Le Franco Phoney

After a long delay, La Clusaz is getting an electronic ski pass system. It’s a year late, and it caused the owners of the Croix Fry area of La Clusaz to opt out of the lift ticketing system last year, making the mountain much harder to get around. However, the disgruntled Croix Fry owners have stated that (translated from French): “A court order has prompted a resolution with the owners concerned and the mayors of Manigod and La Clusaz so that the Croix Fry will once again be accessible via the commercial lift system.”

Of course, the reason the electronic pass system didn’t go in last year is because Satelc, the La Clusaz/Manigod lift company, decided to divert the funds to artificial snow-making canons after a very slushy winter. Croix Fry felt that La Clusaz had reneged on their deal and protested by not accepting La Clusaz ski passes in the Croix Fry area last winter. An additional fee had to be paid to access the small, private area. The decision surely cost them money, but it was clear they were cutting off their nose to spite their face when they announced the change.

Satelc have also denied the current rumour flying around town that they will be charging extra for the snow park this year. A daily, weekly, monthly or season pass will still allow anyone into the snow park at no extra fee. They have been working on the park over summer too, with the dirt below the kickers being re-angled for a better landing, and an area being dug-out for an in-ground half-pipe. Bring on the snow!

One of the most amazing marriages between nature and humanity is la Roque Saint Christophe: Europe’s largest and oldest cave dwelling site. As uninteresting as a long, shallow dent in a rock sounds, la Roque Saint Christophe is actually really interesting. To help the imagination, a miniature version of part of the limestone village rests half way along the ‘main road’, just before the indented steeple of a long-gone church. The bell-tower allowed a series of similarly carved villages dotted along the Vézère river to warn each other of danger within minutes. The site has been restored in some areas and the entrance fee includes a booklet (in English if you want) explaining each of the different areas of interest, including an abattoir. Thankfully, that part of the village has not been restored.

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Before I tell you about this place I visited, I have to tell you a few other things.

Firstly, my mum likes gardens. If I was to go on holiday with my mum, I would tell her that I don’t want to visit any gardens. Gardens are not my ‘thing’.

Secondly, I don’t see the point in quoting poetry. People might think it’s clever, but I don’t. It’s not original and it put me off liking a rather attractive French boy a few years ago when he thought he would quote Shakespeare in front of his French friends who all looked rather confused during his performance. You may think I am shallow for judging, and maybe I am.

So, where did I go? Well, in a completely hypocritical moment, I went to a garden called Marqueyssac which immediately led me to quote Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” to an equally confused French boy as we wandered around the sinuous rills of the fertile ground. This garden was made for Mr C’s poem! Although not quite ‘twice five miles of fertile ground’, there’s six kilometres of greenery full of nooks and crannies to visit: a tower; a playground; a lookout point which shows a village below with some buildings carved in the stone cliffs above it; lots of different walks; a water feature; an enormous length of hedge; interesting plants and trees abounding with wildlife; a chapel; and even a poet’s hut! Maybe Mr C wrote “Kubla Khan” at Marqueyssac after all. I did not, however, see any damsels with dulcimers, caves of ice or blokes who looked like they had been fed on honeydew and the milk of paradise, so maybe not.

Anyway, my mum will be pleased that I’ve visited a garden. Even I am pleased that I visited this one!

Last Saturday night signalled the second Balade au Clair de Lune (a walk during the full moon) in La Clusaz, which means all the street lights in the village centre were turned off and the place was lit, instead, with just the moon light and candles dotted all over town. The river that runs through town had candles placed on lots of rocks poking up out of the water, and street entertainment (bands, comedians etc.) was plentiful.

Pictured is a bike with sparks flying off it—one of the roving acts. I particularly like how, after the entertainers had asked everyone to stand back so they didn’t get burnt, a family on the right thought it appropriate to stick their kid on the road in a pusher. No escape for the kid!

Walking around and watching some of the family entertainment, I was a bit shocked when one of the guys dressed up as a television presenter (with his waist up inside a box that looked like a television) started to pretend to snort cocaine through his cigar as part of his act. I guess the kids watching didn’t get it, and according to my French friend who watched with me: “This is France! Making fun of snorting cocaine is acceptable.” I suppose I should have realised this after seeing a television advertisement one morning for shower gel that involved a nude woman and close-ups of her breasts. But who am I to judge? The night was as much of a success as the shower gel no doubt is.

If you suffer from vertigo or if you’re scared of heights, you might want to avoid the massive bridge near Millau and take the road underneath it, as I did, instead. From the road below, you can see the eight pylons clearly: they fork open about half way up to allow the wind to pass through. If they did not, the bridge, apparently, would collapse. These pylons are the tallest in the world. It should therefore come as no surprise that the road bridge they support is the tallest in the world.

