Some Questions

Breaking news, we have most of our photos from the trip here. 

People we meet ask similar questions about the trip so we will try to answer some of the most asked questions here.

Were you ever scared or afraid?

Outside of some difficult trails -- wet and slippery, extremely steep descents, loose rock and scree -- we were never afraid.  There are really no dangerous animals in Europe and the people are much less violent than in the US. 

One thing we did notice that was unexpected was the number of stores selling guns and the evidence of lots of hunting.  The main evidence of hunting is the hunting stands located everywhere north of the Alps.  This one is in Belgium, near the Luxembourg border.

We saw many  chamois in the Jura and Vosges Ranges in France and deer in Belgium.  We did not actually see any hunters while hiking.

 Were you harassed or mistreated by Europeans, because you are Americans?

The short answer is no.  We found the Europeans, friendly, helpful, and more than happy to help us with our pidgin French - German - Italian - Dutch - Flemish - Slovenian - Luxembourguese.  Some, like our friend Tomas Simonin, whose family took us into their farmhouse for the night, are concerned about how they are viewed  by Americans.  He Asked.  “Do you think we are arrogant?”   Our answer was a resounding no.

We found the Europeans very curious about Americans.  They simply do not know what to make of our political debates.  And they are confused by our rejection of what they see as the best parts of being European: universal health care, long vacations, and a social safety net that keeps the streets free of homeless people.  We could only tell them that we are also confused about these things.

Euro Pop: Michael, Che, Katy

In Europe we had to search for news in English. One of our reasons for the trip was to shed the nonstop news cycle so we did not look hard but got our occasional fix from the Herald Tribune, now published by the NYT, or BBC. However, we found that we were inundated by popular culture wherever we went. And it was very interesting to see the themes that stood out through our journey.

In Europe, Michael Jackson is still the King of Pop. We were in Belgium for the one year anniversary of his death, which was a very big deal there. TV news reran clips of the funeral and Michael dancing. The cafés and bars bloomed with music videos spanning his career. And man on the street questions were all about MJ. Our friend the playwright, Davey Leers gave a conspiratorial look whenever the KOP was mentioned. He assumed that Michael Jackson was a bond between our two cultures, something that we both well understood.

It made me wonder how Michael’s popularity and charisma survived the media bombardment intact in Europe. Ben, our son thinks it is because the Europeans were able to separate the sensational stories in the press and coverage of his weird personality from the art and movement of a master performer.

Che Guevara tee shirts, graffiti, and posters were everywhere we traveled. I took this to be related to the fact that there is still a Left in Europe. Every day we saw evidence of this, whether it be Andrea Merkel criticizing the French for illegal deportation of Roma, marching in support of low university tuition or keeping pensions and social security at current levels or just people pouring into the streets to protest meetings of fascist organizations. The popularity of Guevara seems tied up with a political system that has room for every voice.

And then there was the ubiquitous cultural train wreck of a music video California Girlz by Katy Perry. This was the number one song of the summer and the music video was as unignorable to me as it was horrible. To her credit, I could not get Rhonda to watch it as she attributed my interest as pure salaciousness. Absolutely everything about the song, video, dancing (?) is awful including the aging (only 39, but looks 60) coked out Snoop Dogg. As Chris Rock said in the old Saturday Night Live skit to whoever was playing LaToya Jackson, “Get your sorry ass outa here.”

I don’t know why anyone would want to watch this thing except from the standpoint that it is so bad that it is good. But pop is pop and once something finds its way into the scene and goes viral there is no program known to cleanse the system. In fact I suspect that this particular video was more available in uninhibited Europe than in the US, because European media is much more explicit and society much more open. Beer gardens with children’s playgrounds, women’s topless and men’s tiny pouch swimming suits, commercials in train stations that use vegetables to portray sex between adolescents, and prostitution, all are within European decency standards. Whatever else, this video shows that the US pop culture industry can dominate at least as well as Goldman Sachs.

Alone Together

The number of guidebooks available for the GR5 and the descriptions we had read had us anticipating many hikers on the trail. We did see quite a few people in certain parts of the Alps, day hikers in and around sites like water falls, mountain bikers and the occasional long distance hikers, but for the most part it was a solitary walk. We were alone along on the trail most days except for brief encounters, all the way through Europe.

We were alone on wind swept passes, in corn fields, in crowds in city squares, among herds of cattle and sheep, surrounded by forests, in silent churches, along canals, on beaches, in gorges, on quiet village streets, and in flower bestrewn meadows. 

