France View

Alpen Libre

In the spectacular setting that are the Rhône-Alpes, We discovers fun and fear are dear old friends

When we titter in French (oui, oui, it’s possible to titter in French), there’s usually a good reason...even when we are lodged on a thin-aired Alpine ridge, where jokes that would have fallen flat at sea level are inexplicably buoyed by the rather low oxygen levels at 5,000ft. So I lurch ahead—tied to a pair of  battered skis and screaming thighs—only to land in the middle of a how-many-ski-instructors-does-it-take-to-screw-a-light-bulb joke. None, as it turns out ‘because French ski instructors don’t screw light bulbs, dummy, they screw bored, rich housewives’. Hardly original. And certainly not politically savvy here in Simone de Beauvoir’s backyard. But after a day spent on the sugary slopes of Chamonix, trying to hold on to the last vestiges of dignity and to my trembling mandible, this is as good a time as any to laugh at a bad joke.

My instructor Raphael, if one discounts his dreadful dreadlocks, would do well to teach many a good wife, I think. Especially, when in utter desperation, he spreads his arms wide, Bollywood-style, hollering “Come to me, Sw(o)iitee” from the bottom of the beginner’s slope, hoping against hope that once (just this once) I wouldn’t execute yet another faceplant or an avalanche-triggering backflip. No, I don’t remember how that one ends (I’m determined not to), but I do remember at least one short run when I did Raphael and my new friends cheering me on puffa-jacket proud. With my poles confiscated (“they are the crutches for fear, love”) and strict instructions to look front-forward only, I glided like a swan for one gloriously long minute, making my own unbroken tracks and stealing the show (finally!) from that jammy five-year-old, born with a snowboard welded to his limbs. When—dang!—those fickle, warring skis decided to part ways. Again.  

The good thing is, in the shadow of the Mont Blanc, failure (and pride) is a lot easier to swallow. Almost everything, including your fall from grace, seems trivial and surmountable in this elemental landscape. For the rest—like that dislodged shoulder and stretched hamstrings you can play a quartet on—there’s piping hot fondue. I wonder if the local alpinist-doctor Michel Gabriel Paccard and chamois- and crystal-hunter Jaques Balmat celebrated their first ascent of Mont Blanc in 1786—sans ice axes and ropes—with (at least) a four-cheese fondue and a deep draught of absinthe. Their statues at the town square certainly look well-fortified—as strapping and eager as fathers of Alpinism ought to look. 

But Paccard and Balmat or even the initiator of their expedition Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who offered a reward for the first man to reach the summit, cannot entirely take the credit for making Chamonix one of Europe’s most sought after adventure resorts. From the Englishmen William Windham and Dr Richard Pococke, who wrote about the glacier of Mer de Glace when Balmat was not toddling yet, to Napolean III, whose anticipated arrival in 1860 to announce the (re)annexation of the Savoy regions by France resulted in better road connectivity, there were several cogs in this now well-oiled wheel. Later, a metre-gauge railway line (with the world’s steepest gradient) and the rack-and-pinion Montenvers railway (with toothed rails) also gave leisure tourism a leg-up, Cancan-style. Then in 1924, bolstered by the fact that French skiing was introduced here, the first ever Winter Olympics sealed this commune’s reputation for posterity. Ever since, every limit, every extreme (icefall climbing or under-ice diving, anyone?) has been pushed up the slopes of the Rhône-Alpes region.

Jokes that would have fallen flat at sea level are inexplicably buoyed by the rather low oxygen levels here

For someone who hates living in the same quarter as fear—and in her sane moments, believes that life is a gift, why throw it off cliffs and canyons, when you can spend it splayed on a hammock—skiing on the baby slopes and snow walking is as extreme as it gets. Once I have enough fodder for a lifetime of dinner table conversations, and maybe, a slim book or three, I prepare for our final expedition in town that evening. With my feet out of the ski boots (aah!), a long, warm bath and gentle Bruno at the wheel of a waiting car, I quickly forget the disappointment of our scuttled cable car ride up to the local Everest (the wind was playing havoc up there). My energies are now focussed on the five-course Michelin-starred meal at the Auberge du Bois Prin. It’s a charming log hut, a beautiful refuge from the sub-zero temperatures outside. And I’m pretty sure the meal is just as delightful as I expect it to be—fish tartare, a saddle of rabbit and a warm gooey, fruity dessert. But with the lactic acid kicking in before the wine—a fine one from the neighbouring region of Jura—all I want is a room somewhere, far away from the cold night air (-4°C to be precise)...

