Trompe l'Oeil example in Chambery

It occurred to me that I’ve never written about Chambery, the city where I live.  Actually, I live in a tiny town just outside of Chambery but no one has ever heard of it so I say I live in Chambery. Let me introduce you to my town.

Chambery is a city of about 50,000 people in the French Alps region of France. It’s also the capital of Savoie (Savoy). The town can be rather provincial and sleepy but the Old Town is quaint and picturesque and worth a couple of hours to explore. Here are the top six places to visit in Chambery:

Elephants Fountain

1. The Elephants Fountain was built to honor Benoit de Boigne’s feats as a general for the Prince of India in the 1700′s. Boigne left his fortunes to the city of Chambery. The fountain has realistic sculptures of four elephants, showing only their front limbs, with a statue of Boigne on the top of the monument. The elephants are in the shape of a Savoie cross. At first the landmark was mocked by the local residents who did not understand the symbolism of the foreign land of India. The statue was nicknamed “the four without asses” by the town residents. It still carries this nickname but now it is an affectionate term. The Fountain has become the accepted symbol of Chambery.

2. The Rue Basse du Chateau dates back to the 1200’s and was one of the main thoroughfares in the city in the Middle Ages. The most famous site is the overhanging bridge between the streets’ buildings called the Bridge of Sighs (taken from the famous bridge in Venice Italy).  There were several similar bridges on the street but they were taken down since they were a fire risk, due to the fact that the bridges were made of wood and connected the buildings on each side of the street. Today the street is known for its cute and characteristic shops.

3. The Dukes of Savoy Castle dates back to the first counts of Savoy who settled into an existing fortress in 1285 and expanded it in the early 14th century to serve as a residence, seat of power and administration, and as a stronghold for the House of Savoy.  In 1563, due to constant French hostilities on the chateau, Duke Emmanuel Philibert decided to remove his capital to Turin. Today the building houses the Savoie region’s governmental offices.

Dukes of Savoy Castle

The Dukes of Savoy Castle burned down twice in the 1700’s and again in the 1800’s.  In 1786, Victor Amadeus III enlarged it, adding a Royal Wing. Under Napoleon Bonaparte, the South Wing was rebuilt and redecorated to house the imperial prefecture (or regional government offices).

4. The Chateau Chapel, located next to the Castle, was built in the1400’s and contains 70 bells in its Bell Tower. The original 37 bells were made to represent Savoie at the World Fair in 1937. The bell tower is the 4^th in the world and 1^st in France for the number of bells in a Bell Tower. The biggest bell weighs 5 tons. The Chapel held the Shroud of Turin from 1502 to 1541 and 1561 to 1578 when it was moved to Turin. In order to see inside the Castle and Chapel you must join a guided tour, which you can find at the end of the Rue Basse du Chateau next to the Chapel Bell Tower and walkway fountains.

5. The Place Saint Leger is the main square and sits in the center of town. A small apartment in the square, which is no longer standing, was the birthplace of the town’s hero and benefactor, General de Boigne in 1751. It is lined by middle age to 18^th century buildings, decorated with intricate iron balconies. The square features outdoor restaurants and expensive stores.

6. The Chambéry Cathedral or Cathédrale Saint-François-de-Sales de Chambéry is Roman Catholic and dedicated to Saint François de Sales. It was built in the 15^th century and consecrated in 1488. The site is very swampy and the building is supported by 30,000 poles.  During the French Revolution it was extensively defaced, and the interior was entirely restored in the early 19th century.  The massive wooden door dates to 1506, and the organ from 1844. The Cathedral contains the largest ensemble of trompe l’œil painting in Europe (almost 6,000 square meters) by the artist Vicario, which dates to 1809 to 1834. Trompe L’oeil art is a three dimensional form of painting intended to trick the eye into thinking it is the real thing. The neighboring local Savoie history museum, formerly the 14th century Franciscan convent, is linked to the cathedral by the cloisters.

Planning a visit to Chambery and have an IPhone or Ipod? Then buy my Chambery ITunes App and let it guide you to each of these landmarks. To buy it, click here.

Or visit Chambery on our French Alps Tours next summer – you’ll also see many other amazing sights and surprises of the region.

Chambery Cathedral

Trompe l'Oeil inside the Cathedral

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From cheese-rolling competitions in England to La Tomatina festival in Spain, Europe has some eccentric events. Among the most traditional and unusual is the northern French town of Douai’s Festival of the Giants, which is held in mid-July each year.

The Festival                 

Local people parade the gayants, among which feature Monsieur and Madame Gayant and their children, Jacquot, Fillon and Binbin, through the center of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais town. Other characters that appear include the devil and giant dragons. Each figure is around twenty feet tall and maneuvered by a team of five or six people.

The figures are paraded through the town and treated almost as if they were real people by the locals.  As a good-luck ritual, children who plant a kiss on cross-eyed Binbin’s cheek are said to be less likely to develop eye problems themselves.