We were lost, drenched, cold, hot, hungry, and attacked by insects together. We had foot problems, injuries, skin rashes, undie chafing, and sicknesses together. We learned pidgin Dutch, Flemish, and French together. We learned how to locate hotels, cafes, restaurants, Laundromats, newsstands, and toilets together. We watched movies in languages we didn’t understand, weather reports, ditto, and the world cup matches together. We shared birdsong, and lovely vistas, and beautiful sunny days, and breaks in bad weather, wonderful meals, and sunsets together. Outside of an occasional disastrous meeting, we had delightful interactions with people all along the way, together.

photo by Melanie

We were pals, helpmates, lovers, and the only support either of us had for the entire trip. We thought we should have done this when we met. And we were jealous of our friends Heather and Justin, who took the time to travel together at the beginning of their marriage. Growing as a couple was the most important part of the trip for us. When we related this to other hikers they looked puzzled. The expectation for a journey is that the countryside and people you meet will have the most impact, not that things that change inside your own head will be so important. What we learned is that every journey is a pilgrimage and that what you carry with you after returning home includes much more than memories of the things encountered. For us it was how important and special we are to each other.

Sloooooooowing Down

The trip was all about the European countryside, its inhabitants, villages, food, wine, euro style, art, scenery, fields, farms, forests, mountains and waterways. We knew and anticipated this when we started planning our walk and were not disappointed as we made our way. In fact we were amazed each day at the richness of the culture and landscapes.

One of several things we learned that we hadn’t given much thought to before we started out was how the trip would slow us down. With hind sight we think how could we have not anticipated this revelation? After all, I have been on a number of long back packing trips and have noticed how odd it is to drive a car and how fast life is when I returned. And Rhonda did a long trip through Europe when she was 21. But if you walk for four months the impact is astounding.

photo by Melanie

Slowing down is a well known prescription for the ills brought on by our frenzied age. The question is, how to accomplish it?


Maintaining the primordial pace of a bullock cart showed us a way and opened up vistas we haven’t seen since childhood. Not only the pace of walking, but our small range of activities contributed to the overall effect. When you spend most of your day watching the path and the surrounding countryside, and looking for way marks and the rest of the day are spent washing, eating and sleeping, the anxieties of modern life fall away like autumn leaves. We found ourselves absorbed by bird song, church bells, wild flowers, and butterflies.

This gift from the trip was especially beneficial to me because of my obsessive nature. My food obsession popped out into the open as I stood before windows of bakeries wondering how I could possibly try everything in the place. And this led my usual dog gulp style of eating to become quite noticeable. So Rhonda got me actually chewing again. 

We are both using our new knowledge of slow to guide our way.

Our European Holiday

We have been home for a couple of weeks and have been amazed at how the trip affected us. One thing it did was slow us down. So it is taking a while but we do plan to sum up the trip in a later post. But before we do that we thought we would show you what we did after arriving in Nice.

The first thing Rhonda did was to dispose of the pants she had been wearing for over three months (and were held up with the help of a safety pin) and go on a couple of big shopping trips to buy new clothes. I, of course, stuck with the my old clothes until we arrived home, except for buying some new walking shoes, as my hiking boots were heavy and worn out.



We spent six nights in Nice and had beautiful weather almost the whole time. Nice is a beach town with a stunning strand, fancy hotels, hills covered with villas and sun that sets off the colors and shadows in a way that has made it a favorite of artists. It's like a warm San Francisco before all the high rises, all wrought iron and pastels floating on the hills.

Matisse lived in Nice and his Museum was for me the high point of our visit. The museum is set up to show how Matisse worked and is as clear a view into the mind of an artist as Van Gogh's letters. The temporary exhibit on Matisse's paintings of his late life muse Lydia Delectorskaya featured a room with perhaps two dozen sketches and several studies using different colors that were used to create one painting.

We traveled by bus one day to Vence to see the chapel Matisse designed, but it was closed. Our habit of showing up without checking ahead got us this time but we still had a great day wandering the streets in this medieval hill town.



A view of Nice from the hills.



Views from the walk in Gairant in the hills above the city along the canal that has carried water to Nice for hundreds of years.






From Nice we took a train the Genoa. The rails hug the coast and there are tunnels through ridges all along the way. The coast is strung with villages in the valleys and villas dotting the ridges between them to make one continuous urban strip all the way to the Italian border that includes Monaco and Menton an alternate end to the GR5.

