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Return to Chamonix, via Turin.

Tuesday morning we were to check out of the apartment in Andora, but first the 11yo and I went on a little walk, for breakfast and souvenirs. It was a gorgeous, calm, blue-sky day. The waves rolled gently from the sea onto the nearly-empty beaches. It would have been fun to spend an hour or two on the beach before leaving, but Mark and I had agreed that dealing with bathing suits and sand and going straight to the car would complicate things. Alas.

 

But souvenir shopping is not complicated!

 

We chose Bar Napoleon for its overflowing pastry case. I saw a gentleman choose his own pastry from the case and bring it to the bar, and we copied him. The 11yo chose a croissant labeled nocciola—I really do not understand why the kids love hazelnut so much, I can do completely without the stuff—and I chose one that looked wholesome and grainy and was labeled something like cereali.

We carried them to the bar and I ordered un cappuccino per me, e per lei, una cioccolata calda o qualcosa comme ça, because one problem I have sometimes is that when the Italian pipeline runs dry the French starts to spill out behind it.

No matter. We got our drinks. The barista made the hot chocolate from a packet and with steamed milk, which is fine.

The croissants were good (I didn't taste hers, but she ate it up; mine contained a sweet filling, sort of like apple or maybe honey).

She didn't like the hot chocolate. It was bitter, barely sweet, and thick, spoonable, almost like pudding. I suggested she add sugar, people put it in their espresso and there is plenty around, but she wrinkled her nose and we wound up leaving the chocolate behind.

We walked up and down the beach. She had a little money to spend and wanted some souvenirs and gifts from Italy. On the previous days in the later morning there had been sellers of bags, wood carvings, laced tall and narrow drums, all spread out on sheets on the plaza or hanging on temporary stalls ("Good price, good price, come see"); we thought that some of the woven wicker bags might be cool; but it was too early for those sellers. The plaza was still empty.

There are numerous little shops that read as "tourist shops" because they sell things like bobbleheads and refrigerator magnets with your name on them, crossed by plastic palms; but if you look closely they are also selling items that are very functional for an impromptu beach vacation, or for the traveler who has lost or forgotten something important. Sunglasses, and beach mats, and plastic pails and shovels and dump trucks; magazines, even swimsuits, coverups, scarves.

She bought a scarf (I coached her to feel the fabric first, to make sure it at least felt soft and comfortable, ot cheap crepe) and felt satisfied. We went on, and back to a little store I had noticed on our way out: school supplies, office supplies, and stationery.

I love paper and pens, neat little art kits, notebooks. I thought about buying a child's illustrated Italian-English vocabulary book, the kind with two-page spreads of scenes, and the nouns labeled with both words. But I resisted.

I got a little notebook for the 7yo, who had been wishing for paper ever since he spent some of his own money on a seven-color retractable pen from the gift shop in the Genoa aquarium. The 11yo found a sweet little nylon portfolio with three zip compartments, one with scissors, ruler, pens, pencils, sharpener, and eraser, the other two with colored pencils and markers. I bought it for her and called it a School Supply, so she did not have to spend her own money.

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Back at the apartment, we repacked our clothes, pulled still-damp items off the drying rack and stuffed them into mesh bags, stowed random items in shopping bags, and crammed this luggage among our bodies in the car, which has nearly no cargo space. I was sad to leave the Andora apartment, probably the nicest rental apartment we have ever had.

We aimed for Turin, with a modest goal: to stop in the cathedral there—yes, it is the one where they keep the Shroud, but that was not what we were after, and anyway, it isn't on display now. We wanted to visit the tomb of Bl. Piergiorgio Frassati. I would have liked to set an additional goal of walking twenty minutes from there (past what would be some cool sights on their own) to the basilica Maria Ausiliatrice, which is the resting place of Sts. John Bosco (my child discipline mentor, also a fan of St. Francis de Sales) and Maria Mazzarello, but I knew that would be too ambitious for the small children, so I only kept it as a vague perhaps-it'll-work-out thought.

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Our 17yo is rocking the restaurant picks, so we assigned him to pick one on the way for a leisurely lunch. He picked Ristorante "Al Bue Grassi" at the Carrù exit; the place was close to the highway, sharing a building with a coffee bar, and surrounded by agricultural fields. They advertised a "laborer's menu" for €10 on the sign. Mark sent me in ahead to ask.

"Siamo sette—possiamo pranzare?"

Yes. Yes, we could eat lunch. There was only one table open in the whole place, but it was the big one. Every other table was occupied by men, except one with a retirement-age couple next to us.

The menu was a little more complicated than others we'd looked at, with no English. Normally we let everyone choose a dish, but nobody could read the menu but me, so finally I shut everyone down and took over, while Mark was in the bathroom with the 3yo and couldn't object.

I ordered:

• peperoni bagna cauda (I focused on the peppers a marinade but forgot it was made of anchovies)
  
• salumi misti
• a pasta course: tagliatelle pomodoro, tagliatelle ragù, gnocchi pomodoro (wish I had gotten the butter and herb sauce instead, as while it was good, I think that would have been perfect), ravioli ragù
• mixed grill (sausage, pork, veal, chicken, beef)
• filet of beef with green peppercorn sauce

I cannot believe that those meat portions were supposed to be for one person only. Huge. At least a pound total in the mixed grill and half a pound for the filet.

Like the trompe-l'oeil on the ceiling?

The children drank a liter each of natural and frizzante mineral water. Mark asked me to order him a glass of Barolo, since we were in the Piedmont; but what we are finding is that most restaurants only have one wine of each color by the quarter-liter and half-liter, though they may have dozens of bottles.

But! One bottle on the long list measured 0.375 L. It was a Barbera, a good runner up to Barolo. Perfect for splitting at lunch time.

For dessert, they had a cart. An eggy amaretto-soaked ring cake, caramelized on the outside. (Mark.) A hazelnut torte with a custardy sauce. (The 11yo, who had not had enough nocciola that morning.) Tiramisu (the 17yo). Panna cotta (my 13yo's new fave). Gelato, crema and limone in the same bowl, for the two little boys. And prunes simply stewed, then chilled, in sweetened, spiced red wine (me).

My 17yo tried the prunes and pronounced them better than his tiramisu. They were quite good. I will have to make that at home.

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On to Turin, with flat country on our right and mountains on our left.

Driving into the middle of Turin was on the edge of what Mark is comfortable with. He has driven in Rome (never again, ever, for any reason) and Bologna (never again unless he has to), and he says that Turin was not quite as bad as those, only because there were not as many motorcycles and scooters, and we did not drive any narrow streets. He focuses on not hitting things, and I tried to navigate.

I wasn't sure whether to try it or not, but on researching I figured out there was a big public parking garage right on the edge of the limited-traffic zone, a few minutes' walk from the cathedral inside it. And the roads that approached the garage were all big major streets. So we decided to try it.

But then we missed a turn (largely because of a confusion between "right" the direction and "right" meaning correct, combined with needing to be on a frontage road instead of a main road to make a certain turn), and Google Maps rerouted us. We crossed the river five or six times, and got glimpses of numerous cool views: the Piazza San Carlo spread out before us, stunningly, at one point, until we turned and it disappeared, and a long road along the river, its walk lined with fat, shady, knobbly trees.

Suddenly not far from the garage we were heading to, Mark spied a street parking spot and grabbed it. We were puzzling over the electronic parking meter when a traffic parking official stopped, rolled down his window, and told us it was free today.

We couldn't understand why, but we accepted it gladly.

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I did not take any pictures inside the cathedral. It is not a breathtakingly grand building, and I barely glanced at the art inside. We passed quietly to the left until we found the side chapel with a large portrait of Bl. Piergiorgio, and a large informational poster giving his biography (Italian only I think), and a kneeler with a suggested prayer in Italian.

There were candles burning in tiny votive holders, and little cone-shaped candles in a box below with a sign: €0.50. I let the 3yo down from my back and gave him a half-euro coin, and more coins to the other children, and let them put the coins in the slot. The lighter was the pull-the-trigger butane kind, but the 11yo helped the 7yo and I helped the 3yo and it was fine, we lit the candles and not our clothes.

