Italy Then France

Who is that tall stranger?

One moment we were in Italy and the next we were in France.  The language changed, the accent changed, and the method of greeting changed.  In Italy, friends kiss each other twice, once on each cheek, starting on the left side.  In France we learned that you kiss the right cheek first.  This has created for some awkward encounters when we have kissed the wrong side first.  Some areas in France kiss twice, others thrice, and others kiss four times, right, left, right, left.  If two people meet from different kissing traditions, they will choose the tradition with the maximum number of kisses.  France, apparently, is the country of kissing.  At the airport there is even a “Kiss n’ Fly” station. 

Georgie took this picture!

In France, everyone buys bread.  In the morning it seems the whole town is out walking to a boulangerie (bakery) or walking away from one carrying baguettes tucked under one arm.  I have seen some people carrying as much as seven baguettes!  I am amazed at the quantity of bread people consume in one day.  Day old bread is never eaten as is, instead it is recycled into “pain perdu”—or as we know it, French toast. 

Walking in the Larches

On October 30 ^th we took the train from Bologna to Nice—a city full tourists in the heart of the Cote D’Azur.  Instead of driving straight to Avignon, our intermediate destination, we took a circuitous root through the French Alps.  Even though we arrived in Nice late in the evening, we immediately escaped in our rental car and drove to the mountains.

The Southern Alps are spectacular.  Created when the African and European tectonic plates collided 80 million year ago, the mountains in the Alps can rise more than 4,810m above sea level.  Near the Valberg ski resort, the larches are just starting to turn colour and the rest of the deciduous trees are in full fall regalia. 

The Larch Forest

As I was drifting off to sleep during our late-night drive to Valberg, I had heard my parents discussing larches turning colour.  All I could see out of the window however, were the silhouette of conifers.  For my poor sleep deprived brain, conifers changing colour was a queer conundrum.  In the end I imagined I had dreamed the whole conversation.  The next morning as we were walking through the larch forest, I was shocked to discover that larches are conifers and they do change colour!  I had read about larches in fiction, but I had always imagined them kind of similar to a maple. 

Les Moutons

Later, on our hike to the “Point Sublime” we were waylaid by an immense flock of sheep and two shepherds.  We could hear the sheep before we saw them—their bells sounded like the orchestral rhythm section played by excited school children.  When we finally saw the flock, I watched in awe as 100 sheep chose the hardest, steepest section of the path.  We asked the shepherd many questions about their process of herding sheep, but he had a very strong mountain accent and we couldn’t understand a word he said.  But then, he couldn’t understand my questions either.