6 Sept 2016
A quiet day.
Rose at a reasonable hour and watched the fog devour the lake. After moving as slowly as I could we got out the door and headed for Evian les Bains. For those you who don’t know, this is the home of the famous bottled water. It is also home to an extensive street market, where farmers and vendors bring and beautifully display their produce. Today was such a day.
Lindsay, our home exchange host -I guess you would say, left us a nice packet of information on things to do, places to go and things to look for. One of the things she recommended was that we try a local cheese called Beaufort. As fate would have it there was a cheese vendor in attendance at the market. From across the way I could see a nice young fromagette ( possibly not a word now but soon to be found in the appendix of an up and coming travel guide), surrounded by her golden, swollen wheels ( or do they call them rounds?) and happily servicing her customers. On closer examination, Beaufort was the featured cheese of the day and tasting samples were to be had. As Lindsay had promised it was very good. The enchantress wielding the knife, and also adorned with just a wisp of a French smile, offered to cut us a slice. It was a small offering, and taken by the moment, I gestured that she might cut us a more generous portion. So taken was I by the moment that I had failed to notice the price. Walking away with a $42 hunk of cheese was one of the many highlights of the day and actually nourished several other conversations!
We had lunch at a really nice place that Susan had read about. One of those places that you take a picture of the food before you eat it and even then don’t really want to disturb it. Then we stopped for a few supplies, no longer in the need of cheese, and headed home.
After a brief respite from a very busy day, we had some cheese and took a short hike near here. It went past beautiful rolling cow pastures and as we approached we heard the musical sound of the cowbells ahead. As we drew closer the bells became less musical and evolved into this cacophony of sound. I began to wonder how the cows could stand it every time they moved their heads, really quite disturbing, and it became clear to me just why the cow jumped over the moon! I now await the accolades of the scientific community upon revealing the discovery of the unresearched and undocumented etiology of Mad Cow Disease!
While the bells might be a bit unsettling for the cows, they serve the purpose of driving the flies away. Unfortunately I did not have a bell, and a tight swarm of flies took up residence around my head for most of the hike. Susan, knowledgable in the ways of the natural word, unearthed a large handful of grass and told me to wave it around my head! The flies however, were not aware that this would strike terror in their hearts and thought only that they had happened upon a person with mad cow disease.
Such was our day. We came home and had wine……….and cheese!
Susan”s sister Kathryn is worried that I’m spending too much time writing and not having enough fun. She also likes to speed read. So Kathryn, this next part is for you.
Today I bought cheese and we saw cows!
From deep within the Savoy
Jim