Enjoyed a beautiful morning walking through the village of Baume Les Messieurs. Very still and warm in the clift valley and the gently falling white cottonwood seeds gives it a dreamy feel.
We walk through a small barn door. The roof is three stories up. Whole log beams underneath support a stone slab roof. The adjoining house (the whole place really) is magical; ivy-clad walls, a walled flower garden overlooking the stream, a view across the little valley to the abbey and cliffs towering up behind and beyond.
We head to the abbey and are transported straight into a Cadfael mystery in Shrewsbury. There’s guest quarters, a stable, the cloister, a herb garden, infirmary, kitchen and as expected, the church and chapel. There’s a plaque that tells of their “liturgy of hours”; prayers and mediation at matines (midnight), lauds (3am)… vespers (6pm), Compline (9pm) and in our mind’s eye we see them walking at an even pace across the cobbled square to welcome a weary traveller.
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| The village of Baume Les Messieurs |
We farewell our hosts (not before purchasing a bottle of their beer and wine) and head off cross country for St Laurent. It’s rolling green hills and villages again till we rise up past the glacial lake, lac chalain. From a promontory high above the lake we can see snow and bright green swathes through the dark of the forest demarking ski resorts.
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| The Abbey at Baume Les Messieurs |
It’s not far to the Swiss border and once across we drop precipitously (but slowly behind a farm tractor) down into the valley of lake Geneva. Halfway down a lorry has gone off the road and clings precariously to the road with two wheels and its drive train. The Swiss police guide us carefully by and we judge from the lack of rescue gear that it’s just occurred.
In Geneva, as happily proclaimed by Doreen, we hit weekend traffic at 6pm. Finally existing Geneva Doreen spits the dummy and colours a spaghetti of an interchange entirely blue sending us variously to Bordeaux, back into Geneva, to some place called Pully and a pleasant looking industrial estate.
Some deep breaths and kilometers later we arrive in Annecy. The ridiculous price we paid to stay in the old town affords us a sofa bed, one towel, am airconditioner set on 25, a dunny lid that wacks you in the back dislodging vertebrae when you sit down and decent march into the distant old town.
A file a mental note that “in-town”, in Sydney terms, apparently includes Cambletown and possibly Katoomba. Not to be put off, we hike the obligatory miles constituting “in-town” to a sleazy dump of street where an evening cacophony of a throat screeched U2 versus a knee cymbaled, kazoo accompanied hotel California (I picture Don Felder of the Eagles committing Hari Kari), bounces off grimy grumbling walls shattering the evening air. A child cries.
My faith in internet researched holiday destinations takes a further few body blows as we squeeze our butts into plastic chairs and taste our goon sack wine.
But then……..the stresses of traffic and questionable accommodation (at extravagant prices) fall away as we wander out into the vast lawn by the lake. Snow peaked cliffs thrust up from the lake’s distant shore. At their base the twinkling glow of chateaus and lit roadways.
The lawn is of airport dimensions and chockers with picnickers. In the fading twilight they’re best made out by their sounds, laughter, singing, shouts to friends. The lawn is buffered from the sounds of the old town by a garden of ancient spruce, pine, oak and plane trees and as we emerge from the other side we find the real old town….