Rod Smallwood: Nether Moor Images
I love wandering around cities – being a flâneur. I suppose, strictly (linguistically?) speaking, you have to be in France to be a flâneur, and where better to be a flâneur than in Paris. Anna and I tend to avoid the tourist attractions, the honey-pots, except early in the morning, and wander around the back streets or along the Canal Saint Martin. The area around Sacré-Cœur is thronged with tourists on a Sunday morning, but not far away there is open-air jazz in a peaceful square, and quiet cafés with not a tourist in sight. Not all the great buildings are thronged – it is usually quiet around Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s stupendous Dôme des Invalides. Whole areas are little known – Ménilmontant has quirky back streets and the Critérium Sauvage des Cascades, and in Belleville there is a wonderful quotation from Averroès (1126-1198) – ‘Ignorance leads to fear, fear to hate, hate to violence. There is the equation’. Surprisingly, even the Palais-Royal is quiet, and if your feet start to hurt, then retire to Shakespeare and Co for a book and coffee.
And so to Avignon – direct from St Pancras International to the great Rhone wines. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a short bus ride away up the hill on the other side of the river. Gigondas and Vacqueyras are close by. And the food is not bad either. Avignon itself is very compact, the main street running from the station (Avignon station, not Avignon-TGV which is a short train ride from the town) to the Palais des Papes above a big square with gardens to one side.
And then the Alps, which stretch in a great arc from the Mediterranean to the Swiss border at the head of the Chamonix valley, which is ‘mythique et authentique’ according to the official web site. Access by train is easy – unless SNCF is on strike, which has caught me out. The TGV to St Gervais leads into the Chamonix valley from the west – a wonderful line from Martigny gives access from the east – with Bourg-St Maurice further south, and the line to Turin gives access to the Vanoise at Modane.
I started the Tour des Glaciers de la Vanoise – a superb walking tour – by taking a taxi from Modane to Plan d’Amont (€40 for ~45 minute drive). Then gentle walking to Refuge du Plan-Sec at 2350m. I did this in September – after the holiday season, so the refuges are only a third full, and the weather can be very fine, cold at night, but very good temperatures for walking. I was rather worried towards the end of the tour because snow was forecast, and I had to cross a col at nearly 3000m, and did not have crampons or ice axe, but there was not enough snow to be difficult.
If you are not intending to climb Mont Blanc, there are five ways to get above the Chamonix valley – take the train towards Argentière and walk from there; take the lift to the Brévent, with magnificent views across the valley to Mont Blanc; take the train to the Mer de Glace, now much diminished; take the cable car to the Aiguille de Midi (and across to Courmayeur in Italy); or take the TMB (Tramway de Mont Blanc) towards the Aiguille de Bionassay. We have done all of these. Our last trip was on the TMB, which seems a bit like an unfinished project – at the end, the train pops out of a tunnel and stops, as if the line was never completed. Some of the earlier plans included a several hundred meter lift to the Dôme du Goûter. The walking options are limited at this height (2350m) – access to the Glacier du Bionassay, and for those attempting an ascent of Mont Blanc, the futuristic refuge on the Dôme de Goûter.
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