now starting to match French roundabouts and I’m worrying that perhaps I need to get out more. Speaking of which, lots of photos and information about road tripping through central France will be available just as soon as I can get my hands on the photos.

Another road-trip related post. I’ve made it across central France and have arrived on the West coast. The drive over was fun, although slightly dangerous, thanks to a game that my friend Jen tricked me into playing. Sometimes, this game seems next to impossible and it’s downright frustrating. I can’t resist playing it.

It’s the number plate game! In France, there are 95 departments: each department (region) has a number (see the map here - I’m in 74). French post codes and number plates reflect the region. So, for instance, my postcode starts with 74, and the local number plates also contain 74 as the last two digits, separated from the rest of the numbers and letters. The number plate game is simple. The game starts when you spot a number plate ending in 01. You then look for 02. I spent about a week seeing 02s but no 01s which was really frustrating. Finally, success! I saw one 01 and started watching out for 02s. Nothing. For two weeks, I searched. I saw 03 to 07 in one day alone: the number plate game was taunting me. I finally saw 02 and 03, then got stuck on 04 for the rest of winter 2007. I still find myself far too interested in car number plates when I really should be watching the road as I’m now stuck on 47.

This all started when I was sitting in Jen’s car and she said “21!”. “What are you talking about?” I asked, and so she explained the game to me. I thought, “Well, if Jen came out in late November and she’s already up to 21 by mid-January, it must be pretty easy.” Jen revealed yesterday that she actually started her count last May. And that was during a road trip where she drove through loads of departments.

Other numbers I’ve been stuck on include: 9; 19; 26. Luckily, Jen educated me on department 20: it doesn’t exist. Instead, the French island of Corsica has two regions: 2A and 2B, which are separate to the department of 02. Confused yet? Try the number plate game and this will all make sense.

I’m doing a road trip from the South East of France to the South West, and I’ve noticed a few things. Only in rural France…

…do you see the rebellious elderly block off a car park by parking their car across the entrance so they can play pétanque (a bit like lawn bowls but without the grass);

…can you speed through a village (30km/h zone) at almost double the limit and have the police wave a thanks to you when you slow down because they’re crossing at a zebra crossing;

…are you required to stop when travelling on some main roads to give way to traffic from a side street on your right because of an ancient French law;

…do you see every signpost framed and mounted on wood just because they’ve got so much of the stuff;

…do they set up automated lights for a ten-metre stretch of roadwork, which the locals ignore and drive through when the light is red because the lights take five minutes to change to roadwork-green (ie, orange);

…do you see a family of four park their car by the side of the road, fold out their picnic table/chair set and have a picnic next to their car when there is a perfectly good nature reserve right next to them (with a picnic table free for use).

July 14 — Bastille Day — in France is just like Guy Fawkes day in the UK: it involves a ridiculous amount of fireworks, entertainment for the kids, a variety of home-fireworks-related injuries, and it has something to do with independence from the monarchy.

I headed down to Annecy early and managed to go wakeboarding before the festivities began. While we were on the lake, we saw a windsurfer: a rare sight on the calm Lake Annecy.

Before the fireworks began, the kids (including us big ones) were kept entertained with wandering minstrels playing various household items as drums and rollerbladers in crazy outfits, along with fire-throwing clowns and an Indian band with twinkling costumes. The fireworks were the typical mixture of some really brilliant or pretty explosions slotted in between a range of mediocre ones, which leads me to wonder why anyone bothers with the ’stocking filler’ standard fireworks when they could just do ten minutes of amazing stuff and save everyone about half an hour of staring at a sky filled with the same old same old.

When the fireworks finished, the ‘party’ began. This mostly involved teenagers trying not to take their eyes out while lighting bangers and other small fireworks in amongst a crowd of people watching a band on the makeshift stage in the park by the lake. I took a photo of the band. They sounded like a German Octoberfest band but they looked far cooler with their green laser lights. They even managed to attract some dolphin balloons along to watch. We went for ice cream instead.

July in France is the main summer holiday month: La Clusaz has been getting busier day-by-day to the point of small traffic jams in town. The giant tartiflette pan was getting fired up in town last night for the first of many soirées for the tourist season. The mini-golf course has put its mini-Mont Blanc back on hole six and the kids love it. The paragliders and the mountain bikers have arrived to take the chairlifts up for their respective rides down. Today, however, the mountain bikers faced snow on top of their dirt tracks: in some freak cold spell during the night, snow fell on the peaks of La Clusaz and beyond. Seeing the white bright, white snow against the green grass really makes me wish I was skiing on the Tignes glacier today, but all is not lost: today is the Fete Nationale — France’s national day off, like Australia Day in Australia, but without the BBQs. So, tonight, there will be fireworks, dancing and probably another giant tartiflette. What more could a girl want (apart from more snow)?

