Join us on a photo journey of France, Europe and beyond on our photoblog. Click on the photo or go to: www.france-and-beyond-photoblog.com
Chambery App
If you have an IPhone or IPod and are planning a visit to Chambery, buy my ITunes App. It will walk you through the city of Chambery to each historic landmark with walking directions, history, a map, and narrative. It's just $2.99. Click on the above photo of the elephant fountain for the link to the app.
Travel Resources
Planning a trip to France ? Stay in a Paris apartment during your trip to the city of lights.
Get my Chambery, France Guide Book free with the purchase of my Cookbook: 'French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.' Get both for only $7.99. Click the photo to get more information or to purchase your books now.
French Tutorial
A basic grammar and vocabulary review of the French language, as well as some informal & slang vocabulary and a special section on vocabulary for English-speaking expatriates living in France. Also included is an appendix on French pronunciation for English speakers as well as IPA transcriptions for most of the vocabulary lists and all of the verb conjugations.
Visit the Store to buy the e-book for $9.95 or paperback book for $24.95.
Join us on a small group tour of the French Alps June 9 - 16, 2012. I designed this tour to include the best of the region. Wander the Medieval town of Annecy, nicknamed the Venice of the French Alps, and take a boat ride on its crystal blue lake. Do you like pampering yourself on your vacations, then why not spend an afternoon at the Aix les Bains thermal baths inside your lakeside hotel? Are you the adventurous type? Then take a horseback ride in the Alps or fly through the trees at the High Ropes Adventure. Are you a foodie? Taste local chocolates, cheeses, wines and hazelnut oils. Are you a history buff? Then satisfy your curiosity at Lyon's Old Town or Vienne's Roman Temple and Forum. Or just enjoy watching the hang gliders and sunset while enjoying an outdoor aperitif on the top of a mountain overlooking Annecy's lake. See you in the French Alps! www.french-alps-tours.com
Alps Cookbook
Get my ECookbook: 'French Comfort Food: Recipes of Savoie and the French Alps.'
51 recipes of the region, collected from friends and local cookbooks. This is the only English language Savoie and French Alps cookbook in print. Only $7.99 and includes a bonus book: The Chambery Guide Book.
Click the photo to buy yours now or go to the Cookbook Page on the Navigation Bar!
French Comfort Food
Visit my French Comfort Food website for articles, recipes, videos, tips and products about French Food and Wine. Click on the photo or go to www.frenchcomfortfood.com
Videos, photos and posts can be used or posted noncommerically (this means you can't sell my films, photos or put them in or on anything you sell!), but everything must be linked back to this blog and must list me as the creator.
Bernard’s friends gave us a trip to Grasse for our wedding gift that included two gift certificates to make our own cologne and perfume. The normal cost for the event is 40 euros each plus 12 euros for the bottle (if you want to buy a nice bottle versus the ugly brown ones with no spray top). After experiencing the event, I think 40 euros is a good price for 2 or 3 hours of entertainment plus some nice perfume that you created yourself. It was quite interesting and educational as well. Here’s a video of the experience. The video is mostly photos since filming was prohibited.
Our technician was great. He has an American girlfriend (who is a Senator’s daughter) and he wants to move to Los Angeles to start his own Fragrance Studio. Brilliant idea! I’ve never seen anything like this in the U.S. and this would be a big hit in L.A.
My Frenchman and I spent three days in Grasse on the Cote d’Azur/Provence region in March. The trip was a lovely wedding gift from his friends which we finally got around to taking. Grasse is the perfume capital of the world so we took advantage of that fact and spent an afternoon at a perfume laboratory and made our own perfume and cologne. We also spent a day visiting the perfume ‘factories’ and walked around the city of Grasse, which is quite lovely. We spent a day driving into the hills to see some of the walled towns which sat on the tops of mountains. The towns were filled with cobblestone streets, medieval buildings and had fantastic views of the valleys.
This video is of a marvelous art gallery we ran across in the center of Grasse’s old town. I was so impressed I had to take video of the art. I hope you find it as fun as I did.
Everyone knows about the city of Cannes on the French Cote d’Azur. It’s primarily known for its annual Film Festival which usually takes place in May. I knew that too but was still astonished to see the handprints of movie stars and musicians in front of the Festival’s theatre center. I felt like I was back in Hollywood where I used to work. We took a nice walk along the seaside promenade and had a quick lunch before heading on to our next destination. Cannes is too modern and ‘bling bling’ for me. I prefer the old towns and centuries-old architecture of the smaller towns on the French Riviera. It’s a great place to people watch though.