Where Nice is all beach front hotels with a small ferry terminal, Genoa is a working port with terminals and docks along the sea. Nice is a play ground, Genoa a working city with a medieval center and neighborhoods ranging up the steep mountainsides above town. It was fascinating walking the winding narrow streets and the stairs climbing the hills festooned with clothes hanging out windows to dry.






From Genoa we took the train through Milan to Venice. Venice is busy with tourists but still magical. We wandered the city eating the checheten (Italian fast food) at small cafes called osterias and watching the crowds. One morning we got up early and visited the magnificent St. Mark's square without the crowds. As we walked the city woke up and we were soon surrounded by children of all ages, laughing, teasing and gossiping on the way to school.

We visited many galleries in Venice including one with a show of Stanley Kubrick's early photographs. The young Kubrick used the camera to create stories, anticipating his future as a film director. Another look into the mind of an artist.



From Venice we took a train to Trieste where we met our friends Darilyn and Paul Dircksen who were traveling for a month. We had an adventure in Peru with the Dircksen's several years ago so when they contacted us and asked if we would like to meet them and see the Alps of Slovenia we jumped at the chance.

The first day we spent in Piran on the Adriatic Coast of Slovenia.



On the terrace of our place in Piran.



Sunset from the terrace.



Next we went to Bled in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Having just experienced the dry Maritime Alps, Italy, and the Adriatic Coast we were surprised at how green the Julian Alps are. It was like being back in the Jura.



Hay drying racks in the countryside.



From bled we took the train through Austria and Bavaria to Bamberg for our last stop before returning home. So nice to be back in German train stations with their bakeries, restaurants and bars!

We decided that Bamberg is our favorite city of the trip. Perhaps it was because we felt like we were home at Ben and Melanie's place after four and a half months on the road. But Bamberg has so much to offer the traveler -- history, beautiful old city hall, castle, monastery, cathedral, great shopping and 10 breweries.

The old City Hall.



St. Michael's Monastery



At the train station in Bamberg heading for the Frankfurt Air Port and home.



Stay tuned for what we learned from our adventure.

NICE!

We made it to Nice! What a thrill!

But arriving in Nice is a shock. Suddenly we are in a lively, sunny city after months since our last city experience in Nancy. But do not worry, we are adjusting, but have to pinch each other to make sure we are not dreaming. We are planning walks around the city, so that we can eat all food from the sea like we had way back in Holland.

We will stay here and rest for a few days and then travel through Italy on our way back to Frankfurt for our trip home. We plan to see our friends Darilyn and Paul in the Slovenian Alps and will report on our travels when we can.

Here are a few photos of our arrival:

Nice and the sea from the GR 5 above the city.



Rhonda in hiking gear sans boots at the beach at the foot of Boulevard Gambetta.



A toast in the cafe across the Promenade Anglais from the beach.

Barcelonnette

Yeah, you are right, we are off the trail. We got into Larche after a difficult downhill and the next morning it was raining and we did not want to chance a wet hike on steep crumbly trails and there is not much in Larch, so we got a ride here.



Barcelonnette is very interesting. It is situated in the Ubaye River Valley and is on the auto grand tour of the Alps. Lots of bicyclists taking advantage of a place where they can do seven big passes and just stay in one town. So it is very busy here, but also very historic. The town is all narrow streets and cobblestones.



There is a big Mexican influence on the area because when Mexico was a colony of France many people from this valley moved to Mexico to start a Mexican textile industry. So they have Mexican style villas, Mexican food, a street named after Porfirio Diaz, a plaque comemorating the Mexican soldiers who died fighting for France in WW I, and even a Mexican souvenir shop.



The weather is changing back to sunshine so we will be back on the trail again tomorrow for the last push to Nice. We even started looking for a place to stay there today.



Here are a few photos:



That is the knife edge Crete des Gittes.

View of the mountains from the deck at Refuge La Presset.

The kitchen at Refuge les Presset. The cook produced crudities, carbonara, fresh pears with chocolatre sauce with wine cheese and bread for 11 people who ate in the same room. By the end of the evening there were 20 people staying at the refuge all sleeping in a single room.

On the deck at i re Magi Refuge.

The three Magi on the ridge above the refuge.

View from Col de Thurs.

Lac Mirrior

Col de Mallemort, and contemplating sore feet going down.

Looking back at the Col Mallemort on the way down to Larche.

Briançon

We are here in the highest city in France enjoying the sights after some great hikes. We have photos, but the computer in this pizzaria is not cooperating. So later for more photos.

The strangest thing happened on the way from Mondane, we encountered dusty trails for the first time. And the weather has been bright and warm in the valleys, although frosty in the mornings.

