It would not, apparently, be a proper trip to Europe without a little dash of rowdy vache…. So we interrupt the description of our trip to Italy to bring you: Sunday morning we decided to drive north from our house on the Grande Route de la Chartreuse to a town called St. Pierre en Chartreuse. We were planning to visit the town and the nearby Couvent de la Grande Chartreuse, […]
We returned yesterday from five almost perfect, very relaxing days in Italy. To begin, a word of thanks to our green five-speed manual-transmission Renault Kangoo, a fine, fine vehicle, totally French-looking, very comfortable to drive, with more room on the inside than appears from the outside. I forgot how much fun it was to have a manual transmission and shift. When I get back, I’m going to try to talk […]
It is 9 p.m. and I am exhausted. We are leaving for Italy tomorrow early, and we still have stuff to do (and when I say “we” I mostly mean Suzie, since I’m sitting here at the keyboard). We had a memorable day today, thanks mostly to our neighbors here in Le Sappey, Jacques and Madeline. They invited us to a local fete, a big outdoor picnic (although that does […]
Mostly the photos will tell the story today … we had an absolutely fabulous time traveling to and from and exploring the old part of Annecy, a splendid city situated on a splendid lake hemmed in by the Alps. Even the drive (about an hour and a half each way, had we done it all on the expressway, which we didn’t, partly by choice, partly through a slight failure on […]
Every vacation, I think, has its odd day or two, and today was one of ours. The weather forecast this morning was for thundershowers, which made us change our original plan (to drive to Annecy) and go into Grenoble instead. Our thinking was that if it were to rain, there would still be things to do inside, and we wouldn’t get wet. So still a bit jet-lagged (me feeling it […]
We took it very easy today, and mostly remained in Le Sappey, the small village where we are staying. We walked downhill into the center of town, had an excellent prix fixe lunch for 10 euro (a first course of salad and a leek tort, which was like a flatter, cheesier quiche, followed by veal served with a strong, dark red sauce that Suzie says was a red wine reduction) […]
We made it to Le Sappey en Chartreuse after a long, long day of hot travel. Everything was hot: the air conditioning on the flight to London wasn’t working right, we had a three-hour layover in a mostly unairconditioned Heathrow Airport that included three long, long waits in what were (logically) unnecessary lines, a long hot wait in Lyon to go through passport control, it took a long wait for […]
Our vacation got off to an unofficial start on Sunday, when we went to pick up the Barrands, the French family with whom we are exchanging homes. Their flight was uneventful; they arrived on time but were slightly delayed through customs. Unfortunately for them they arrived on the hottest day of the year, made worse by the fact that there were some troubles at their motel (the Sandman, one of […]
Elsie as a Puppy with Chester While cleaning up the house for our French guests, Suzie found this old picture of Elsie and Chester, when Elsie was just a puppy. She’s so young that her eyes don’t quite work right yet. Larger photo here.
Oui, you read that right … we are off on another trip to France (and Italy) in a week. So it’s time to make sure the blog is still working. Here is a picture I took during a recent short trip to Lake Tahoe. The picture was taken looking Northeast while on the way up to Virginia City, Nevada. Remember that clicking on the picture will bring up a larger, […]