For the past week, I’ve had the company of a medium-sized, slightly green, patterned lizard. My French book on animals tells me it’s a Lézard des Souches (a sand lizard). Bruno the cat brought me the lizard as a gift — his third this summer. Bruno is spritely for a cat of fourteen years, capable of spotting lizards from a-far and catching them even when they drop their tail in an effort to escape him. The first lizard was the largest at around 25cm (without her tail — and yes, it was female, as the female of the species are a lovely bright green), and relatively easy to catch with the help of a cloth: dump the cloth on the lizard and it stops moving; pick up the cloth with the lizard inside and dump the lizard back outside while the cat is still hunting for the lizard indoors. Result! The second lizard was smaller and also easy to catch using this method. The third lizard, however, found the narrow gap under my fridge before I had chance to catch him.

About twice a day, I’ve been hearing the lizard scampering around under my fridge, but he never came from under there long enough for me to catch him. I was worried he might die of fright: bad for the lizard and bad for the smell of my place. I offered him food: banana (stupid when I think about it - a lizard could never peel a banana to try the contents); some sliced apple; a piece of plum; a dead fly; a white flower, and a yellow weed. He wouldn’t come out. I found myself pulling apart the cupboard mounts next to the fridge in case he was stuck and unable to get out the way he got in. Still nothing. A fly even flew down under the cupboard and survived without being eaten by the lizard. Now, if you have to live with a lizard, the least it can do is eat the flies. Disappointed with the un-lizardness of my new lizard friend, I gave up trying to help him, and accepted I had a new housemate.

Today, day seven, the lizard took the plunge into the open space and the cat pounced immediately, taking less than a second to jump from his curled-up-asleep position on the couch to the fridge area. I think the cat landed his ample girth on top of the lizard, as, by the time I pounced on the cat in much the same fashion as he had pounced on the lizard, the lizard seemed to be pinned under his belly, without harm. Good one Bruno. As I lifted the cat off him, the lizard scurried into the dead end of the bathroom. I dumped the cat outside and caught the lizard. He did what the other two lizards had done: he hissed at me with his toothless mouth, then played dead, which is handy for catching them really. I noticed his tail had already regrown about 3cm, although it lacked proper colour. I ushered the cat inside while I dumped the lizard in a rock garden. Clueless to what I had in my cloth, Bruno ran back in and sniffed around near the fridge. He still is, and that was hours ago. I suspect he will keep looking for days, poor thing.

Last week, I did a quick road trip to Nice, opting for the mountainous roads over the fast, but further-away highways.

I left La Clusaz and took the Col des Aravis down to Albertville. It was a mistake: it took longer than the Annecy route as the windy roads were wet and slippery. From Albertville, I took the toll road (€7.20), where I had the option to take the Frejus tunnel through to Italian motorways — the fastest route, but probably the slowest given my inability to understand Italian road signs — so I opted to go towards Briançon, which took me through a town called ‘Bonnuit’ (’good night’), over the top of many mountains and quite close to the mystical La Grave, then through Serre Chevalier, and though Barcelonnette, which leads to the Cime de la Bonette — the purported highest road in Europe at 2802 metres high. The narrow, but freshly resurfaced and empty roads were breathtaking and the French are rumoured to have added an extra loop of road at the top to make the route an extra 50 metres higher in order to claim the title for the highest road. I really recommend this road — part of the Route Napoleon — for the natural views. However, the cloud was so thick at one point that I was keeping up with the motorbike around 15 metres in front of me, but the tail-lights were only visible from time to time. Just beyond the peak was an old army barracks, now turning to rubble, and apparently complete with cartoon murals inside. Alas, I had no time to stop, so I continued past the region of pink rock closer to Nice before arriving in the traffic-laden, hot city itself. Gelati topped my list of needs while I waited to meet my friends to take me to their apartment.

The next day, we went to Antibes, so I accidentally enjoyed the coastal road to Cannes while looking for signs to Grasse. I found the place and its many perfumeries, but I mistakenly followed the N85 route signs in the wrong direction through town before realising I was heading back to Nice. Don’t go to Grasse unless you like getting lost or you want perfume: the motorways all stop on different sides of town and you have to find your own way through the rather large town that Grasse has become. The road from Grasse was easy and equally as beautiful as the previous day’s taking me up high again with views of a large dam in a valley with amazingly blue water. The road had also recently been flattened out nicely so it too was great to drive on, although a man in a Ferrari looked as annoyed as I felt about the loose tar-covered gravel still littering the road. I ignored the sign-posts and went into the centre of Digne-les-Bains for petrol. I passed the ‘Bains’ part of the town — another amazingly blue lake, with lots of people dotted around it that made me want to join them for a swim on such a hot day. Alas, I only had time to fuel up the car. I continued North towards Grenoble and this was by far the most frustrating part of the journey: a single-lane road that was typically busy for the national route. I took toll roads from Grenoble to Albertville to gain some lost time, then home via Lake Annecy as mountainous roads had now lost their appeal.