Travelling under the bridge means that you can stop at the information centre. We stopped there at around lunchtime — with a picnic which we planned to enjoy under the cool shade of a tree. However, a security guard is employed to walk around the ‘grounds’ (a car park) and point out the sign that says no picnics are allowed. In addition, the centre has no tourist display area: you have to pay for a guided tour of the small building.

We jumped back into the car and drove about ten seconds away to the pylon on the other side of the road. We parked in the shade provided by the bridge above, grabbed the picnic rug from the boot of the car, and cooled down with a great view of the bridge right across the valley while we ate. If the weather hadn’t been so hot, I probably would have walked over to the security guard to thank him for making our visit more enjoyable (and free).

Instead, we took the obligatory ‘pretend you’re holding up the bridge with your hand’ photo before driving on.

Le Gouffre de Padirac is possibly the most beautiful natural landmark I have ever seen. A gouffre (pronounced ‘goof-rrr’) is a cave, and this one is massive. Apart from stalictites and staligmites, the gouffre offers an underground boat ride at a constant 12°C. So, remember your jumper even on a hot day, and remember to laugh when the man steering your boat pretends to rock it a bit too much: if you were stuck underground in a damp cave for many hours each day, you’d want the tourists to humour you too.

The gouffre was formed over time naturally. It has something to do with acid rain, but the explanation was in French so I didn’t quite catch, well, any of it. What I did understand was that rainwater has since washed down some seeds, and there is now a tiny fern growing under one of the courtesy lights - the first plant life there. Looking at it is a bit look like looking at your friend’s baby scan: it’s tiny; it doesn’t seem real; but you’re still meant to say ‘wow’.

Of course, photography — even without a flash — is not allowed. So none of the photos below were actually taken, and none of the guides were tipped well for not noticing any blatant photography that was going on before, during and after the tour.

One thing to bare in mind before arriving is that this tourist attraction closes earlier than most others in France. It takes a good hour and a half to see everything, and perhaps a bit longer if you choose to mount the hundreds of stairs instead of using the three separate escalators to get back to the top. So, if you turn up at 6.03pm (like we did), the gates will be shut and the restaurant next to the gouffre that sells gauffres (waffles, pronouced ‘goff-rrr’) has probably run out of gauffres, making the early closure even more disappointing. We returned the next morning and the queue was massive, but fast. When we left just before midday, the queue had vanished and those arriving had the added benefit of cooling down during the hottest part of the day at the busiest time of summer. We did not stop for a gauffre. It was too hot and we had a red village to see.

August in La Clusaz means one thing: cheese. The Fete du Reblochon is held annually, and this year, it celebrated 50 years of enjoying AOC status, which means any cheese sold under the name of Reblochon must be made locally. The fete starts at midday with crazy people attempting to ski down a white, plastic sheet with ancient wooden skis in temperatures hovering around the mid-thirties. Once they’re done, this turns into a giant slide for kids, who spend the rest of the day — and the evening — rolling down it. With cows, goats and donkeys dotted around, traditional bands play traditional music while traditional dancers wear traditional costume and bounce around on the traditional stage.

Meanwhile, the locals start drinking.

A parade consisting of various farmyard animals and local floats makes its way through town in the afternoon, while displays of cheese-making, wool-spinning and ancient bread-making are going on beside the stage and bar.

Meanwhile, the locals keep drinking.

Plates of cheese and tartiflette are served to the masses, who spend their time eating, drinking and wandering around the displays, farmyard animals, wood-chopping exhibitions and entertainment they can participate in. It’s all good fun for kids, adults, farmers and city-dwellers alike.

Meanwhile, the locals are drunk…and probably serving behind the bar.

Before the sun went down this year, a donkey race was held with various high-standing members of the community participating as jockeys (a fireman, a policeman, a farmer, a ski instructor…and a few others of similarly respected jobs). Everyone was invited to bet on a jockey, but the real fun was watching the stubborn donkeys find new ways of refusing to move.

Meanwhile, the locals took the opportunity to drink some more while the bar wasn’t busy.

As night fell, the band played on and the bar was the place to be. Alas, La Clusaz is in the mountains and by midnight, most people had departed to find somewhere warmer indoors.

The locals, however, probably kept drinking after the rest of us left. The Fete du Reblochon is an absolute treat.