I must have also had an enormous chair (and a comfortable bed) at Le Hameau Albert 1er, a Relais & Chàteaux property, because when I wake up next morning, I think, wouldn’t it be loverly to stay on in Chamonix? This, despite the grey skies and an enormous snow plume rising from Mont Blanc, sending out ominous smoke signals to the many card-carrying adrenaline junkies in town. The distant rumble of the snow patrol cannons, teasing out avalanches in controlled conditions, however, signal otherwise... Soon, it would be business as usual on the powdery slopes. And Raphael would be spreading his arms wide for another woman. 

Down by the lakeside town of Annecy—somewhere between Chamonix and Lyon, next door to Geneva—great shafts of light are breaking through the billowing clouds, notwithstanding the steady drizzle. The lake is gleaming each time it catches the light. Barges meant for leisurely lunches are ambling by the banks. Dogs and owners are busy getting some mid-day exercise. And moneyed retirees, the only people who can afford housing here, are walking around Annecy’s blue-green heart. In the old town nearby, crayon-coloured tenth-century houses with quaint little cafés and patisseries tucked into their folds are peering at their own reflection on a network of canals (the latter, a remnant of Annecy’s medieval crafts industry). Yet, something is amiss, and I can’t quite put a finger on it.

Until, it hits me like a snowball. In this beautiful town, watched over by a string of jagged peaks and snowcaps, I haven’t spotted a single snow-goggled, ski-booted soul space-walking (heel first, balls of feet later) through its frost-free streets. The curious case of the missing skiers—who morph into regular tourists here—solved only by the sunburnt, chestnutty faces in the crowd; telltale signs of a winter and spring well spent.  

Still mooning over the slopes I had sullied and day-dreaming about bubbling cheese and gooey fondants, I finally leave thoughts of Chamonix behind by mid-afternoon. Now flying over the placid waters of the Lac d’Annecy, my spirits lifted substantially by the local bubbly onboard, I let the wind take over. My head wrapped in a polka-dotted scarf, overlarge shades on the bridge of my nose, I feel no less than a sports WAG or Hollywood royalty inspecting some of the prettiest cottages and overrun gardens on the waterfront to call a holiday home. I think I even hear someone say I look like a brunette Brigitte Bardot (but I can’t be sure with the wind howling). By the time we hit the bay of Talloires and drop anchor at L’Abbaye, a spectacular Benedictine abbey-turned-hotel where Cézanne stayed and painted the lake in 1896, I know only too well why artists like him and Churchill and Twain were drawn to these shores. Such beauty and tranquillity is also what made the news of the brutal murders of the British-Iraqi family in the woodland above the lake last year so appalling for the locals and tourists. Talk of it still furrows the average brow on the street. 

In the old town, crayon-coloured tenth-century houses peer at their reflections in the canals

Back in town, however, our concerns are more mundane. Well, as mundane as it gets in a French setting, anyway. Sitting down to an elaborate spread of le goûter—or afternoon tea, a tradition of eating sugar-laden treats, usually between four and six in the evening—at the sweet-smelling Philippe Rigollot Pâtissier Chocolatier à Annecy, my thoughts turn (annoyingly) to the high-minded Bengalis back home. The kind who insist that Bengalis are to India what the French are to the world—people who keep the blue flame of culture and culinary customs burning. For the English may save their queen and trademark their cucumber sandwiches and scones for tea, but only a Frenchman or a Bengali of a certain vintage can remember the sugar highs sought at the doors of a lemony-vanillaey patisserie or a mishti’r dokaan, somewhere between a light lunch and a big dinner.  

I don’t think pastry chef Quentin Bailly, youngest in a three-member team that won the world championships this year, would care much for my analogy. At this point, I couldn’t care much for it either. Outdoing his French maman, Quentin leaves a trail of glossy green apple tarts, gâteaus of every kind and chocolate truffles right under my nose. There are macarons too. Ones that would give toffee-nosed Ladurée (the best-known French maker of macarons) a run for its money. My money is on Quentin too. (Raphael, who’s that?)  

Yet, for all the sweetness of Annecy and Chamonix’s Michelin-starred cheesiness, here in the Rhône-Alpes, Lyon has always had the last word at the table. Home to the French culinary monarch and local hero, nonagenarian Paul Bocuse—who looks suspiciously like Auguste Gusteau from Ratatouille—Lyon has always led from the front, be it the discovery of nouvelle cuisine in the sixties or the recent revival of the cuisine classique. The sheer number of restaurants, brasseries, cafés and bouchons (small establishments that dish out traditional artery-clogging Lyonnaise specialities) is proof of how seriously this twin-rivered city takes its food. But to gauge how seriously food (or the culinary universe, outside its bête noire Paris) takes Lyon, I’m whisked away to the Institut Paul Bocuse in Écully, nearby.