I knelt down next to the 3yo and said my prayer out loud in vocabulary meant for a 3yo to hear. Then we moved on to the chapel, glassed-in and with a closed red curtain behind the glass, where they keep the Shroud; there is a picture or a replica hanging in front of it, which confused the kids at first. I stayed out, though, because there was a sign saying "silencio" and I was gripping the 3yo. Across on the other side was the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, the red lamp burning, and we paused there for a moment; and then we left.

It was clear from the 3yo and the 11yo that we were not going to walk twenty minutes to the basilica. I gathered the children together, while Mark bought the 7yo a holy water font from the gift shop, and swept past the beggars holding out their cups, an old and easy habit from one who has lived in cities all her life (and remembers well being followed and grasped at by strange men in foreign cities)—and thought of Bl. Piergiorgio, the rich young man who quietly made real friendships with the poor in this very city, who gave his life for them, whose parents were amazed when throngs turned out to mourn him.

We are advised by wise people, including our pastors, not to give alms directly to beggars. And Piergiorgio is not a hero because, among other reasons, he gave alms to the poor—any rich young man can do that—but because he made relationships with them.

Nevertheless, sometimes we are shown that contrast is striking, between ourselves and what we would like to be.

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So we walked on, past the archeological park with its remains of the theater from the old Roman castrum.

And out through terrifying traffic, including a near-mishap in a multi-lane roundabout. Mark swore and I covered my face with my hands. We made it out alive.

People parallel parked in two rows on the street. We have no idea how that was supposed to work.

 

Finally we escaped. This looks like Piedmont to me: totally flat, with mountains very close.

 

Eventually we came back into the Val d'Aosta. Here we had a good view of the rock face that our teenager climbed with Jeff the guide and the aspiring aspirant guide the previous week.

And the ubiquitous castles-on-a-hill that dot the valley.

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Finally, around 7:30 pm, we rolled through the Mont Blanc tunnel and back into Chamonix, where the other apartment and most of our stuff was waiting for us. I was in a sleeveless top, having been walking on the beach this morning; here there was fog, and snow mid-mountain, and I shivered. The 3yo was so very stressed out (and had wet his pants) that I took him right in, stripped him, and put him to bed and nursed him there.

Then Mark and I found hats and socks and warm coats and headed out in search of pizza. We ordered four pizzas to carry out, and two glasses of wine to drink while we waited for them. It was perfectly comfortable under the heated awning, and our wine glasses were warm in our hands. Nice; almost all the red wine in Liguria had come chilled, and I was glad to drink wine that was not cold.

It really felt like a homecoming. The kids devoured the pizza, and settled in to watch some videos, and everyone calmed down just a little bit.

Four nights here, and then we move on again.

 

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Genoa, limited.

On Monday, with some trepidation, I suggested we drive one hour to Genoa for the day. There are things to see in Genoa, quite a lot, but I had a modest goal: the Aquarium, one of the largest in Europe. And possibly the Museo del Mare. Both are part of the same massive entertainment and tourist complex at the "old port."

Google Maps gave us confusing directions, so I spent a lot of the drive deciphering the driving directions on the aquarium website.

 

 

 

We maneuvered our way into a massive parking garage and emerged onto a huge plaza. It reminded us of other places we have been where an "old port" has been turned into an entertainment and restaurant complex: Chicago, and Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati.

We weren't sorry, though, because all that new construction made it easy to slip in from the elevated highway that snakes over the old port, with no slow nervous passage through medievally narrow streets. The "porto antico" was a little port within a port; it was full of boats, a working marina, and we even saw a big bright-orange tugboat in drydock there; but at the same time it was the home of several museums, a Disneyesque tourist pirate galley, and a big movie theater. It was disorienting to look around and think: This is the port from which the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria sailed.

But then if you turned and looked up at the buildings dotting the hills, all facing the sea, it wasn't so hard to believe.

Sure, the houses are modern now, towering apartment blocks, and there are cars winding on the elevated highway, enclosed under perforated roofs, maybe sound protection to muffle the traffic noise from the inhabited balconies above. But there is something timeless about the way the buildings cling to the steep side of the cliffs, all of them craning their necks to see the expanse of the sea. Genoa is a craggy, green, creased city on the side of the hills, squinting permanently over the sparkling horizon, where travel was swift instead of (as on the hilly land) arduous. That intent gaze must have been the same five hundred years ago as it is now.

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There are antiquities and architecture to see in Genoa, but I had a much more modest and modern goal in mind. I wanted to take the kids to the Aquarium.

The Acquario di Genova claims it is the largest aquarium in Europe, although other sites name it the second-largest; maybe it depends on how you define it. I have only been to one aquarium that rivaled it, and that was the freshwater-only aquarium in Duluth. But this covered the Mediterranean and the whole world. It claims 15,000 animals; 200 plant species; and 27,000 square meters in area.

We saw a roomful of jellyfish; a pair of manatees; piranha; many sharks; seahorses; crocodiles; part of the dolphin show (very impressive, four dolphins synchronizing their leaping, and we were very close); manta rays, enormous moray eels emerging sluglike from their holes, scintillating spidery crabs, two sawfish skimming bizarrely along the bottom.

There was a touch pool where you could pet a sort of ray that fluttered along in the sand. And an exhibit with many species featured in "Finding Nemo."

We all thought it was tremendous, from Mark down to the youngest. But it was that youngest who was really entranced. Our three-year-old's favorite show is Octonauts, that cartoon about deep dives into the ocean among the sea creatures; and he spent the two hours of our visit in a state of utter delight. One of his brothers had him in the back carrier, so he didn't tire, and he wanted to stay and look at every fish.

One of the last exhibits was about explorers and biodiversity and evolution, and it was very attractively set up as a mock deck on the H. M. S. Beagle. My 7- and 11-yos, in the process of learning about transatlantic explorers, were surprisingly engaged in the exhibit.

We ate a forgettable, but functional, fast food meal in the museum canteen midway through the visit. The fries weren't bad, I should say, and I was pleased with myself for transacting everything relatively smoothly in Italian.

One thing that I think is funny is that the cashiers and baristas are always impressed with me for rattling off the numbers on the receipts. I think numbers must be difficult for most people who struggle with a little traveler's Italian. Me, I have Italian numbers down cold by now: Tredici cinquanta, cente ottantasette, ventidue ventotto. I hear them and the numerals appear in my inner eye: 13.50, 187, 21.28; easy. You would think it was maybe because I am a math person, what with the engineering degrees and all that; but the truth is I am not nearly so facile with numbers in French, and have to think hard and "translate" them, not merely deal with them as words in a language I know. Before learning Italian I had a theory that the left and right brain both have to crunch the numbers in order to translate them from a foreign language, because I felt a real resistance in my head to press through to the meaning of treize cinquante, cent quatre-vingts-sept, vingt-et-un vingt-huit. But the Italian numbers just seem to work perfectly. Is it because they are less cumbersome than French: novanta (ninety) instead of quatre-vingts-dix (four-twenties-ten?) Or is it because the Italian enunciation is clearer to English-speaking ears? I don't know; just that Italian numbers seem to work right away in my head, with no translation.

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After the aquarium we went to the Galata Museo del Mare. This is the Genoa naval museum, and it includes a stunning variety of models of ships, from ancient times through Genoa's golden age of shipping and exploring to today.

There are a few lifesize, walk-through ship reproductions: a whole galley, rooms on a transatlantic steamer, a more modern ship with a simulation of steering into the Genoa port.

 

There was also a temporary exhibit about the Andrea Doria and its sinking, including a reconstructed room listed to 30°. And some atlases and globes were exhibited under glass, some hundreds of years old. One was an edition of Mercator's atlas. There were also navigational instruments, clocks, and a simulated galley bench with an oar-handle to try to row.