The Dune du Pilat is Europe’s largest sand dune, but, like Europe’s highest road, there is some confusion: signposts for Dune du Pilat are often twinned with signposts for Dune de Pyla . What? Are there two giant dunes next to each other? Nope: the village next to the Dune du Pilat is called Pyla-sur-Mer (which means ‘Pyla by the sea’) and over time, the dune has been misspelt to match the village, and now, both spellings are acceptable. At least, this is what Wikipedia told me, but my travel partner swears that he saw signposts for Pilat-sur-Mer as well!

Climbing the dune is hard work, but well worth the effort, with lovely views of the beach front from the top including a sand bar with lots of moored boats that are completely out of the water at low tide. In fact, you can see from some of the photos below just how steep the dune is, but once you’re at the top, the side leading down to the beach is far easier (phew!). Annoyingly, I saw one guy run up the steep side of the dune and tumble down at least twice while I was walking up it slowly. I can only imagine he was doing some sort of Rocky 4 endurance training (think back to Sylvester Stallone in snow-covered Russia, running with logs of wood and pulling carts around as if he was a horse and you’ve got an idea how silly this guy also looked). Meanwhile, I stopped every ten steps to ‘look at the view’. It had nothing to do with my aching leg muscles or over-inflated lungs feeling like they might collapse. No, it was all about the view.

We managed to camp within fifteen metres of the dune at the Pyla Camping (or should that be Pilat?) caravan park (lots of French entertainment thrown in for free: we witnessed a foam party which kids were literally lost in). The dune gets the big thumbs up from me: I really enjoyed it.

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The first Saturday in August is not a good afternoon to drive to Annecy: the Fete du Lac — involving ninety minutes of fireworks — ensures the roads are busy from midday, with some central roads blocked off later in the day. The fireworks, however, are well worth the traffic. Grandstand seats are constructed around the city end of the lake and for those lucky enough to get a seat (they’re expensive and they sell out quickly), an abundance of entertainment happens along the lakeside, invisible to the masses of people without a grandstand seat.

I was lucky enough to view the fireworks from the closest apartment block to the lake — on a floor high enough to see the fireworks from the lake up. This year’s theme was fireworks around the world. The Australian fireworks went off to the sounds of Kylie Minogue and AC/DC, while Scotland, of course, had bagpipes. The French used red, white and blue fireworks to match their flag, but I wonder how they feel about those colours also being used on the US flag, the British flag, the Australian Flag, the New Zealand flag and the Netherlands flag, just to name a few.

I captured some of the fireworks with my camera, although the long exposure I was using meant that the loveheart fireworks did not really look like lovehearts. I did, however, capture a wall of gold, fireworks that glittered or shined on their way down (not that you can see this in a still photo), fireworks that had mini balls of fireworks explode at their ends, and the grand finale that lit up the sky for ten minutes and left a cloud of smoke when the courtesy lights came on for those in the grandstand to depart. The night costs millions of Euros and I have truly never seen such amazing fireworks as those displayed each year at the Fete du Lac.

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Last week, I ended an eleven-day road trip that took me through central France and onto the West coast to visit friends, followed by a quick drive back to La Clusaz. Some of the places were amazing, including the giant underground cave involving a boat ride on an underground lake to get there; ancient caveman paintings; camping metres away from Europe’s largest sand dune; and limestone rock, carved to create entire villages on cliff-faces. I’ll write in more detail about them just as soon as I’ve sorted out my French car insurance which is a whole separate story in itself.

Basically, if you change insurers, you have to give your existing insurer notice through a signed letter two months before you want your contract with them to ends. I still haven’t figured out if this is only possible when the contract is due to end or not, as I was using the alternative way of ending a contract: you have a twenty-day window when your contract is due to expire but you still have to write to them via certified mail to change insurers. Now, my old insurer has written to me to tell me that I can’t change insurers because I didn’t write in the specified twenty-day gap. However, my new insurer says I can because the date on the envelope is stamped as sent on the 20th July, whereas my old insurer tells me I needed to write within twenty days of the 9th of July (the date d’édition de l’avis d’échéance - the date of expiry). This in itself makes no sense as my insurance was set to run out on the 31st August. I’m hoping that the new insurer is correct in that the twenty days commences from the date stamped on the envelope, as I did change insurance during this period. Either way, I’ll be having a fun morning of speaking French and not understanding the responses. Actually, that’s presuming any of the insurance agencies are open: I heard they’re closed on Monday mornings.

Below is a map with the places we stayed in during each night of the road trip (we went anticlockwise). I’ll be adding photos and stories to it in the coming days. And maybe some photos from the Annecy Fete du Lac fireworks display on Saturday night (it included love-heart-shaped fireworks…awwww).