Here are some photos, mostly taken while I was driving.

I’m back from my quick road trip to Nice, and a blog entry with lots of photos of the route will follow soon. But for now, here’s further insight into French roundabouts. During my trip, I passed all sorts of interesting roundabouts, but most of the time it was too hard to stop for a photo. I’ve taken some, but here are just a few of the roundabouts I came across (that I remember):

• giant statues of sheep grazing, rolling on their backs and dancing (!?) on a grassy roundabout near Chambery;
• various animal carvings on roundabouts near the Col de Galibier (in slide show in post above);
• a man-sized globe of the earth in Digne-les-Bains;
• roundabouts in various villages celebrating le Tour de France bike race (due to go through those villages within the next few weeks);
• a giant copper perfume distiller in Grasse, the home of many perfumeries; and,
• a telepherique in Serre Chevalier (pictured).

And of course, just before La Clusaz, I passed my local ‘happening’ roundabout in St. Jean de Sixt, which had a mannequin dressed in Napoleonic battle costume, perched on the roof of the little house. It was too dark to take a good photo. I think the man that puts the mannequins on the roundabout might have been drinking a bit before that one…

The steering on my car felt funny this morning so I stopped and saw a flat front tyre. I was pretty sure driving on it would ruin the tyre and the wheel, but being impatient, I decided to drive in first gear to the close-by garage with an air pump. Within ten metres, the wheel started making loud noises, and the farmer from across the road looked over. He saw the tyre and said he had an air pump. Actually, I didn’t understand his French, but he motioned me to the next driveway where he pulled out an air pump to fill the tyre. Sadly, it stayed flat so I got out my spare tyre. Old VW Golfs have this ‘compact’ tyre-wheel combo that you fill up to a high pressure and drive at a moderate speed to the closest tyre shop. It saves room and weight, but this farmer and his mate who arrived were not convinced. They told me to get one of my winter tyres. I sprinted back up the road, then realised my keys were in the car. It was 25 degrees outside so I was baking. I walked back down, collected the keys, walked back up, collected the tyre, and walked back down with my hands  covered in grease from the tyre.

When I got back, two problems arose: firstly, the snow tyre had no wheel attached and the farmers had no tools to switch tyres; and secondly, the ratchet thingy that came with my car did not fit the wheel nuts, so the wheel was stuck on the car anyway. Eventually, one of the farmers realised that the nuts had plastic covers on them and that the ratchet thingy was indeed the right size. So, back to the emergency wheel/tyre. The two farmers popped it on, tightened it up and discovered it too was flat. They pumped in some air and the tyre inflated. Relief! The lovely farmers spent more than an hour sorting out a tyre for a girl they didn’t even know. Of course, this happened at midday, which meant I’d have to wait until 2pm before the shops re-opened from lunch. No worries: it was already after 1pm by the time the emergency wheel went on and I repacked my car’s boot to fit the flat tyre, then loaded the winter tyre in the back seat (that tyre was of no use to anyone, but it had a lovely day cruising Annecy with the roof down as my passenger).

The closest tyre shop is ten minutes away. I managed to take sixteen minutes on my emergency tyre, driving at a moderate speed and waving cars past, so I didn’t have long to wait until 2pm. A boy there told me I would have to buy two new front tyres (the law in France states that your front two tyres must be the same model and your back two tyres must be the same model, even if the two at the back are different from the two at the front). I asked him why they couldn’t just repair my existing tyre. He said that when tyres get “close” to not being road-worthy, the shop is legally bound to change them. When I told him they were only five months old, he backed down, and eventually, his boss fixed the problem (something to do with the seal between the tyre and the wheel) and charged me €15 which probably went straight into his pocket since no receipt was offered or given (or requested - I really didn’t care at this point). I chucked the ‘compact’ tyre back in the boot and decided close enough was good enough when trying to get the jack back in the tiny compartment with the spare.

The two farmers were so generous their precious time, yet these two blokes just saw a presumably clueless girl and tried to make a profit. Anyway, I now know how to change my (rather specific) spare wheel and that I can hold my ground against less generous French men. I might make the farmers a cake or something. Suggestions welcome!