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Eventually the 3yo got too tired, and we had to rush through the last bit of the museum. Mark and the 17-, 13-, and 7-year-old boys went to tour the Real Submarine while the 3yo (forbidden to tour the sub) and the 11yo (bored) and I went to find a treat; we found a coffee bar that sold sorbetto popsicles. The barista, hearing that I was American, first expressed condolences for the destructive hurricane season and then commented that in America we had weak coffee; I pointed out that at least in the U. S. we could obtain large quantities of coffee and did not serve it in thimble-sized portions.

It was good espresso, though. Can't argue with that.

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We drove the hour back to Andora, stopped in a grocery store for bread and olives and jarred peppers and beans, and made a feast out of refrigerated pasta boiled three minutes with Genovese pesto from the deli, and bread and meat and fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And limoncello right before bed, bought from an Italian gas station.

 

A good day.

 

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Windier beach day.

Oh man. I just had half a bottle of wine and a couple of shots of limoncello. And I am sitting across from Mark and there is more limoncello here. And it's late on Monday and I still haven't written my blog post about Sunday. Let's see what I can do.

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So the first thing that happened on Sunday was that Mark and I went for a very pleasant walk to find coffee and pastries and to scope out a different beach to play on with the family.

Mark got a hazelnut pastry cornucopia thing, and I got a quilted puff pastry full of "crema." Which was a sort of eggy custard.

 

One of the things I like about Italian dolci is that the "neutral" dessert flavor is not vanilla. Vanilla is okay, but I can overdose on it. The neutral dessert flavor is just sweet cream, or sweet custard. No vanilla. Just the flavor of the milk and cream and sugar. In ice cream, it's fior di latte, the flower of the cream. Or crema dell'uova, the cream of the eggs, for an eggier flavor. No vanilla. Sugar and cream; or sugar, cream, and eggs.

Good cappuccino, and a sea breeze, and a faint but not unpleasant scent of tobacco from neighboring coffee drinkers.

It was windy on Sunday! The waves were breaking all over the beach, and people were surfing! And windsurfing too.

We decided to go to a beach that had a play structure for kids, Tortuga Beach, in case the wind was too strong for the little ones.

We made our plan: We would go home, gather up the kids and dress them with clothes over their swimsuits, go out for a full Italian lunch, then go straight to the beach, then go home and have dinner in the apartment with our tired children.

We stopped at the grocery on the way back for dinner food. Look! Proscuitto in single-serve packets:

We bought breadsticks, and cheese from the deli (sold by the weight, so you have to talk to someone to get it). Cereal. Crackers. We moved on to a pastry shop and bought loaves of fresh bread, and six cookies for the children, and two stuffed cannoli. We stopped at a final small grocery and bought wine, and apples. The store owner's two little daughters brought me a basket to put the apples in as I selected them.

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We gathered the children and went out walking, looking for a good full lunch. The first place we tried would not seat us without a reservation. So we walked back, and found a good-sized table at "Il Bastione," a restaurant in a medieval stone tower.

I asked for a smile from these two and got this:

I don't think I could have gotten a smile out of the 3yo. He was rapidly melting, saying things like "Your red car is better than our car in Italy. It has faster tires." And there were no breadsticks to be found! Mark picked him up and carried him around the restaurant, looking at the interesting windows and lamps.

We ordered penne pomodoro for him, and a marinara pizza for our 11yo and 7yo, and a shared pasta with tomato pesto for Mark and the 17yo. Me, I saw "insalatina di farro con tonno rosso" on the list of antipasti, and knew I had found my lunch. Chewy wheat berries, herbs, olive oil, lemon-soaked raw fresh tuna, and thick shards of parmigiano reggiano? Please. I didn't want to share with anyone.

Except the 13yo, who had ordered the pizza Genova: pesto, with roasted potatoes and slim green beans. The crust was perfect, crisp and light. We traded some. It was heavenly.

For dessert: gelato, and crème brulée (very like eggy vanilla pudding), and a fudgy chocolate log with hazelnuts sliced and served with gelato, and a fantastic panna cotta served with seasonal fruits: melon, kiwi, peach. I had a semifreddo with pistachio and chocolate, a bit too rich but lovely. Finished with espresso.

On to Tortuga Beach!

By this time the wind and the waves were quite strong. We tried to take the little children to the play structure, but it was closed for lunch and wouldn't open for twenty-five minutes. So we went down to the beach, where there were literally no families playing in the waves and no one but wet-suited surfers in the water.

Our older kids were excited and ran in, but then the lifeguard and a manager both came out to tell us not to let them in deeper than their bellybuttons, because the water was "molto pericoloso" today. The waves crashed and broke all around us. I saw a jellyfish washed up on the sand, told the 3yo not to touch it. "It will sting me," he said gravely. Kid has watched a lot of Octonauts.

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So I kept a firm grip on the 3yo's hand, and Mark kept the 7yo, and we ordered the tween and teens to stay close in. And the lifeguard watched us nervously, as we were literally the only family on the whole beach. And at three o'clock the lifeguard got my attention and said: Il parco de gioca è aperto adesso. And I said "Thank you! Grazie!" and asked the two little boys if they wanted to go to the playground, and they shrieked yes and ran over the sand, with me chasing after them warning them not to step on the jellyfish.

 

 

The wind from the sea blew a fine sand into my eyes, even with my sunglasses on; I pressed them closer to my face. The two little kids attacked the play structure with relish, and I sat on a bench and felt the sun—even with the wind, it was warmer today.

Eventually the water got so rough that Mark called it off even for the older kids. They all came in and hung out with me in the play area.

 

We didn't stay long, long enough for some play on the play structure, and for the big kids to get money and go buy themselves a soda. Then we walked tired home through the town.

There is a little herb garden here. Lemon thyme, and oregano, and rosemary, all carved into little signs.

Home, and a little rest. Mark produced some espresso from the machine and handed it to me proudly. I tasted it: "Sorry, it's brown, but it's ice-cold. Freddo."

"What?!" He bent over the machine to tinker with it, and I microwaved my espresso. Then I started pulling things out of the fridge. Cold meats, and the cheese from the deli —both goat cheeses, it turned out—wine, and a can of borlotti beans that I doused with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper; and a jar of roasted peppers, and a bag of hard breadsticks, and a plate of cut apples and yellow plums. We set it all out on the patio and fell to.

 

Afterwards, while I wrote the previous day's post, Mark and the big kids cleaned up, talking late into the evening of college majors, of management and finance and engineering.

 

While the youngest curled up in a blanket and looked up at the stars.

 

 

 

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Beach day.

I woke up on the first morning in Andora and got dressed before anyone else was up. First I took some photos on the balcony.

 

It is really a dream of an apartment, the kind that makes it easy to imagine living a beautiful life surrounded by sun-soaked potted flowers and succulents, drinking wine with friends on the terrace, retreating under an outdoor roof should a shower interrupt your dinner.

Never mind that I can't keep a single houseplant alive in my real life. Look, a potting bench with a sink, or maybe it is a wet bar. Either, neither, both, it doesn't matter. It's a fantasy, remember?

I took a mirror selfie on my way out the exterior door. It was a little chilly so I wore leggings and flats and a fleece and a scarf over my little knit black dress.

We are located on the west end of town, on the other side of a little river with a big marshy bed that flows down to the sea. If you look up the river from the bridge, you can see the low mountains we drove over, and the viaduct for the big coastal highway. There is a sign on the bridge touting the natural beauty of the marshy river, indicating that more than 40 species of birds live in this little valley. We have seen swans and a couple different kinds of ducks in it, ourselves, besides the pigeons and seagulls that frequent the beach area.

My first order of business was coffee. I found a corner place on the way to the beach and ordered a cappuccino. I had difficulty understanding the barista when she was trying to ask me if I wanted "cacao" on my drink, probably because I forgot that that is a thing one gets on cappucino and I wasn't expecting it. I hear words I am expecting much more easily than words I am not expecting.

I took my time with the drink, and watched people come in and go out. An old man ordered a ristretto; I think I know what that is, but I am not sure. Somehow, I have never learned all the necessary vocabulary to order coffee made in different ways, either in Italian or in French, and somehow I find that sort of embarrassing. I want to know what I want, and I want to know how to ask for it, and I still don't know either of those things. Because at a coffee shop at home I generally order a twelve-ounce dark roast, black drip coffee, or sometimes I ask for half-caf; I don't think they have this here.

