Snowy Trip to Briancon

3: Snowy Roads Change Plans for Briançon

My departure a few weeks ago was interesting and continued the theme that reality rarely meets expectation. I awoke at 4AM, time to shower, finish packing, check-out of the hotel, drive to Lyon and drop off the car, and check in for my 7AM flight. First off, I was unable to obtain a hotel receipt--a rookie at the desk. I sympathized and said I'd get it later. He was very happy that I could wait and I received my first "merci beaucoup". Merci is typical and the added "beaucoup" (i.e. very much) is not common. I then hopped in the Migraine (a good car with no reason for the Migraine nickname other than comic) and started off for Lyon in a pouring rain and a pitch-black night. It's a lonely road to Lyon at this hour--very few cars on the road. Anyone with sense is sleeping! At the airport I was whacked with a barrage of meaningless signs as I tried to locate the rental car return, still in total darkness. After exiting one of the airport roundabouts, in obviously the wrong direction, I found myself in the bowels of the airport, totally lost. The airport area also contains the train and bus stations so it's a little confusing and, at this hour, appeared abandoned. I saw an airport employee and managed to communicate my desire to find Avis. He hopped into his airport truck and I followed him all over the place. A few minutes later he stopped, got out of his truck, and pointed to the small side-road that was the entrance to the Car for Hire Return. Stress level back under control. The remainder of my trip back to New York was uneventful.

I arrived back in Grenoble on Tuesday (Feb 4th) after another very relaxing cruise in the Caribbean, this time the southern islands including St Croix, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua, and St Thomas. A few dive trips, some horsey riding through sugarcane fields on Barbados, a rather stressful rental-car trip on the, poor but beautiful (from a distance), island of St Lucia and, of course, a little shopping in St Thomas. Here I purchased my first digital camera, one small enough to always have with me but with enough features to do most everything I desire.

I arrived in Lyon during daylight, for the first time, in nice weather and only a couple of hours behind schedule. Got my car, this time a peppy VW turbo-diesel, and hit the road for Grenoble--18 hours into the trip. Fifteen minutes later I was in a blizzard and it remained this way for the rest of the day. (see photo of the drive to Grenoble). I still have never seen the scenery along the stretch of road between Lyon and Grenoble. I do know that it goes over a low pass but other than that I haven't a clue. I checked into my new apartment (a hotel-apartment similar to Residence Inn) and two days later moved to a very nice apartment in the same hotel after I objected to the potent cigarette-smoke smell in the first room. Whew! I am near the top floor and have views of two mountain ranges, and also experience some of the hustle and bustle of the city streets, with some noise being the tradeoff. My large patio gets sunlight most of the day and my TV gets BBC World news, equivalent to CNN. It's the only English-speaking station but it beats the BBC Skynews I had on my last trip. It repeats the same story every 5 minutes. I also have Spanish, German and, of course, French stations in multiple dialects all of which are mostly wasted on me.

Yesterday (Sat Feb 8) I , along with a friend I've known almost five years, headed out, again, for the elusive Italian border. We headed east towards Briançon, a route I took a few weeks ago when I went to l'Alpe d'Huez (sounds kind of like "lowelpe du ez") ski resort. Well guess what. Most of Europe started their two weeks of winter holiday the same day and we were caught in a traffic jam that reminded me of leaving the Bay Area for Lake Tahoe on a Friday night during ski season. In France, a person right out of college gets 27 vacation days and about 10 holidays, and a 35 hour workweek. The country, in the past few years, dropped the work-week hours from 40 down to 35 (which they seem to adhere to). Some companies have continued to require a 40-hour workweek but in exchange the employees are credited with 5 hours per week to use as additional holiday (vacation). Therefore, some employees get about 60 days of holiday (vacation) each year with virtually no seniority. Anyway, back to the trip.

Briançon is just short of the Italian border and about 60 miles from Grenoble. Twenty miles from Briançon we encountered tire-chain requirement and were forced to turn around.

We headed back towards Grenoble and then took a side road that connects to the Alpe d'Huez resort from a different direction than I took a few weeks ago. The road was plowed and would have been easy to navigate in my 4x4 but this FWD VW had barely enough traction for level roads.

We soon found ourselves at a small village that was in a low spot in the road, i.e. we had to drive up regardless of which way we went. We decided it was time to once again reverse course. With a head of steam and some luck we were able to climb the snowy hill and return to the main road.

With half of the day remaining we decided to drive up to l'Alpe d'Huez. (see photo) Patty had never been there and it was, after all, a beautiful sunny day and we were both craving a cold one (i.e. biere). At each of the 20+ turns to the top of the mountain a sign identifies a previous winner of the Tour de France bicycle race. We saw one of Lance Armstrong's signs but had no place to stop for a picture.

The ski resort is huge, one of the largest in this part of France, and has skiing year-round, with summer skiing on the glacier. The gondolas are stretched across huge valleys, in some cases thousands of feet above the ground. This seems pretty common in the Alps. I brought my ski gear with me and will plan a few ski trips after the vacationers return to work.

Today, Sunday, I wandered the old part of town, along the river, and upwards toward the Bastille, the old fort that hangs over the city. It was a beautiful day and, although most of the city was closed, there were many people out and about. A cable car takes people from the city to near the top of the mountain, to the Bastille. (see photo)

I also included a photo that shows signs seen on major streets coming into the downtown. The signs indicate the number of remaining vacant parking spaces at each of the major parking garages. Very nice idea.

One other picture shows my calzone being removed from a wood-fired oven, the storefront being open to the Grand Rue, an ancient street from the time of the Romans (see photo).