But the festival is not just about enjoying the parade and marveling at the balancing feats of those operating the huge puppets. French cuisine is famous for a reason, and this northern region of France is no exception when it comes to producing delicious foodie delights. Expect to sample hearty one-pot food, which is similar to that of the region’s German neighbors, and gayantines, delicious sweets created in celebration of the festival.

The History

Although Douai now belongs to France, the first giants were constructed in 1530 under orders from the Flemish rulers of the town. The town became part of France in the 1600s, but after the French revolution the tradition was abolished. The giants were reinstated after the defeat of Napoleon, however, they continue to be enjoyed today.

Local Dialect                                   

Douai locals speak Picard, a regional language closely related to French. For example, the word gayant used to describe the festival is a variation of the standard French word géant. Despite these differences, you should have no problems getting around with just a basic knowledge of French. However, if you would prefer to expand your vocabulary before you go, whether you want to learn French or learn English London language schools offer courses to help you brush up in time for the holidays.

Nearby Attractions

If you’re visiting Douai for the summer festival, why not make the town your base for a few days? The Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France is brilliantly located for travel to nearby European countries. Traveling to neighboring Belgium and Luxembourg is easy, and at half an hour’s drive from Calais, where there are frequent ferries to the south-east of England, a weekend trip to the UK to see the sights or take a class at an English school London is home to is not out of the question.                

Well linked to Paris via train and road, Douai is also a great place to visit as part of a wider tour of France.

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Tomorrow I leave for the States with my cat, Bandit, in tow. I’ll be there for at least six months, living in my new home in the Fort Myers area. Bernard, my husband, will join me in early November so we’ll be apart for three months. I’ve lived alone most of my life so I can manage that okay but he has never lived alone so it’s harder on him. He’ll be staying for three months with me in Florida and we’ll work on landscaping the house during his time there. I need to keep him busy so he doesn’t get bored or too homesick!  I, on the other hand, will be putting my time and energy towards finding an income, whether that be more fundraising and grant writing contracts or working as a consultant with fundraising organizations. I’ll also be meeting with travel agencies to market my French Alps Tours and try to establish some partnerships.  Since Florida will be ‘home’, I’ll be bringing my contract work there and setting up shop in the area so I’ll need to get my business license too.

Besides the landscaping and finding additional income, I have a list of things that I’ll need to accomplish. My house was burglarized during my absence so I have to replace the washer/dryer, microwave, TV, laptop, and several other things. This time however I think I’ll get the cheaper or refurbished versions of those things and save myself some money.  I’ll also be putting in a heavy duty alarm/security system and front and back motion detector lights.  I’ll be getting my Florida driver’s license. I hope to find classes in advanced Word, Powerpoint, Excel programs, and take an Italian class to brush up on that language which I’ve mostly forgotten in my three years in France. And of course, either find a French class or French tutor to try to make some progress with that language as well. Of course, there’s always my blogs and my French Alps Tours to work on. And I’d like to try to find time to volunteer for some non-profit agencies in the area, including an animal rescue organization. I definitely won’t get bored.

I, of course, hope to have a little fun too. My entire family (almost entire) lives in the area and, except for the three months I lived in Florida earlier this year, it’ll be the first time that I’ve lived in the same city with them since I was 17 years old. I’m looking forward to spending time with them and having some laughs – which is what we do very well together.  I’ll get to have Thanksgiving for the first time in 3 years and Christmas and New Years with them too.  Cape Coral has a big Christmas Boat Parade that I’m looking forward to seeing – boat owners decorate their boats in lights and Christmas decorations and compete for a prize. You can watch the gorgeous parade from the parks along the river.

By the way, don’t worry about the blog losing its ‘French-ness.’  I have enough French-related videos and posts to last until I return to France.  I’ll have a few Florida-related festivals or events too to keep it interesting.

So bon voyage a moi, and see you on the other side of the Pond!

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TGV French Bullet Train

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you know that my French husband is a TGV train driver (the bullet trains in France), and has been for 30 years.  As you know, things are done differently in France than in the U.S., especially when it comes to retirement issues.  Most French retire between 58 and 64 years of age. If you are one of the luckier ones and work for the train system in France, the SNCF, you will get to retire even earlier than that. If you have worked for them for 30 years, 20 years of which you’ve driven trains, you can retire with full benefits at age 50.  And that’s exactly what my husband did as of yesterday. One month before his 51st birthday he retired.  He’ll get about 70% of his pre-retirement salary.

I’m happy for him but also a little jealous.  I wasn’t looking at early retirement before I moved to France but now, with losing the six-figure income I had in L.A., I’m probably looking at retiring very late in life – perhaps 66 to 68 years old.  At best, I’ll be looking at semi-retirement before that.  I’m not very happy about this particular fact but I also know that most Americans of my generation are probably looking at this same reality.  Sometimes you have to ask if there isn’t something wrong with our American system, and if we’ll ever be able to fix it.  N’est pas?

In the meantime, I want to congratulate my husband, Bernard, on a career well-chosen and well-performed.  Happy Retirement, cheri.

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Bandit on the left & Bogey on right

I’m heading back to the U.S., Florida to be specific, in a few weeks. This won’t be a simple trip since I’m taking my precious cat, Bandit, back with me. Carrying an animal on a 20-hour trip is never easy. I’ve done it three times now – twice when I was living in Italy and once when I brought my two cats with me to France three years ago. Over the years, it’s become more complicated too.

