It was a very brief two days, but a lovely experience all the same. To sleep for even a night with the river flowing outside the window…is bliss.
What the girls enjoyed most was the long (1.7 km!) exhilarating luge ride down the monorail on the mountain in La Colmiane. The cable car ride that took us up to the top was a hair-raising experience, for me, though. Every time it stopped along the way – which it did several times and these were the open sort of seats , not the covered/glass cabin style of cable cars I have been in before – I wondered why we were doing something so foolhardy with the children…
They also gamely came along for a two hour walk on the alpine trail ahead of La Madone de Fenestre on Sunday morning.
We didn’t actually make it to the lake that the trail goes to, this time, but I ‘d love to go back one day next summer to do that hike again.It’s just the most beautiful place.
The square dancing we saw in St. Martin Vesubie, while a live band of musicians played traditional music, was wonderful too; a very gay time was being had by all. The way all those locals and tourists came together spontaneously to dance seemed a a live example of French joie de vivre.
The “parcours acrobatique” ( a freaky activity that involves crossing among trees in the forest on all sorts of rope bridges) which Indira and I did in Colmiane was very good fun as well, though a little scary to begin with !
The other thing I loved in St. Martin Vesubie (one of only two villages in France to have this) was the gargouille – a very narrow canal (less than a foot across) with a mountain stream running through it – that runs down the main street of the village. Indeed, our chambre d’hote was right next to it so each time we stepped out to walk up to the restaurants/cafes/shops, Noor had lots of fun skipping around it and playing with the water which was icy cold.
But the thing that will stay with me is the immense silence on the mountain, on the trail as well as where we sat outside the cafe on our return to the place where the trail starts despite the other hikers around us. To experience that, even for just a few hours, is the most amazing feeling.
An Indian Kitchen in France 