High and Wild - Up into the mountains

These are the alps from the castle at Briancon. The city is on what was one of the main routes between Italy and France and served to control ingress and departure. The lower Alps were essentially snow free, but the higher Alps still had large glaciers.
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We got up and had breakfast with Sophie the proprietor.  Bread jam and cofee and conversation.  We talked about our days travel, and she recommended rather than going to Briancon, going off to St V=, the highes pass in Europe as wekk as the Laiterie in Col Bayard, which had many highly recommended cheeses.  We deferred and went to Briancon because of the travel guide reccomendations.   Briancon is a walled city originally built to control traffic between the French and Italian border.  A war was lost during the 17 century and the walls were damaged and subsequently allowed to deteriorate.  Vauben redesigned the fortifications to what they are now.  They are a nice walk around with absolutely stunning views of the city below and the Alps on all sides.   Snow has been rather light this year and there was little snow until 7000 ft.  The rivers which should have been full, were flowing, but not to excess. The town was interesting in that there is an interesting cathedral and several main shopping streets steeply going up to the fortifications.  The street is narrow, but this time of year it did not seem overly crowded.  There is an emphasis on solar time keeping with several shops specializing in a variety of sundials. We had lunch at Le Garoche, again with decorations like in a cave.  The walls were lined with art, and with pictures of the town a hundred and more years ago.  The clothes reminded me that regional dress was still common at the time, with the homogenization of culture only a relative new phenomenon.

The fortifications at Briancon were built by Vauban for Louis XIV at the beginning of the XVII century. There is much rebuilding and restoration.
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Lunch at Gavroche was a raclette with several meats(jambon - preserved like prosciutto and conventional; mortadella; salami, and two other sausages I did not identify.  This was good and we sat around dripping the cheese on wooden paddles and eating melted cheese on bread, salad, and sausage. Did I mention the salad?  The salad is often just the leaves with a vinaigrette.  A difference from the US is the leaves are not torn apart - that is up to the diner. We drove back and decided to take a break at Embrun where we stopped by a cafe on a square with a large trampoline for kids in the centre.  All the kids ages 3 and up were seemingly practicing for the circus with somersaults and other tricks.  The kids were put into harnesses fastened by elastic line to a supporting structure maybe 20 feet high.  The line was such that the kids could bounce on the trampoline, but could not reach the trampoline if they went head first. By happenstance we had parked by a cathedra so we had to stop in.  The cathedral is in a state of deterioration, but there are efforts to maintain and repair the structure.  The church was founded by a north African missionary (Algeria) who had been educated in Italy and delegated in 314 to  convert the Gauls.  He started the cathedral and this was maintained as the main regional church for the area from Nice to just below Grenoble.  The result is a surprisingly large cathedral in a small town. There is a fair bit of limestone in the structure, particularly in the statues.  Unfortunately these are slowly eroding so you often do not see the face or details.  There are a good collection of gargoyles below the eaves. We left town just before the afternoon showers, and drove back to Gap in light precip.  Got home at 1900 so we went downtown to have a quick salad or crepe with ham and cheese and a crepe with apples.  We did not have reservations for Friday, so we went on line and found a pretty good deal with SuiteHotel on line. The net is really amazing in its effect on travel.  We get our local news every day.  The French ask why we have so little on their elections which are very important to them.  Of course we ask if they know who Alberto Gonzales is, and they do not , because all the corruption investigation does not get much press in FR.  We had a couple of occasions when someone would say however, we love the American people, but how did you ever elect a guy like Bush. Tomorrow we pack all our belongings and Alexandras very large suitcase into the tiny car and go off toward Arles.

High and Wild - our travels to the high (relatively) Alps.