So in France I order a café allongé (and I am not even sure exactly what that means, but it proves that I know enough to order something slightly more involved than just café), and in Italy in the morning while no one will laugh at you for it I order cappuccino, del caffè più tarde, but I feel like there is a whole world of other ways I could order my coffee that is still closed to me.

By walking a few blocks from the apartment, I became the first member of the family to see the sea today.

 

Palm trees and winding flowers everywhere. I associate palms with hot weather, so it was a bit odd to be walking around in a fleece against the brisk wind coming off the water.

 

In the center of town was a piazza with knobby low trees that children could climb in, public phone charging stations, a play structure, and the parish church. This was a modern, modest, but well proportioned church, with a geometric steeple, and dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There is a much older and more historic church farther away from the beach, up in the hills, but this is within walking distance of our apartment. It was Saturday; I took note of the posted Mass times.

 

I stopped at a store as I had promised, and bought things for breakfast: milk and granola ("muesli croccante con pezzi di frutti," crunchy muesli with fruit pieces), square white bread, plain yogurt and fruity yogurt, and some plums.

I came back to find Mark struggling with the espresso machine in the apartment. As the children leaped on the cereal and white bread, he served me his latest experimental cup. I sipped and pronounced it warm and brown, and therefore acceptable. "I think this is robusta, not arabica," he said, and I said that was all right and I would drink anything, and we could buy better coffee in town if necessary.

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The apartment came furnished with a bag of beach toys and straw mats. We collected a few bags of these, with towels and such, and put on our swimsuits and walked to the beach.

The sun went in and out of clouds. It was cool and breezy when the clouds hid the sun, and perfectly warm when the sun came out. I held the 3yo's hand and we let the waves roll up and foam around our ankles, and he shrieked and ran away, then back in. The 17yo took the 3yo and swung him up over the water. I went back and transacted to obtain rental chairs with umbrellas, one set in the front row facing the sea, and one set just behind (all the others, though empty, were already rented, some of them by the week). And I settled down, wrapped in fleeces and towels against the chilly breeze, to enjoy the sun.

And the company.

The waves were gentle and rolling. All the children ran in, and were whistled at by the lifeguard who explained to me that they were much too close to the rocks, and showed us by pointing where they could be. We redirected them, and then set them loose. The 17yo stuck close to the 3yo (who didn't want to get any closer to the water than he had to to scoop it up in a bucket, anyway). The 7yo tried to bury himself in sand to get warm. The 13yo dove headfirst into the waves, over and over. The 11yo joined one, then the other, then the next, trying to do it all.

At one point the 17yo brought the 3yo to us wet, spitting and coughing. "Just so you know," he told us, "he's okay, but he fell in the water."

"Did you taste the sea?" I asked him. "How did it taste?"

He pulled a squinty, grinning grimace. "It tastes," he roared, "like a sugar mistake!" We laughed till tears came. He ran right back to the sea.

Later, having ventured farther out, he came back shrieking, "A big wave came! And then! Another big wave came! And! They both beat me!"

+ + +

The beach was starting to fill up. It was no longer high season, but it was a weekend, after all. Everything was still warm and beautiful, but also everything was a good deal cheaper than it had been in August. The beach chair rental was half price.

When Mark and I got hungry, we gave six euros to our 13yo and told him to find out what sort of food they had, buy some, and come back. He returned with a basket of hot french fries, with ketchup, and some change. "They have six kinds of panini," he told us, "well, three of them I think they're out of. One is tuna. They have french fries and something risotto. They have wine and Coke and potato chips."

I left the 3yo with the 17yo and went up to investigate myself, promising to buy him something.

I ordered two panini with ham, cheese, lettuce, and tomato—one for me and one for the 17yo—and got tomato-flavored potato chips for the 3yo and also a Coke for the 17yo as a treat for having watched the little guy so attentively. And we got more french fries, and a glass of wine for me.

When the man behind the counter brought our french fries, he had a big bottle of ketchup. "You need?" he asked, gesturing.

"Yes, yes!" said the seven-year-old, pointing, and I said: Siamo americani. È.... necesario? and then thought, wait, was that a Spanish word?

He laughed, squirting ketchup into the french fry basket, "È indispensabile!"

My panino was good, hot and crisp with cool lettuce and tomato, and my wine was tart and slightly frizzante. One thing I have noticed about wine here is that if you ask for a glass, or a carafe, of wine, they only want to know: Rosso o bianco? And after you tell them, they might ask if frizzante is okay, as if they've been burned by tourists who weren't expecting their not-champagne, not-prosecco wine to have little bubbles in it. A lot of it is frizzante, and some of the reds are pale and pinkish, almost rosé.

But nobody yet in Italy has shown me a wine list. Maybe if I ordered a bottle? So far it has all been glasses and carafes. They always bring me wine, red or white according to my request, and il vino frizzante mi piace, so I guess I don't need to know what I am drinking exactly.

Around here all the wine, it seems, even the red, is chilled, not cold but cool, and also it all has a vinegary nose: like sniffing red wine vinegar, or sour ale. It tastes surprisingly tart, most of what I have had. But it goes down very easily, refreshing before the food arrives; and when the food arrives, it folds itself smoothly into the dish and seems softer, warmer, luscious, part of the meal.

+ + +

We went back to the beach and spent another hour or so. I was enjoying just lounging around in the sun, which is a recent development; I have been training for it. Honestly, it is hard for me just to sit and be, a lot of the time; there is always something at home I ought to be doing, and sitting in the sun reading a book or just thinking is hard for me to do. The last couple of summers at home, I made a real effort to go outside for fifteen minutes at lunchtime, every nice day; put my feet up, read a book, feel the sun on my bare feet and arms.

I put that practice to use.

While I was there on the chair, wrapping up and unwrapping as the sun dove behind clouds or came out to warm me again, I got a lot of pictures of the family. This is one of my favorites.

I am a little sad that I am not in it. But I wouldn't have the picture if I had been there. I guess I'd have something else, sand between my toes, a memory of whatever it is they were saying to each other in that moment.

You can make a memory, or you can make a record. You have to choose.

She says as she sits at the table in the Italian apartment kitchen, writing on her iPad.

Oh well, you need down time too, and one of my goals—a goal is a choice too—one of my goals for this vacation is to blog every day. I have a hope that it will get me back in the habit.

+ + +

After showering and resting, we decided to go to Mass on Saturday evening and then have dinner in town.

Church was at six p.m. We got there on the dot and were astonished to discover that it was utterly packed. We had to stand off to the side, in an alcove where the baptismal font was. The 17yo was carrying the 3yo in the carrier on his back; the 3yo fell asleep, so there wasn't much for the 17yo to do other than to keep wearing him for the whole mass. He stood, leaned on the font, leaned on the windowsill, made do.

The 7- and 11-yo had their Magnifikids. They sat on the floor, backs to the wall, which I think was okay because we really were out of the way in the baptismal alcove. Most of the standing people were by the front door ("the back of the church") where they had a better view. There were also benches along the side walls.

In case you are wondering why nobody offered our young and tired family a seat: Nearly everyone near us was elderly. There were a few families here and there; this town is not at all devoid of children, not the way Rome was. But there really was nobody around who ought to have offered us a seat! It was fine to stand.

I would have liked a song book, though.

When the Gloria started, my daughter perked up, because it was exactly the melody for the same Latin Gloria that she chants in the youth choir in our home parish. "Gloria in excelsis Deo," sang the cantor, and my daughter jumped up and loudly started in on "Et in terra pax hominibus—" and then shrank back in embarrassment because nobody else was singing, after the cantor started they had all just started reciting the rest of the Gloria. In Italian.

Oh well, she survived.

It really is nice that the Mass ordinary is the same everywhere. Except for the homily itself, you know exactly what sort of thing is being said. The language may be different, but you know what is going on. If you want you can keep up, saying your own parts in your own language, or you can listen intently and find out how they do it here: Signore, pietà.

