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Paris, Chamonix, Pollone - a weekend in France and Italy
This weekend felt wonderfully European in ways that may have been commonplace to all the friends I was with but were new and exciting to me. My journeys took me through Paris, Chamonix, Polone and back to Metz, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better first weekend trip in Europe.
The travels started at 7:30 on Saturday morning, when I made my way over to le Gare Metz, just in time to see the start of the Mirabelle Festival. Although I missed the main festivities of the weekend (parade, fireworks, costume contest, dancing…), I was able to enjoy wandering through the market and watch everyone set up their stands. Mirabelles, which are tiny plums the size of cherries, were plentiful and inexpensive, so I bought 1 kg just 3€! It was nice to arrive in Chamonix with a purse overflowing with mirabelles to share with everyone.
My first train stopped in Paris, and I had a few hours to explore the city for the first time. Gare du Nord isn’t centrally located, but I managed to find le Théâtre National de l’Opéra de Paris and a statue celebrating Bastille Day, “Le Génie de la Bastille”. I was pleased to find that some of my stereotypical expectations of Paris proved to be true – every building looked just as they do in paintings: beautiful stone apartments with window boxes overflowing with red flowers. It seemed that every other shop was a boulangerie, so I couldn’t resist stopping in for a ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette with butter – a classic French staple. Then I stumbled into an art fair, which I learned takes place every Saturday morning. There were a wide variety of genres, from welded metal pieces to jewelry to origami mobiles to paintings. I wasn’t sure if it would be rude to photograph the works, but I asked the artists before taking pictures and none seemed to mind. I was tempted to buy a little painting since I am collecting street paintings from every city I spend time in, but I figured that since I’ll be returning to Paris many times, I should wait for something that really catches my eye. After the art stand, I found a crepe stand that was so brightly decorated and enticing that I felt compelled to try my first French crepe. It was delicious, and I decided of all things to spend money on while traveling, local food is among the best of choices. I’m amazed at how much I was able to experience with just a few hours in Paris, and I can’t wait to go back.
Several trains and many hours later, I ended up in Chamonix. Stepping out of the station, I was immediately awestruck by the beauty of the mountains that surrounded the town. Memories of my favorite moments from my 2007 trip to Switzerland came flooding back, and I realized that while at that time I thought Switzerland was the most beautiful country in the world, the reality might be that its Europe in general that has an unmatchable beauty.
I was picked up at the train station by Marcello (a friend from EWH who hosted us all for the weekend at his chalet in Chamonix and then home in Italy), Salman (a friend from EWH), Outi (Marcello’s girlfriend) and Stefano (Marcello’s friend from Milan). We went straight to his cozy wooden chalet with a wonderful view of the mountains just outside. Immediately, I felt so lucky to be there and to have been included in what I knew would be a memorable weekend.
For dinner, we went to Le Dahu, a French restaurant named for the funny mountaingoats with uneven legs that enable them to walk along the side of a mountain. We ordered the fixed menu – omelette, filet de viande, and mousse chocolat. Omelets are a common part of a dinner menu in France, which I didn’t know before. Also important to remember – entrée means appetizer. So we ordered escargots with our entrée. That was my first time trying escargots, and they were delicious! At dinner I started to learn more about Outi and Stefano’s lives, and after hearing about all their experiences, Salman correctly noted that their lives made us seem incredibly pedestrian. Outi was born in Finland, moved to Belgium, studies at Imperial College London, and speaks French, English, Finnish, Swedish… the list seems never-ending. Her newest language is Italian, which she managed to learn in just 2 months this summer by reading a grammar book and “Topolina” (Minnie Mouse books). Her advice was to practice by having monologues and conversations in your head. I’ll keep that in mind! Stefano’s life sounds even more adventurous; when he was 17 he moved to China for a year and returned perfectly fluent in Chinese (both written and spoken) and with the ability to play a local instrument whose name I can’t remember. He described how every week he and his friends came up with different tactics for learning the language, but the most helpful seemed to be underlining the most common words when reading to figure out what they meant and in which contexts they were used, and keeping a diary which his home-stay mother corrected every night. I wished I’d done that in Costa Rica! While true that they made me feel pedestrian, their company was incredible because it has inspired me to work harder at achieving fluency in French and explore as much of Europe as I can in the next four months. Being able to travel to so many countries and experience a variety of cultures seemed to enhance their global awareness far beyond my level of awareness for even some states within my own country.
The next day, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of korvapuustit(traditional Finnish cinnamon rolls made by Outi) and crème de marron, a delicious chestnut spread on toasted biscuits. I also experienced Italian coffee for the first time. In Italy, coffee is what Americans call espresso, and it is always made from a coffee press and served in tiny mugs. Outi told us Marcello finds the idea of coffee filters to be intolerable (even worse is the idea of ketchup with a macaroni casserole). It was interesting to experience the fact that many things that seemed classy and sophisticated to me are just an expected part of every day life for Marcello.
Then we departed for Mont Blanc, where we spent the rest of the day. The views were incredible in ways beyond my ability of description, so I hope the pictures can do them justice. We enjoyed a picnic of ham and cheese on fresh baguettes, followed by an enormous chocolate covered meringue, while Outi sketched the mountain. Then we ventured down to the glacier. The last time I had been inside an “icy cave” was in DisneyWorld in the Coca-Cola cool-down igloo station. I laughed at the thought of how much my life and the experiences I have access to have changed over the course of just several years. At the time, I thought DisneyWorld was among the most entertaining places to be. Now I was standing in the middle of a real glacier in the south of France. I don’t know how to say this without sounding cheesy and cliche, but experiencing the world in such an authentic way made me feel incredibly alive. And of course, the glacier was still rather touristy. But nonetheless, Mont Blanc was incredible.
Later that day, after a late afternoon snack of crepes, we drove to Italy, to Marcello’s home in Pollone, a small town just outside of Biella. Immediately, the experience seemed to confirm my Italian stereotypes in the most marvelous of ways. We walked into Marcello’s home and the first thing we saw was a collection of several old motorcycles and a moped. The cuisine was delicious – pasta with homemade pesto, sorbet with freshly-picked raspberries from Marcello’s raspberry farm, fresh tomatoes and plums, also from the farm (Marcello kindly let us eat all of the tomato since he and his sister are “used to such nice things”), homemade pizza, Italian coffee, chocolate and hazelnut gelato, omelets, and crepes with jam made by Marcello’s mother.
Marcello lives in a 300 year old Italian home which used to be a farm; he proudly pointed out that his house was older than my country, which was remarkable to think about. That would be just the beginning of my newfound appreciation for the incredible history to be found in Italy and all of Europe for that matter. My family is proud that our house is 100 years old and our town’s historical society passionately celebrates and preserves homes that are not even 200 years old. Yet down every cobblestone street in the city of Biella its normal to find buildings whose age exceeds 1000 years. The oldest building in the town has lasted from 800AD. There is simply no comparison. Marcello was surprised to hear us obsessing over how beautiful Biella is, commenting that it was nothing special. Its all relative, I suppose.
