Category: Travel

Le Monal: winter wonderland, for real
French Alps, Sainte Foy Tarentaise, Travel

Le Monal in winter: wonder and peace

“Do you mind if we move our tour to Le Monal to Thursday?” the guide asks. It’s a sunny enough day but apparently there is too much wind on the other side of the mountain, whereas the forecast for Thursday is sunny all day and no wind, which would be ideal. We could still do it today, but really Thursday would be better. Of course the only possible answer is: “that’s no problem”. But, having come all this way and being so close to Le Monal, a place I have been meaning to see in the winter for so long, I’m not going to give up just like that – I am going to walk there instead.

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Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg1 Comment
French Alps, Travel

Bonneval-les-Bains: tales of a failed spa project

Bonneval-les-bains: the pool with no swimmers
Bonneval-les-bains: the pool with no swimmers

The road that winds up the vallée des chapieux from Bourg Saint Maurice has been cleared as far as Bonneval-les-Bains. This is where we’re heading with former instructor M, who has suggested we go snowshoeing away from the Val d’Isère crowds and explore the lesser-known parts of the Tarentaise.

She tells me about Bonneval, a small settlement of scattered houses on the way to the Cormet de Roselend, a popular destination in the summer. Now, in mid-February, this is where the road stops. There is nobody else around apart from a couple of cars parked on the roadside opposite the ruins of a hotel that was never completed and a derelict open-air swimming pool.

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Austria, Buildings, Travel, Vienna Road Trip

Innsbruck: Marie-Antoinette’s mother meets Zaha Hadid

Innsbruck: Zaha Hadid's curvaceous funicular stations
Innsbruck: Zaha Hadid’s curvaceous funicular stations

“I’m not visiting another imperial palace or baroque church until we’ve seen the Zaha Hadid funicular,” I say.

Dr K looks at me with a face betraying absolute incomprehension, obviously concerned that I may have passed the point of no return on the road to cultural redemption.

We’re just coming out of the Hofburg, in central Innsbruck, the palace from which Marie Antoinette’s mother, Empress Maria Theresa, ruled Austria for 40 years.

Now Dr K is casually suggesting that we go on to Schloss Ambras, on the other side of town, when all we really want is a nice mélange and a slice of chocolate torte.

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Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg4 Comments
Switzerland, Travel, Vienna Road Trip

Bern: going green

Green card: passport to brilliant Swiss painting exhibition at Bern's beaux arts museum
Green card: passport to brilliant Swiss painting exhibition at Bern’s beaux arts museum

 

Dr K can be utterly shameless. And Godfather P is no better. No sooner have I bought our tickets for the permanent collection at Bern’s national museum that they’re off. Off to the special exhibition, that is, which is not covered by said tickets and which requires a green badge rather than the blue badges we were given.
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Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg3 Comments
Switzerland, Travel, Vienna Road Trip

Fribourg: it’s oh so quiet, but quite charming

Fribourg: stunning view from the cliff top
Fribourg: all quiet on Monday, but charming too

Nothing can be quieter than a Sunday in Lausanne, we thought. Except a Monday, which in most parts of Western Europe can be just as quiet. Office workers and local authority staff are back at their desks but most shops are shut. And so it was in Fribourg, where we made a brief pit-stop to look at a few “good buildings”, to use Dr K’s parlance and have a bit of lunch on our way to Bern.

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Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg2 Comments
Switzerland, Travel, Vienna Road Trip

Lausanne: no cheese for dinner

Grinning gargoyle on Lausanne townhall
Grinning gargoyle on Lausanne town hall

We have just finished our main course at Lausanne’s railway station restaurant and are pondering whether to have cheese or go straight to pudding. These are important questions for carefree travellers. I ask our sprightly waitress if we can see the dessert menu, or perhaps have some cheese first. “We don’t have cheese at the end of a meal in Switzerland, but I can arrange for a selection of cheeses for you if you would like,” she replies. Behind her polite smile I reckon she secretly wants us to be sent straight to a Swiss rehab dairy and be reformed in the proper cheese ways. For a split second we feel culturally inadequate but we get over it soon enough thanks to a crème brûlée.

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Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg3 Comments
Buildings, Travel, Vienna Road Trip

Cluny: conjuring up lost worlds

Breakfast at Tupinier
Breakfast at Tupinier

It once stood to rival Rome as the largest centre of Christian influence in western Europe and seemed a fitting start to our Vienna road trip.

Yet, imagining what Cluny must have been like in the 11th century is challenging. The huge monastery, whose church was larger than Notre Dame in Paris, fell victim to the 1789 revolutionary zeal and was systematically dismantled and quarried in the early years of the 19th century.

Today there is hardly anything left of it. Wandering around the pretty town you see enough remnants of the old religious complex to get a sense of its importance, including the rows of romanesque houses built by the stonemasons employed to work on the monastery. Continue reading “Cluny: conjuring up lost worlds”

Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg1 Comment
Buildings, Travel

La Tourette, silence and peace

La Tourette convent, a place of silence and peace
La Tourette convent, a place of silence and peace

 

“This is a place of silence and peace”, says the sign as you enter La Tourette convent, Le Corbusier’s last major work in France. Quite what the party of 40 architecture students from Darmstadt, who are boisterously pouring out of their tour bus, will make of that remains to be seen. Or how they will comply with the instructions pinned on the back of the bedroom doors not to congregate, eat or drink in the ‘cells’.

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View over the glaciers du Mont Pourri from Le Monal
French Alps, Sainte Foy Tarentaise, Travel

Early spring at Le Monal

In peak winter season Le Monal is a favourite destination for backcountry skiers in the Tarentaise area. Skinning up to the Unesco-listed hamlet you get breathtaking views over the glaciers on the Mont Pourri on the other side of the Isere valley. The site is also awash with walkers in the summer months thanks in part to the ease with which it can be accessed; a pleasant hike from the Echaillon parking area in Sainte Foy at 1500m, along a gently sloping path to reach the 1874m settlement. Even senior folk such as Godfather P can undertake it strain free. And the likes of Dr K can be lured aboard with promises of rural baroque chapels – even though most of them are shut or their pretty altars visible only from behind bars.   Continue reading “Early spring at Le Monal”

Unknown's avatarJean-Yves Gilg2 Comments