Partially housed in the charming nineteenth-century Chateau du Vivier, surrounded by a seventeen-acre park, this is where some of the most talented professionals earned their chops and their toques over the last decade. A teaching institute with a hotel and a fine dining room, this is where the Haviland crockery and creaseless linen, a state-of-the-art kitchen and a research centre, are put through the daily grind by students handpicked from fourteen countries across the world. (All of whom are expected to learn French, of course.) So impressed was I by the guided tour here that I even volunteered to go under the knife for a ‘tasting’. Surely, with so many great places to eat at in Lyon, few punters must drive up on a grey, drizzly day for a ¤30 meal made by half-baked cheflings? Apparently, not. In France, they know a good thing when they see it, especially when it’s served au jus, with a side of greens. 

Now, Lyon, like Chamonix, had already pushed me off the cliff—by metaphoric extension—far beyond my culinary comfort zone. A meal at the Institut would probably have posed a far tamer challenge, therefore, say, than the pork head cheese and the donkey snout salad I had passed over at lunch for a pike quenelle (a curious log of flour and fish that even a creamy seafood sauce couldn’t rescue).

A brief interlude of fromage ice cream followed on a sunny afternoon spent flitting in and out of a warren of lanes and traboules (secret passages, some dating back to the fourth-century) in the old city. I even considered eating a second luncheon of near-transparent crêpes, but was dissuaded by the watchful eyes of the gilded Virgin Mary perched on the belltower of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière on the hill.

I considered having a second luncheon, but was dissuaded by the watchful eyes of the gilded Virgin Mary

Later, a trip to Les Halles de Lyon—Paul Bocuse (is everything connected to food named after Bocuse here?)  was on the cards for a masterclass with Philippe Lechat, also with a certified Bocuse connection. An indoor hall where the most exacting of chefs come to stock up on their gourmet supplies, Les Halles has about sixty shops including that of the celebrated cheesemonger Mère Richard. Think charcuteries, butchers, oyster bars, boulangeries and patisseries selling everything from fois gras macarons to the lurid pink speciality of tarte aux pralines. Just the heady smells of cured salmon or saucisson sec here can have you reaching for a warm cup of verveine, a herbal infusion that the French rely on to feel virtuous after a heavy meal.

Dinner, however, promised to be the toughest test of my tastebuds so far. While I like to think I have enough pluck to dine with the Tudors and have offal at every meal, if I must, a feast at a traditional bouchon had been eulogized so zealously by my hosts that I was convinced there was something fishy about it. A Lyonnaise institution from the horse-and-carriage era, thebouchon probably derives its name from a bunch of pine branches (bousche in old French) left outside to signal the availability of wine to the local silk workers. A rustic equivalent of an Italianosteria or a Punjabi dhaba, an authentic bouchon—there are only about twenty—carries an official plaque from a special society of bouchons that protects its patrimony. 

The Café Comptoir Abel, the oldest such bistro with a warm wood-panelled womb, is hardly the torture chamber I am dressed and (figuratively speaking) skinned for. Sitting knee to knee, I find local patrons and tourists fogging up the glass frames of the jolly memorabilia with their alcohol-laced breath when I arrive. Minutes later, good company, bilingual conversations across the length of the table and several glasses of wine further dull the edge of my inhibitions. Emboldened, I take a leap of faith. This time for a plate of andouillette or veal tripe swimming in a pool of lard. And dear Lord Bocuse am I rewarded for my efforts with warm, gamey perfection. Clearly, life—with or without Raphael—ought to be lived off-piste.

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The Information

Getting there

The nearest airport to Chamonix is at Geneva or Lyon. Airlines such as Air France, British Airways, Swiss, Lufthansa and Aeroflot operate one-stop flights to Lyon via their hubs from Delhi and Mumbai (approx. Rs 50,000 return). It takes about two hours by car from Lyon. From Geneva—Swiss has one-stop flights via Zurich (approx. Rs 50,000)—Chamonix is an hour-long drive. Annecy is an hour away by road.

Visas

To apply for a Schengen visa (€ 60) for France, log on to vfs-france.co.in to schedule an appointment and to download the application forms.

Travel operators

Atout France (atout-france.fr), the Tourism Development Agency of France, is an umbrella outfit that joins forces with regional tourism boards and independent operators to showcase the country’s best and brightest. Its Indian wing along with French Touch Travel (frenchtouch-travel.com), a new outbound operator that designs bespoke itineraries, was the invisible hand that guided us around the Rhône-Alpes region.