It’s been a year coming but this summer I’ll be launching two ebooks on my Blog. One will be about the town and history of Chambery, our home town, and the other will be recipes from the French Alps.
The E-Cookbook, entitled French Comfort Food – Recipes of the French Alps, will include 40+ recipes from Savoie (Savoy) and the surrounding French Alps region. When I arrived here I started looking for recipes and cookbooks from this region and I could not find a single cookbook about Savoyard or French Alps food in English. I found one out-of-print book about Savoie in English that had a few Savoyard recipes in it, but that’s where my luck ran out. So after months of searching, I decided I would just have to write one myself. I searched the internet and went to the Savoie bookstores and bought several cookbooks of Savoyard and French Alps recipes. Of course, they were all in French and used the metric measuring system so I had to start translating them into English. I recruited my husband and friend, Jennie of www.ielanguages.com, to help with the translations. A year later we are almost finished and I will be offering the book on my blog as an E-Cookbook download for $12.99. Or you’ll be able to buy both ‘French Comfort Food – Recipes of the French Alps’ along with the Chambery E-book for $20.00 as a lifetime membership package. The membership will include access to the ‘Theatre Voyage’ page which will feature additional videos not published on my public blog.
The motivation behind writing the Chambery Ebook also came out of necessity. If you look through typical France tourguide books or even guides of the French Alps (which are very few) you’ll find no more than one or two pages about Chambery. While it’s not Chamonix or Lyon, it is a picturesque, charming town worth a visit. The Cathedrals, Old Town and Italian architecture are quite unique. Chambery’s history is also interesting. For instance, I bet you didn’t know that Chambery was the home of the Shroud of Turin for many years and the capital of Savoy when the region was part of Italy. Since it is difficult to find information about the town and surrounding areas, I wrote a 14 page book with photos to give more information that should be both interesting and helpful if you’re planning a visit to the area.
I hope you will support my blog this summer by becoming a member and/or purchasing the E-Cookbook: French Comfort Food – Recipes of the French Alps. Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you find it interesting, entertaining and informative.
For about 11 euros you can have a thrilling ride on the St. Hilaire Funicular a few minutes drive outside of Grenoble. The history of the Funicular is almost as interesting as the ride itself. In the 1920′s the Funicular construction was started with the goal of using it to take building materials up to the top of the mountain for the construction of a tuberculosis sanitarium in Saint-Hilaire du Touvet. The views from the top, as well as the opportunity to watch the hang gliders jump off the cliffs, are worth the ride, but if you want to get your heart beating faster, this is also a good way to do it. The funicular grade is at 83% which means when you’re descending, it almost feels like you are hanging onto the mountain like a rock climber. The bangs and regular bumps add to the sound effects. It is the steepest funicular grade in France and almost in all of Europe. It is a thrill!
Construction of the Funicular in 1922.
For a short, fun video about the steepest Funicular in Europe, see this video about the Gelmerbahn in Switzerland.
Join us on our September French Alps Tours. This is a unique travel experience that you won’t find anywhere else, and you definitely won’t find another tour like it in the French Alps. Bring a friend or family member with you and have the time of your life in this gloriously gorgeous and fascinating region.
What do grunge music, Turkish delights, tattoos and live birds all have in common? They can be found at outdoor markets! Markets are a fun and FREE way to explore a new city and maybe pick up some local crafts or specialties on the way. Here’s a video from TripFilms.com on world markets which is a fun watch. One of my videos about the Chambery market is included.
It’s been a year coming but this summer I’ll be launching two ebooks on my Blog. One will be about the town and history of Chambery, our home town, and the other will be 
necessity. If you look through typical France tourguide books or even guides of the French Alps (which are very few) you’ll find no more than one or two pages about Chambery. While it’s not Chamonix or Lyon, it is a picturesque, charming town worth a visit. The Cathedrals, Old Town and Italian architecture are quite unique. Chambery’s history is also interesting. For instance, I bet you didn’t know that Chambery was the home of the Shroud of Turin for many years and the capital of Savoy when the region was part of Italy. Since it is difficult to find information about the town and surrounding areas, I wrote a 14 page book with photos to give more information that should be both interesting and helpful if you’re planning a visit to the area.