I concentrated as hard as I could on the homily, and I gathered that today there was some couple in the parish who was celebrating a notable wedding anniversary, perhaps a fiftieth; and the pastor started out his homily talking about marriage and its gifts, especially the gift of forgiving each other many times, and then segued into a discourse on forgiving "seventy times seven" (I am good at catching numbers as they fly by). I hadn't checked what the gospel was, but just now I am looking at iBreviary and I see that I was correct, that the "how often must I forgive?" story was the gospel for the day. So I caught that. Also that he finished by talking about marriage again.

Most of it goes right by, but I catch phrases that come whiffing past my ears: "live in Christ and die with Christ," "the gift of his whole self," "a large sum of money," and pretty much all the numbers. Also the priest made a joke when somebody's cell phone went off for the third time, which made people laugh in the way they laugh to humor Father when he makes a joke from the pulpit; and I am not sure, but I think the joke was along the lines of whether the phone would ring seventy times seven times. Anyway, no more phone ringing after that.

I coached the kids to go slowly and see what the other people do when they go up for Communion. In both Italy and France, the people have gone up more or less in rows, but oddly enough they go from back to front: the standing people and the baby-rockers in the back come down the aisle first, and then the back rows file up past all the kneeling people, down the center aisle and then after receiving split out to the side aisles and walk back. The front row goes last, and the last row goes first.

Mark told me later that our mopheaded 7yo, who had his hands folded and was concentrating hard on not messing up or stepping on his sister's heels as he came down the aisle for communion and therefore looked more angelic than usual, drew all manner of Italian-grandmotherly attention. I didn't notice, but I don't doubt it.

+ + +

Afterward we let the kids play on the playground next to the church.

It was a nicely appointed playground, with big wide terraced steps for parents to sit, and a long rampy thing down which one child rode seated on a skateboard, over and over and over. It was lovely to sit and feel the cool evening and let them play.

Mark ran home to get our 7yo a Benadryl. Something about the salt water had made him very itchy.

Pro tip: Always travel with children's Benadryl.

Then we headed off to find a restaurant.

+ + +

It was about eight o'clock on a Friday night, and many places looked quite empty, so we were a little confused when we kept getting turned away and being told that without a prenotazione we couldn't be seated. Finally we figured out that it was only eight o'clock, and so of course nobody was in the restaurant yet, because who would be eating dinner that early in Italy?

But they'd reserved their tables! And when they showed up at eight-thirty or eight-forty-five, they were not going to want to see us in any of them.

Finally, just when I started to despair (and when the 3yo was starting to tell me, "But they had chairs in that restaurant! They were not full!") we found the Bottega di Cibo. And they had a table on the patio, under cover and sheltered from the wind, which they were glad to give us.

With breadsticks right away for the 3yo.

We asked to have all our food served all together so we could share in the family and so that the most small one would not get any more less happy, and that was all fine, and then we started listing pastas, and the waiter interrupted us to explain—Mark figured this out before I did—we can't order everything to come all at the same time and have pasta for everyone. We would have to order some things that were not pasta.

Put this in your list of useful proverbs: "Too many pastas stops the kitchen."

So I changed my order from the linguine alle vongole to a fritti misti di mare, and my oldest changed his pasta to a pizza "4 stagione." The middle sized kids got ragù and Mark got a beef filet with green peppercorn sauce, remembering a memorable dinner in Rome. Number two son ordered pesto, and the più piccolo got a simple pasta pomodoro. We asked for wine and a liter of acqua naturale and a half-liter of acqua con gas.

The waiter gestured toward the children. "Coca? Sprite? Fanta?"

"No, no, solamente del vino per noi e dell'acqua per i figli," I said, probably a little bit irritated, but Mark thought he detected in the waiter's expression some approval of our choice not to give the children soda.

My fritti misti came with a few more legs and tentacles than I usually find appetizing, but the calamari and shrimp were very good. (I admit to mourning for the lost linguini for which I had been jonesing, but I drowned my sorrows in a very nice glass of wine.) The 13yo's pesto was perfect. The youngest children were happy with their sauced pasta. Mark's steak was good and so was the oldest's pizza, especially the part with the mushrooms, which were tiny whole ones with perfect little narrow stems and a slightly acid flavor.

Afterward (oh my gosh, it takes forever to get the waiters' attention for anything, I wanted a second glass of wine and I never had a chance to ask for it, and we should have asked for the check right away, I know there are downsides to a tipping economy but Americans reap the rewards in excellent attentive service) we decided not to order dessert.

We went for gelato instead. And since the first three gelato shops were closed we were quite happy to find one open. Mark and I were too full, but all the kids got some. The best flavor was our 11yo's sorbetto, pineapple with pineapple pieces.

At the end of that day I had no trouble sleeping, let me tell you. We opened the windows and listened to the motorcycles, and fell right to sleep.

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Driving to better weather.

Friday we got up early and packed smaller bags to drive to Italy for four nights where there would be sun.

"How warm is warm enough to make it worth it to go to the beach?" Mark had asked me.

I knew the kids could stand it much cooler than me, so I answered: "Sixty-five degrees."

And that is how we wound up heading for the Riviera Ponente, the Riviera Levante's less-prestigious—and this week less-cloudy—western sister.

 

We drove past Aosta, past all the castles in its little valley. Here is the very impressive Fort Bard, which commands the top of a hill-within-a-valley. We might take a tour of it on the way back, if we don't decide to go to Turin instead.

Our 17yo had some impressive views of Fort Bard when he went climbing a few days ago with the guide. He pointed out where he was climbing; you could see the face from the highway.

 

We stopped in Nebbiolo country for lunch and found a little cantina being operated by a winery. Nobody switched into English there. I managed.

 

Mark and our 13yo reverse-engineered the breadsticks. Do they extrude them in a long string and chop them apart, or do they finish the ends somehow?

Reporting on lunch. The place had a menu that changed daily. There were only two choices of pasta (primi piatti) and two choices of main entree (secundi piatti).

An aside: I know that Americans are supposed to be terrible with our supersized platters and all, but really, you basically eat dinner twice in every Italian restaurant I have seen. First the salad, then the pasta plate (surely enough for an adult), then the plate with the meat or fish, the potato, and the vegetable.

Anyway, besides a simple rotini with tomato sauce for the two littlest boys, the pasta choices were puttanesca (heavy on the olives, light on hot pepper) and the same tortellini with ham and nutmeg-scented cream sauce that we have seen all over Aosta. We got pasta for everyone, and then we only ordered one each of the two secunda. These were roast beef or fish steak (I don't know what sort of fish it was; it was mild and white and tasted good), served with herbed well-cooked peas, really delicious diced browned potatoes, and a weird little omelette rolled up with a soft cheese inside.

I ordered 50 cL of the house red wine, forgetting that Mark had to drive, and was forced to drink a lot of it myself.

I am blanking on what the kids had for dessert. I can tell you that Mark and I got espresso afterward and they offered the kids more gelato to have while we drank our coffee.

No, wait, I remember: panna cotta with caramel drizzled over it, and an amaretto-chocolate-peach thing. And something else. I am sorry, I can't remember.

+ + +

Back on the road. But first the children have to play for five minutes on the slide out back of the winery.

And contemplate the grapevines.

Mark decided that everything would be more fun if it took longer, frightened me, and made our daughter throw up into her brother's Klean Kanteen, so he took this road.

 

Why go through the tunnels on the highway when you can drive directly over two mountain ranges?

When we finally found a place to stop and dump out the soiled Klean Kanteen, we discovered that we were at a trailhead for a long hiking trail that winds along the top of the mountain range that separates Liguria from Piedmont. I had looked into hiking one of the sections as a cold-weather activity.

Onward.

Actually, the drive was really quite beautiful, and the road was at least well maintained and signed, with lots of room at the hairpin turns—I have definitely been on scarier mountain roads in the States. We are at the change of seasons here, so the mountains are green in some places and beginning to show autumn colors in others. There are a lot of ferns in the underbrush; the vegetation does not look like what I am used to.

It is really striking that you can drive from the snowy mountains to a warm Mediterranean climate in just a few hours. I guess it is like parts of California, or maybe Oregon in the summer.

