It seems that my lovely friend Chris is gifted at spotting funny French wording. He sent me the photo of some unappetising aperitifs, and now he’s found the Shag Café. Now I’m sure that the Azzurro Caffe, listed just above …
A café that probably doesn’t live up to its name Read more »
Ski runs in France are usually marked in colours: green for easy; blue for intermediate; red for advanced; and black for experts. Yet La Clusaz boasts a piste mauve (a purple piste). A few other resorts also have a piste …
My favourite French friend, who introduces herself as Lilly to non-French people to save them from trying to pronounce Aurélie, visited recently. She arrived in a blue and white-striped long-sleeved top — her current favourite. She brought a box of …
I think I might become a French electrician. Apparently, all you need to do to fix a TV aerial is only turn up on the second promised visit, park your car to block the entire street, traipse snow across a …
The French love their roundabouts, such as this one in Méribel, this one in Saint-Jean-de-Sixt, this big chicken roundabout, and plenty of others too. Who knew there was such competition in neighbouring Italy? I snapped this photo at a roundabout …
This is a familiar sight outside bars and restaurants all over the Alps. Everyone piles their skis up against a wall or fence and someone accidentally knocks them all down. The guilty person usually scurries away hoping nobody has noticed, …
Ah, French chocolate shops. They know their stuff. The ones in Annecy create all sorts of amazing chocolate sculptures for their window displays and sell the most delicate shapes with all sorts of interesting flavours. Even their slabs of chocolate …
Okay, this one is a bit downhill, but there’s also some fast uphill and huge thrills. It’s tandem speed riding. Single-person speed riding is still a relatively new sport in the paragliding family of sports. It involves a wing about …
“Someone help that skier! He’s fallen down a hole!” These are words you won’t hear at the Grand Laquais drag lift in La Clusaz. See, a few weeks ago, we had so much snow in the Aravis that the lift …
This icicle appeared outside my window last week. Icicles look still, but as you can see from the time-lapse in the photo, they’re constantly on the move. This one shifted sideways as well as growing substantially throughout the day. My …