We stayed a night in a place called Valfrejus, which was very interesting because it is a ski area tht had closed for the fall season. We rented a condo for the night and scrounged for bread and wine. It was a good thing we are packing enough food to last a day in the back country.

The next day we hiked over the the mountain into what was until 1947 Italy. We stayed at the Refugio i Re Magi and essentially spent a night in Italy. The next day we hiked into Plampinent, the antithisis of the ski area towns. It is nestled in a valley surrounded by terraced hay fields that are dry and full of seed pods and seed fluff. It is ancient and beautiful with pathes between the stone houses and a church dating from 1632. The trails are full of grasshoppers and butterflies. Sometimes we see four species of butterflies in a square meter, and new wildflowers amongst the the ones that have gone to seed.

The hike on into Briançon was very interesting. We climbed to Col de la Lauze through wild country. The col is on a knife edge ridge and on the other side it is ski areas almost all the way down the mountain. We hiked off and on through the day with a German couple and two Dutch men. Nice to have company on the col for lunch.

The dry terrain reminds us of the Sierras and it seems that we can almost smell the Mediterrainian.

Bourg St. Maurice

We have just finished three days in the Alps, staying at refuges and we are taking a day off here. The scene at the refuges is really wonderful.

The last night in the mountains we stayed at Refuge Le Presset next to the Lac of the same name. This place is very remote and has composting toilets and no showers. The people who run it, members of the Club Alpin Francais, pack the food in by back pack from the Refuge one and a half hours away.

There are two rooms besides the staff quarters. One a combined kitchen dining room and the other a sleeping room for 22. The sleeping room is probably 18 X 24 feet, cozy. Toilets are outside and down some stairs and a short trail, tough for the person that gets up every night. Dinner included fresh pears with chocolate sauce. Amazing how they cook such meals on a three burner stove. We had 11 for dinner and late arrivals made 20 overnight.

Late arrivals included two couples and their three kids, all under 6. It is amazing to us that these little kids make it over the Cols to these places. We had people from England, Scotland, Austria, Germany and France in the cabin.

The next morning we got up and had our coffee, tea, bread and jam and watched the weather deteriorate. We left in a light rain and when the thunder sounded and it started to pour. Luckily enough we were next to Refuge La Balm, where we dried out, ate our cheese and bread, and watched it storm. It soon abated and we set out again in sunshine. Caught Patrick from England on the trail and ate dinner with him last night in Landry.

Rhonda is a mountain chick.

Chamonix France

After five days of hiking we now know why they call this the Grand Traverse of the Alps. It is splendid and demanding. We met Ben and Melanie in Samoens four days ago and they hiked with us on the approach to Mont Blanc. This photo was taken at the Col du Brevent, 2368 m. The mountain is 4810 m. The descent from here to Chamonix took two and a half hours.

Here we are at Col d Antern with Mont Blanc in the background.

More photos starting way back in Alsace. It is getting harder to find computers to use as we are staying in mountain refuges in the back country most of the time now. These places are very rustic and feature dormitory sleeping on mattresses laying in line on the floor and communal eating of what the staff fix that day.

Our dear friends from Saarbrucken Germany at Mt. St. Odile -- Ulli and Klaus Fromme and Helga and Christian Faeber. What fun to be with old friends!

Stork on nest in Alsace.

Wet day in the Vosge Mountains near Mittlach.

Band playing at an Agricultural fair in Wesserling.

Putting the bedding out to air, Soultz, Alsace, on tour with Klaus and Ulli.

Guebwiller church window designed in 1984.

This is in Mulhouse on a street named for President Wilson.

On the Doubs in Goumois.

In the Doubs Gorge.

Goumois church.

On trail overhung by a limestone cliff, Doubs Gorge.

The Doubs.

Lunch stop in the Jura near Auberge La Perdix. This is the cross country ski capital of France. Also luge, ski jumping, and biathalon.

Cannot remember where this is, could be almost anywhere. We could make photos like this every minute of every day.

Rhonda with Jura limestone behind her. The valleys are forested with fir and the ridges are pasture and meadow and rock. It reminds us of Oregon or perhaps of Ireland with trees.

Church in Jura valley in Belle Fontane.

Lake Geneva from Nyon Switzerland.

Window in Abbye la Abondance.

Near Refuge Col de Bassachaux

Still life with car at Refuge Chaux Palin.

ho hum

Three hikers just out of Refuge Chalet d Anterne

Cascades de la Sauffaz and Pleureuse de la Sauffaz

Refuge Chalets Anterne, where we stayed with 30 other people.