+ + +

We stopped at a service station/truck stop place, used the bathroom, and went in to buy snacks. The gas stations in Italy have a cornucopia of food and packaged goodies that is similar in scope to what is sold at a better American gas station, but of much higher quality. There is a counter piled high with freshly made sandwiches of all types, and hot pizza, and espresso. There were bags of locally made meringue cookies and hard-pretzel-like snacks. There were plenty of different kinds of candy, and a small fridge of cold tea, energy drinks, soda, and beer. There were jars of olives, jams, pestos, and pickles.

I picked out gummy bears, Haribo berries, and gum drops for the children, some coconut amaretti cookies, and a Red Bull for Mark's afternoon caffeine fix.

"What? Full priced American energy drink? Wasn't there a cheap weird Italian one?"

"Yes," I said, "but it was called 'Bee Bad' and contained royal jelly. Isn't that a little froufrou for you?"

"If it's cheaper than taurine, I don't see how it's any weirder," he replied.

"My favorite energy drink is the giant Starbucks Mexican Mocha," piped up our 17yo from the back seat. "They didn't have those."

+ + +

Finally we came into Andora, tantalizingly dotted with fat palm trees, and navigated to the coordinates of our apartment. The caretaker, a young woman with two young children at her heels, showed us around. She spoke a little English, but also French and German, and among all those languages we were able to work out where almost everything was.

The place is really lovely, nice and new inside. Well stocked with toys for the children. Loud and echoey, though, with lots of marble and high ceilings.

Gas range. Oven. Espresso machine.

Dining balcony. Gnome.

+ + +

We got a recommendation for a pizza place and went out, well after seven-thirty, to dine on a covered patio. It was cool out, cool and humid, but not cold. Still, it was nice to be under cover.

The 3yo methodically destroyed the breadsticks and did not even stop to decide whether they had been die-extruded onto a belt or not. Then, when those were gone, he started in on the basket of baked bread rolls.

 

We ordered:

• smoked swordfish with arugula, which came thinly sliced with a half lemon to squeeze over it, and which I adored. We debated whether the greens were actually arugula though; the leaves seemed wrong, more like watercress, and our teenager and 7yo liked them. Unlike all previously encountered arugula.
• linguine al pesto, which was luxurious and, this being Liguria, local.
• pizza marinara, which had a lot of parsley on it.
• pizza cepolle, which despite not looking like more than a cheese pizza with a few strands of red onion, had a deep onion flavor that seemed to be infused into the sauce and the crust.
• pizza prosciutto, tasty as advertised.
• pizza diavola, with spicy pepperoni and spicy oil drizzled on top.
• 50 cL of red frizzante wine, which was not quite enough for Mark this time. I cannot seem to calibrate.
• 2 L of acqua naturale.
• Several tiramisu.
• Mousse frutti di bosco, which our daughter traded for my tiramisu after she discovered she didn't like it. I liked it just fine. She thought it was like a cheesecake but I thought it was more like an ice cream cake, coated with berry glaze.
• Chocolate gelato and lemon gelato. Both very good.

The town was so very quiet, even on a Friday night. The streets were nearly deserted. It is definitely the off season: all the prices go down between August and September. We read later that Andora has a population of about 7,600 which increases to 10 times that in the summer. Many restaurants appeared to be not open at all. But there were bars and pizzerias and shops. "I wonder if it will come to life tomorrow," said Mark.

It would.

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Two meals.

The weather wasn't looking good in Cham for the next few days, so we started thinking about making a break for Italy sooner than we had planned. We had a lot of flexibility, actually, because the Cham apartment is free all the way until we are to depart from Geneva to London later this month. We had already asked if we could leave baggage there while we went on a five-day jaunt to Italy, and stay the last night before our London flight. Now we were thinking maybe we would leave earlier, and come back and stay several days at the end instead.

I write this as if it were easy for me, but it wasn't. Here we were thinking about driving to Italy tomorrow and Mark hadn't even found us an apartment yet. I got upset because there were no plans. Mark decided to calm me down by driving us to Italy for lunch.

Rain on the French side of the Mont Blanc tunnel.

Rain on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc tunnel.

We chose a little town called Morgex, and our oldest and I each mapped out a restaurant. The one I chose turned out to be all boarded up despite the posted hours on the outside. So we got back in the car and drove to the one our son chose, and that one was cheerful and open, and had a table ready for seven.

 

We ordered seven plates:

• mozzarella bufalo with local cured ham, sort of like proscuitto;
• carpaccio di bresaiola with arugula and shaved parmesan;
• pizza marinara;
• pizza valdostana, that is, with ham and local cheese;
• spaghetti bolognese;
• tortellini with a cream sauce, dotted with ham and scented with nutmeg;
• and a mixed grill, with tender steak, veal, and split sausage, and eggplant and zucchini and peppers, and a small pile of french fries.

There is no way we will eat all this, said Mark, but then we did. The small children chowed down on french fries, pizza marinara, and spaghetti bolognese. The rest of us found room for everything else.

And 50 cL of the house red wine for the grownups, thank you very much.

 

I think the buffalo mozzarella with the ham was the winner. The cheese was mild, runny, a bit bland, and creamy; with the salty, sharp ham it became perfectly balanced and luxurious.

I didn't think we would have room for dessert, but the minute the server said "Affogato" I immediately ordered one for Mark and me to share. Sorbetto for the children, lemon and raspberry, except for our daughter who got gelato with chocolate sauce.

The affogato—plain ice cream, I thought more likely to be fior de latte than vanilla, doused with a shot of strong espresso—was the best ever. Mark and I fought our way to the bottom of the dish with both spoons. The sorbettos, to our surprise, came in tall glasses with straws, and were drinkable. The girl was happy with her "affogatto cioccolato."

+ + +

That is literally all we did in Italy, spend two hours eating lunch and then drove back. Then we packed to go to Italy for longer the next day. Some people went shopping for a new backpack and things like that.

After it all got sorted out, so that we had an apartment—not east of Genoa where we originally planned, but west, on the Riviera Ponente, where the weather promised to be better—Mark and I set out for a walk and a dinner on the town.

+ + +

Mont Blanc is the highest peak in Europe, and it is quite close; but from the center of Chamonix it does not look like the most impressive peak. There are other peaks which are closer as the crow flies, and those look pointier and seem to tower higher.

But just as the sun is setting, you can tell that Mont Blanc is the highest, because it is the last peak to light up pink with the rays of the sun.

+ + +

Mark and I walked all over town. I had a problem: having had lunch in Italy, I was not hungry at all. Finally I told Mark to pick, and he settled on Le Chaudron on the Rue des Moulins. It had a tapas menu. Mark ordered fries for an entrée, and risotto with shrimp for the plat. I just ordered gazpacho, which came with another ball of buffalo mozzarella in the middle, and drank Argile wine from Savoie.

The wine cut the raw-garlic taste of the gazpacho just right, and it was light enough not to make me overfull. Mark ordered dessert (baba au rhum, something I had seen on many menus but never had; it was pretty good). We walked some more on the way home.

Next day, to Italy for longer.

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Big day.

On Wednesday we had reserved a spot for our daughter to paraglide off the mountain. We left the other kids in the apartment and took her over to the Brévent lift. She was warmly dressed and very excited.

 

 

We bought her the one-way ticket to the top, and waited for Sandie, the same pilot who had guided our oldest down from the mountain, to arrive.

 

But when Sandie showed up, she told us that the wind was coming from the wrong direction to fly from Brévent, and we would have to send her off from the Midi instead. So we all hopped into the van from her parapente company and drove across town to the other lift. Sandie arranged for the money we'd paid for the other lift to be applied to this one. And we sent our daughter with her, walking across the plaza.

 

The van took Mark and me to the landing field where we had a chance to examine a mock-up of the parapenting harness, hanging there for the parapente school.

 

There was a nice view all around the valley. We chatted with the driver of the van, who had such a strong British regional accent that I thought for sure must be a UK expat. But he had trouble with some English. After I complimented him on his accent he said that though he was raised here in the valley, his dad was British. He had a French-speaking chestnut-colored dog who ran free, snuffling and digging holes in the ground: "For the flyers to break their ankles on," he said, kicking a divot back into place with one foot.