In Italy I had to get their vaccinations (mostly rabies) and a health certificate in Italian to bring them into the country. When I got to the customs, the officers had no idea what they were looking at and just let me through assuming all these official papers with stamps were correct and didn’t question anything (Italian bureaucrats love big stamps on documents). I had two cats then too and one went on the plane with me, and the other in cargo. My poor cargo cat was so frightened and traumatized that he pooped all over himself and was sick when I picked him up at the baggage area. I felt so guilty putting him through that. In fact, when I knew I would be going back to Italy for a job (at that time I hoped it would be permanent), I couldn’t put my poor Cassy through that again so I gave him to a friend. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I loved that cat and had him for 12 years so it broke my heart. My other cat, Boo, had a rough time of it in Italy too. We traveled from city to city, staying in different hotels, then an apartment, then at a friend’s for a few days while I did some job interviews in Northern Italy. She was put through so much and again I felt so guilty. I ended up getting an apartment for four months where she finally could settle down for a while. The problem during that time though was that I had to leave her for two days every week while I commuted to Trieste for my teaching job (it’s a long story I’ll write about one day). So she had to be alone during that time and she hated it.

To get my cats to France, I had to have the vaccinations, the health certificates which had to be stamped by the USDA (a full day trip fighting LA traffic to their offices near the airport), and they had to be microchipped with a special French coded microchip which had to be special ordered. And all of this had to be timed just so. The airlines had their timing and the French authorities had theirs. I flew on Lufthansa because they had the most liberal rules regarding carry-on pets. At the time, I could bring a larger carrier that didn’t fit under the seat and was put in front of the seat instead. That was handy since my Bandit is a very large cat and was more comfortable in the larger carrier. However they have since changed that and the container must fit under the seat now. In fact, they say 10 inches high but they don’t make pet carriers that low for cats because all cats stand higher than that. So I’ll just have to take my 12-inch carrier on and smash it down enough to get under the seat for take off and then put him on my lap afterwards. It will be a cramped flight for him but he’ll be laying down for most of it anyway so he’ll be okay.

None of my cats have accepted water or food during their trips. My Italy cats did pee and poo which made for some messy clean-ups on the trip. My current two boys didn’t do either on the trip to France, which made me nervous because male cats are susceptible to urinary infections. But once we arrived in France everything seemed to start working again just fine. But 23 hours, door to door, is a long time for a cat’s elimination functions not to work.

If we can’t find a good cat-sitting situation for my other cat, Bogey, for the 11 weeks Bernard is in Florida with me then he’ll bring Bogey with him on the plane. Prices for in-cabin pets varies significantly. My Lufthansa flight will only cost me 70 Euros going and $100 coming back. This fee is actually for the Charlotte to Fort Myers leg of the journey that is on U.S. Airways. Lufthansa is actually not charging me anything for the international part of the journey. Other airlines will charge as high as 200 or 250 Euros EACH WAY. So do your homework if you’re planning to do this. Also, be persistent in your questions when you call about your pets traveling in-cabin. Many American-based airlines will not accept in-cabin pets on transatlantic flights. Some Europe-based airlines won’t either. At the time of this writing, the only airlines I found that accepted pets were Lufthansa and United or Continental. United charges 90 Euros each way, which isn’t too bad. Cargo costs also vary wildly. I’ve been quoted anything from $200 to $600 each way. So expect to make a lot of calls to get policies and costs and if something doesn’t sound right, persist. I actually had an agent with Delta tell me that no airports in Europe were allowing in-cabin pets to disembark. A Lufthansa agent laughed when I told him that.

As for medicating your pets, I have read numerous articles discouraging the use of sedatives for pets traveling in cargo or in-cabin. At high altitudes these medications can affect the pet’s breathing and heart. When in cargo, they interfere with the pet’s ability to keep their balance and therefore they could get injured. So talk to your vet before getting meds for your pets. I choose not to use them.

So wish us luck as we make this challenging journey with my ‘boys.’

Ready for the Trip!

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As I announced a few weeks ago, the Glamour Magazine July Issue (USA) is out on the stands and I was quoted in the article. Unfortunately, the article ended up being smaller than originally planned so my (and the others) interviews ended up being just a short quote for each of us. Here’s a photo of the section where I’m quoted. It’s nice to have been recognized and chosen for the article but since my ego needs are pretty low these days, and my profit needs quite high, I was disappointed that none of my websites (particularly the French Alps Tours one) were mentioned. But I’ll take it as a ‘warm fuzzy’ just the same and appreciate the acknowledgment.

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If you have an IPhone or IPod and are planning a visit to Chambery, buy my ITunes App. Install it on your IPhone or IPod and 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. I was approached by the City Walk folks to do the app and I was happy to oblige. Check it out here. It’s the only one of its kind.

If you prefer to see more of the region on a guided tour, join us on our summertime French Alps Tours. Or if you want help customizing your visit to the French Alps, click here.

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