There is one finally destination before we commence work on the tour. A hair-raising descent that leaves my fingers aching from applying the break then we hit the silent Sunday streets. The only person we see is a man walking his cat, that heightens the uneasiness of a deserted city.
As we draw closer to the trainstation more people emerge but almost everything is closed. The train is packed though and it is a relief to be deposited in montmélian. The mountain rears up before us with a geometric pattern of vineyards so steep it feels like a birds eye view.
We ride, the asphalt sizzles with heat. The horizon waves in a haze of cornfields squeezed between houses. My ears begin to ring and my vision closes in, I need to rest in shade with a drink before deciphering the tangle of french instructions that have come with every airbnb in this country. No one seems to have an address, they have a treasure map.
We enter a French housing development, so different to one in Australia, contemporary techniques hidden in a skin of the old world. Our host has that right amount of English for me to improve my french. Not so much that I am complacent, not so little that we don’t bother to communicate.
They welcome us for a family meal, and their cheeky youngest sun puts on a snorkel for dessert. Earlier his entire face lit up when Dylan skirted him with a water pistol in the pool, it was game on! The other boys have already reached the self conscious age where something as silly as language is a barrier.
The humid air produced a rainbow before even a drop of rain fell. Then it rolled over and we were glad that our tent days were over for this trip and there was a soft bed waiting for us.
4 Comments
I have to relive the trauma of a holiday ending all over again through this post. Thank you for recording all our beautiful memories, what a time we’ve had!
Thank you above all for sharing your trip and for documenting your journey so vividly that at times we almost felt it was our own experience. It is as well your posts were scheduled to appear at least a week after the event because we knew you had survived the scarier parts of the journey like the disquieting happenings in the national park in California, the “night on bald mountain” you endured in the Scottish highlands followed by being bitten by ticks and the electric storm you witnessed from your tent in the Spanish alps. We held our breath at times waiting for the next installment of the story; would you survive to finish the tale? There is material for a travel book in the hundreds of photographs and beautifully-written essays that accompanied your blog but most of all your regular blog updates generously permitted those who know and love you to be connected and share the highlights as well as the scary and dull bits (so France isn’t all chateaus and fields of lavender!). We were reassured to read about the acts of hospitality you encountered along the way and the resources you drew on to find your daily food and shelter when you were alone. It made us reflect on the times we left home in our youth and and by a combination of circumstance and selfishness, did not communicate with our poor parents for weeks (months?) on end. What a thoughtful, creative couple you are and isn’t modern technology wonderful when used for good?
Your comment makes it all worthwhile, although I shared this with the world, in my heart I wrote it for you and all our family and friends.
Maybe this is only the beginning of a much bigger adventure!