He offered us coffee, which we drank from a blue plastic camping mug, warming our hands while we waited for our daughter to come flying out of the sky under an orange wing.

+ + +

But then the driver's phone rang, and it was Sandie: the air was too moist, it was not safe to fly; they would be coming back down on the téléphérique.

 

He offered to drive us over, since he would be going to pick up Sandie, but we elected to walk across town instead, and decided to take her out for a pastry afterwards.

We waited and she came out with Sandie. "Are you disappointed?" we asked her, and she said not really; she had not expected she would really be able to fly today.

"If you think it won't really happen," she said, "you won't be disappointed if you can't, and it will be a nice surprise if you can."

Everything is weather dependent in the mountains. It is a good lesson, even if a little sad. She still has a chance to try it again when we pass through France next week, but you never can tell.

+ + +

So, back to the Best Bakery In the World (TM) where she asked for an apple-filled turnover and a bottle of green tea.

Mark had a petit pain au chocolat and an almond-paste-filled, sugar-dusted confection. I had a perfect plain croissant, and a cappuccino.

+ + +

Then Mark got in the rental car and drove away. I went back to the apartment and crashed, with a long nap.

Mark and our oldest were gone all day. The 17-year-old had quite the windfall. Jeff the guide had invited him to come along for free as the "guest" (re: guinea pig) for a climbing certification. A Dutch guide was about to take the test to become an aspirant guide, and he needed Jeff (the instructor) and also someone to play the part of the client. That would become our son.

We decided not to let him go on a multiday trip where he would stay overnight, but we agreed to allow them to take him out of the Chamonix valley into Italy, where the weather was much better. I sat down and wrote a note in two languages stating that he had permission to travel across the French-Italian border in the company of Jeff the mountain guide, for climbing, with our Chamonix address and phone numbers; and we gave him the note and his passport, and sent him off in the morning.

He sent us some photos.

Clearly the day was working out better for him.

+ + +

Me, I was tired, and Mark was gone too. The trip isn't entirely leisure; Mark planned five days of work in total. He had a meeting in Switzerland, and had taken the car.

The meeting was a teleconference back to the States; his employer has a facility in Switzerland, so he went there to have the teleconference. An unusual meeting: he was set to appear before the promotions committee. Much of the previous evening had been spent preparing for it.

I let the 13yo and then the 11yo take turns walking in the town. The rest of us stayed in the apartment. With Mark gone, and me tired, we had warned them that it would be a "down day," a work day. If they bothered me I was authorized to teach them math or something.

Eventually I had to put some food on the table, so I put on my coat and walked down into town and found easy food at the grocery store: bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches, and sliced turkey for my turkey-sandwich-loving daughter, and a box of surprisingly tasty and sweet tomato soup, and a take-and-bake pizza.

 

Eventually both Mark and the 17yo arrived home, around the same time. Mark was in a good mood, feeling that he had done well in his interview before the board. There was an amusing story involving the conference room booking and a misunderstanding concerning the time change and a wild goose chase in the Swiss facility, booting people out of the unbooked conference rooms they had been squatting in, ending with a Skype connection instead of a teleconference that was set up merely seconds before the interview was supposed to begin.

But we opened the champagne anyway (Aldi champagne; it had a Concord grape nose, but it was pink and bubbly and we gladly drank it). And the 17yo told about his multipitchclimbing day, and Mark told about the questions he was asked and how he answered them, and we planned what to drink later if we got something to celebrate.

 

 

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A not-many-things day.

I am more used to one-week vacations, or a week plus a weekend. The kind where, to maximize the value of your trip, you pack things in one after another, and you may come home mentally refreshed (because you did things that are different from the usual) but physically tired.

But when there is a long vacation—even a vacation broken up by some work days, as this one is—you get down time. Days where you don't plan much at all.

Tuesday was like that. I barely even took any pictures.

The weather has taken a turn for the dreary; snow fell the night before, up high. We are thinking of bailing from Chamonix and heading for Italy sooner than we thought we might. Mark was worried I would not be happy about changing plans, but I told him, look, we'll be in France for a while, then Italy for a while, then France again; I don't need to know how long each part will last.

Anyway: we mostly stayed around the apartment. In the very early morning Mark took some of the children to the crag to climb. I had yogurt for breakfast, with cereal stirred in, and some green plums, and then for lunch I boiled pasta and mixed it with sauce and cheese and baked it, and set out a fruit plate, for the hungry climbers. And then I rested some more.

A friend (expat met on a previous trip) came by with one of her sons, the same age as our second-oldest; and he stayed to hang out with our kids while Mark and I and she went out for coffee.

Two coffees, actually: the first café allongé in a bar, seated at a too-high table (my feet dangled from the banquette) that had its own beer taps in the center of the table, with a sort of digital flow meter to know how much you should pay. The second in a very American-feeling coffeehouse, with comfy modern low chairs, people using laptops, and bagels for sale instead of croissants.

By now my caffeine buzz had grown formidable, so I went with the decaf americano.

We chatted about homeschooling and living in the valley. After our friend took her leave, Mark and I stopped at the grocery store and bought pain complet and pain de mie, grated gruyère, vacuum-packed steamed diced potatoes, salad vegetables, local jambon cru, plain yogurt and little flavored yogurt, pasta, wine, and melon.

We went back to the apartment and I rested (apparently I need a lot of resting) while Mark did some work on his laptop at the long table and the kids took turns going out to spend money in the town. Then I stumbled out and made dinner: green salad with thin-sliced raw turnip and red pepper, in a dressing of lemon and pepper and olive oil. And an omelette savoyarde.

The omelette was very basic, like a Spanish tortilla in style. The potatoes already having been diced and steamed, it was also quite fast. I melted a chunk of butter, maybe 2.5 tablespoons, in a nonstick pan, and cooked 250 g of potatoes until they were a bit brown and with some crispiness to them, but still soft, turning a couple of times. Then I beat 8 eggs and mixed in about 100 g shredded gruyère from a bag. Emmenthal would also have worked. I added a dollop of liquid cream and then dumped the potatoes and butter into the egg, mixing well, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

It all went back into the hot pan. I stirred and cooked gently for a while, lifting up the cooked egg to let the uncooked egg run down underneath, until it began to firm up; then I turned the heat down and put a lid on the pan until it had mostly cooked through. I inverted it onto a plate and cut it into wedges.

I think a bit of onion and parsley would have improved it, but it was quite good as is. Mark and I ate about half of it with salad and a bit of jambon cru and white wine. The kids were skeptical and ate leftover pasta. More omelette for me for lunch tomorrow!

After supper I rested (again) while the kids cleaned up the dinner. I was keeping tabs on an Internet friend who was in the midst of having a baby back in the states. As for Mark, he planned to meet our expat friend's expat husband for a beer, and so after a while he put on a coat and set out. The kids finished dinner and settled themselves in front of computers to watch the Apple keynote and later some weird Spanish-language sitcom dubbed in French.

Mark came back late at night and settled down with me, gave me a kiss and reminded me how very lucky we are, lucky to have work that supports our family without ceasing to serve it, lucky to have shared values, something outside ourselves to believe in, and well-worn language for working out our differences; lucky to have each one of our five children, lucky to be raising them surrounded by other like-minded families, lucky to believe in each other, to believe in taking what we have and always looking for the way to make it work even better. Lucky to be acutely aware how lucky we are. It is impossible not to be grateful for everything, our material success obviously that lets us be here and having this time together, but most of all for the strength of these relationships laid down over years and years, days, mornings and afternoons and evenings, glasses of beer after dinner and cups of coffee before work.

Some time on vacation is worth spending doing nothing at all, nothing visible on the outside anyway.

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Hiking the high road.

Monday, with the days of fine weather growing shorter, we decided to hike at the mid-level of the mountain from the Aiguille de Midi lift (not the second lift that takes you to the needle, but the first lift) across to the Montenvers train at the Mer de Glace glacier, taking the train back down to the town.

Had to dress a little bit more warmly.

 

Mark went to buy the sandwiches, and I went to buy the tickets. Being in France is a little bit weird because we often have to reverse our well-worn roles. For years it has been my job to keep a passel of children quietly waiting while Mark does things like stand in line to buy the tickets. Here, though, since Mark doesn't speak French beyond well-practiced useful phrases, I have to go buy the tickets. There is no problem with this, it just continually surprises me.

"What? I am supposed to go buy the tickets? Again?"

"You want me to order the pizzas? On the telephone?"

Anyway, I went to the ticket window (passing on the way a woman who warned us that it was bad for the 3yo's ears to go up on the gondola) and worked out that I needed to buy a family pass plus an extra adult pass for the 17yo because only kids under 15 could be included on the family pass, and also that the 3yo needed a ticket even though it was free, and bought the tickets. The cashier warned me about the 3yo's ears. I said, in French, I know, I know, everyone says this, and she repeated the warning.

This also happened last time, when he was eight months old. The only one who had in the end had ear trouble had been the then-14yo. I got a lollipop for the 3yo out of my shoulder bag, intending to brandish it as proof that I was prepared to defend his ears against the dangers of what is essentially a big ski lift. But nobody else bothered us about it.

Up we went, crammed in tightly. When the gondola went past one of the support towers, it swung deeply, and a gasp and a "whoooaa!" went up from the crowd.

 

 

 

At the top it was much colder, and we put on extra layers. I took the 3yo off my back so I could go to the bathroom, and the 17yo put him on his back; we decided we would switch again after lunch.

We hiked around a bit till we found the trail we wanted, beginning above this refuge (Mark has spent the night here:)

The trail is narrow and rocky, and on either side there are many myrtille bushes. The berries are very much like blueberries, perhaps a little more tart.

At lunch we ate our sandwiches. Tuna again for the 11yo, also for Mark and me, and lyonnais for the teen boys. The little boys ate homemade sandwiches on pain de mie again.

Orange-colored processed cheese is working pretty well for the 3yo, and butter-and-jam for the 7yo, and I won't complain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trail turned more rocky as we got up into the cloud layer.

 

It was amazingly well-maintained, almost a pavement or a staircase of broad flat rocks. It was eerily beautiful, but I couldn't help feeling nervous about the weather. I knew the forecast called for clouds and no rain, so it was exactly as expected. But the quality of light was so much the sort that, where I come from, heralds a coming rainstorm, that I could not shake the feeling that we ought to get down to the treeline.

I knew better, but it made me anxious.

 

 

Finally we arrived within sight of the once-magnificent, still-pretty-impressive Mer de Glace.

 

 

The clouds lay spread heavily over everything, but we could see sunlight up the valley.

We found a leftover trail race marker, from the UTMB, I think, its little flag flapping wildly in the wind.

And eventually reached the Montenvers refuge.

 

There were a series of historical illustrations of the glacier.

It hardly looks like a "sea of ice" anymore at this point. Really, it is sobering how much it has shrunk and retreated.

Rather than spend money in the restaurant, since we were so tired, Mark passed out Snickers bars to everyone. And then we took the train down.

 

 

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Sunday.

 

Sunday morning I dug the Magnifikids out of the bags. We cleaned up and dressed up a bit—thankfully my ballet flats did not hurt my blisters anymore—and walked down the hill to the sound of clanging bells from the église Saint-Michel.

Perhaps I will wander in and take pictures of the pretty little church outside Mass time. It is pale blue inside with wooden pews and some very nice statuary. There is a colorful St. Michael behind the crucifix, and large paintings for the Stations.

My 3yo was more interested in the art than he usually is at home and wanted me to tell him all about things, so I whispered in his ear and couldn't listen to the homily. Which was too bad, because the priest was fairly loud, clear, organized, and slow; I bet I could have understood it.

I was a little bit amused because I have been here exactly three years ago and the readings were the same readings. The priest was the same priest. I wonder if it was even possibly the same homily.

+ + +

We had expected rain, and had therefore planned a day of resting. But somehow Mark had read a forecast that was completely wrong, and it had turned out to be gorgeously sunny. He had taken the younger kids to the crag the day before; today he wanted to take the older ones; but not all day. My turn first!

So we left the kids in the apartment with all the tasty food in the fridge and all the cookies and such, and went out for a walk and lunch.

I wanted my favorite, most reliable French restaurant meal: salade avec chèvre chaud. So we went to a crêperie that has such things: La Ferme. It is a little too chilly for my taste or Mark's, even though many coat-wearing people were happily eating and drinking on the patios and terraces in the sun, so we asked for a table in the intérieur.

Because I was jonesing for a salad, I suggested we not drink wine, but have cidre brut instead.

It came in a 50-cL pitcher with broad, handled porcelain cups. Given that there was a cidre doux also on the menu which we didn't order, I was surprised at how sweet this turned out to be; "dry cider" at home is pretty dry! This was nicely balanced, with noticeable apple to it, and it was going to work perfectly well with my salad.

I got what I wanted: a big green salad with a luscious vinaigrette, prettily and deliciously garnished with sweet, thin-sliced raw beets, the kind with a pink-and-white bullseye pattern in the slices, and long pared ribbons of yellow carrots. It had a few slices of salty, glossy air-dried ham, and three slices from a 3-inch-diameter log of goat cheese, with the friable texture in the middle and the creamy texture around the rim, each on a slice of toast. I dug in immediately, forgetting once again to take a picture. Sorry.

Mark ordered a sprawling buckwheat crêpe with lardons, cheese, and a bright yellow-yolked egg in the middle; it came folded in on three sides like a triangle, with a little pile of green salad in the middle. He ate about a quarter of my salad, too.

I got a few texts from kids wanting to know when we'd be back. "Still at lunch," I texted.

"Mom it is almost 2"

"See you later"

+ + +

We elected not to order dessert and to walk around a bit and have coffee elsewhere. Many stores are closed on Sundays, but the town seemed to have been transformed into a giant end-of-season sidewalk sale for outerwear. I had to stop and let Mark do a little window shopping.

 

 

I didn't need any gear, and was only briefly saddened because a few days ago (lacking our luggage) I had bought a pair of approach shoes at full price, and now there were some really nice ones in front of Arcteryx, of all places, in my size, and an awesome color, for €50. Drat!

Mark didn't find the ultralightweight hooded windshirt he was seeking, so we went to the bar nearest the road uphill to our apartment, went inside (it was warm; I took off my scarf and my cardigan) and ordered two cafés allongés.

I like these because they take longer to drink. Mark thinks he prefers his espresso stronger.

We got more texts. I was ready to go home. And the teen boys were ready to go climbing with Mark.

(Incidentally, my daughter had had a fantastic climbing outing the day before. I didn't blog it because I wasn't there and didn't take the pictures. But she was so proud of herself for finishing a difficult route that she had tears of joy and probably relief when Mark lowered her down.)

Today that girl was ready to go for a walk on her own in town. We coached her on where to cross the big street and what to do if she got lost, then gave her some money and the spare iPhone we use for such purposes.

 

She texted me back a photograph of what she had obtained:

Pistachio and raspberry something.

Then she texted me a picture of a tiny, one-item playground:

 

She made it back safely, and she and I and the smaller kids spent a quiet late afternoon in the apartment. Taking turns doing whole-family outings, fun things with just some of us, and resting: that is how it has to work.

+ + +

Dinner was prepared food from the Italian grocery store. I set out some cured meats, mozzarella balls, and olives to have with our wine, a Valpolicella Ripasso.

Ignore the licorice in the background. Doesn't go with Valpolicella.

We snacked on this while we waited for three pots of water to boil our fresh asparagus ravioli, meat-filled tortellini, and long egg noodles.

And set three bottled sauces on the table.

With a little grana padano cheese, it was just fine for everyone. Mark and the boys relived their climbing adventure of the day. We drank wine and Campari-soda, and the children shared their candy (how is Italian sugar candy for children so amazing?) and we laid out our things for the next day too.

 

Good weather tomorrow!

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