Category: PHOTOGRAPHY and TRAVEL

Usually, the French word chateau is translated “castle”. In the English language, a castle is – by definition – castellated. It is a building with defenses, designed to hold the enemy at bay and provide a base for offensive maneuvers. It is often surrounded by a moat or other impediment (like deep trenches or blockades), has a fortified entry (like a drawbridge), and is built to withstand attacks from siege engines, cavalry, foot soldiers, and anything else the enemy might fling in its general direction. It is a military installation. In French, a chateau is not necessarily a defensive structure. It can be, but often it is simply (or ornately) a statement of power – economic, social, and political. What we might characterize as a mansion is a chateau. (Notice the relationship between the French maison and the English mansion.) A chateau is a big house that announces the power of its owner. Some are intimidating by their sheer size. Others manage to seem quite homey in a rectangular sort of way, and are clearly designed for pleasure.

Chateau de Cormatin dates from 1606, and has quite literally been under construction, renovation, or restoration ever since. In 1605, Henry IV granted the land to Antoine de Bles d’Uxelles and named him military governor of Chalon. This gift of both the land and the position was the result of de Bles’ role in the Wars of Religion (between the Catholics and Protestants, which nominally ended with the Edict of Nantes). The chateau was modeled on the Citadel of Chalon and some of the architectural features of the chateau are reminders of de Bles’s military standing and the power he exerted in the region. There are, for example, the moat and the turrets.

In 1627, Jaques du Bles (son of Antoine de Bles) began redecorating the chateau in the style favored by Marie de Medici, who was a friend and correspondent. Much of the lavish gilt-work and decoration dates from that time (and has been in some cases carefully restored). The interior of the chateau is a series of reminders of the importance of the occupants and of the virtues that they should uphold (modesty and forbearance do not appear to have been among them). The decorations, the colors, the size and orientation of rooms – all of it was designed to remind the inhabitants and their guests of their status.

On February 4-5, 1629, du Bles was host to King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, which led to another flurry of redecorating, both before and after the event.

In 1730, the last member of the du Bles died. By 1810, the chateau had exchanged hands several times and was in a state of disrepair. However, it is still occupied, and the the French poet and activist Alphonse de Lamartine visits regularly. He would give his final political speech on the front steps of Chateau de Cormatin.

At the end of the 19th Century, Cormatin became a center for the arts, hosting Enrico Caruso, among other great operatic singers. Raoul Gunsbourg, the director of the Monte Carlo Opera for more than 50 years, purchased the property and every year an opera and concert was performed. on the grounds. My great aunt, Dame Clara Butt, a well-known English contralto of the period, performed at Cormatin, I believe. Saint- Saens wrote a song cycle for her, and she traveled to France (and throughout Europe) to perform with regularity. Queen Victoria was her patron, and she studied first in England and later in Paris. She was honored at the end of the Great War for her service and courage, particularly the entertainment of troopers near the Front Line, hence her title. I have a cameo that she owned. I would like to think that she wore it at Cormatin.

Finally, in 1980, the property was purchased by a group of people with the idea of restoring and preserving the property. By this time, much of the structure was compromised and the grounds were swampy and overgrown. Through volunteer work and the careful restoration of experts, Chateau de Cormatin is once again a symbol of the fortitude and pride of the people who built it and lived in it.

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Views of the gardens, including the Orangerie and the moat surrounding the Chateau.

I have a particular fondness for cows based entirely upon observation rather than hands-on experience. They are very present in the landscape where I live, often as immobile as the boulders and stone walls that surround them. From a distance, they seem to live an idyllic life (if one neglects to consider their ultimate sacrifice). Even their scent has associations of fertility rather than excrement.

Imagine my joy upon arrival in the South of Burgundy to see not only cows, but white cows, lounging like so many odalisques in a harem. These sizable ladies and their muscular male counterparts are Charolais, bred in the region and taking their name from the near-by town of Charolles and the commune (region) of Charolles in the Saone-et-Loire department of Burgundy.

The first documentation of these beauties is in the latter part of the 9th Century. It is likely that these cattle are native to the region. By the 15th Century, Charolais cattle were a source of meat and income throughout the region. While they are raised specifically for meat, they historically were also used as draft animals and for milk.

Charolais grow quickly, have few health issues, are relatively docile, and adapt well to a variety of feed (grass based or intensive). They are muscular and produce high quality meat in quantity. They birth easily. In other words, they serve their purpose well.

I did not try Charolais meat. It felt a bit too much like eating a neighbor. The cows are absolutely lovely to watch, even when they are simply lounging in the pasture. They have a distinctive look with their creamy complexion and pink muzzles. They also have a distinctive smell (perhaps partly attributable to the 100*+ weather) which is sharp but not particularly unpleasant.

In recent years, some farmers have been cross-breeding the Charolais. The calves are usually born with a pinkish hue that develops as the calf grows. Sometimes the calves retain the Charolais coloring, but more often than not the calves become piebald as they grow. There many calves in evidence, and on a few days I had to stop the car just to watch them wobble across the pasture or chase frantically behind their casually strolling mother.

When I was young, I traveled extensively with my mother. She was a geologist and cartographer by training, and a member of the Royal Geographical Society. Although her career evolved into other pursuits, she never lost her passion for landscape and what lay beneath its surface. There was always a rock hammer in the trunk of the car. Every so often she would pull over to the side of the road, smile brightly at me, and inform me that we would find fossils in the rock on the side of the road. She was almost invariably correct. We came home with ammonites and trilobites, dainty pressed ferns, insects as large as my hand, whole worlds from a distant era. I loved every minute. I especially loved her stories.

She became a geologist in the 1950s, when women simply did not do scientific work. At least, not respectable women. She graduated from the University of Sheffield and went to work with British Mines. Quickly she discovered she was a liability, not because of what she knew but because of what she was. A woman in a mine was considered bad luck. She was offered a job doing a geological survey and mapping Mont Blanc. She took it. Later, she surveyed and mapped in the Himalayas. One of the few adamant pieces of advice she ever gave me was “Never drink yak-butter tea.”

One of the only things I felt very strongly about seeing on this trip was Mont Blanc (pronounced Mon Blan). My mother loved it, and her time there was one of the few stories from her past she told and retold. Fortunately, six other people wanted to go too, so it became a kind of pilgrimage of friends.

We drove to the Saint Gervais train station to meet the tram that would take us up the mountain. It was (to borrow a title) a narrow road to the deep north. The original Narrow Road to the Deep North by Oku No Homonichi and the novel by John Flanagan remain two of my favorite works. Both texts are about travel both in the world and in the soul. as this trip was for me.

The stars aligned. Here is our tram for the journey. My mother’s name was Anne, as is mine.

The trip up the mountain was not for those who fear great clanking gears straining against gravity while perched on the edge of a precipice. The climb was just that – at times so steep as to feel almost vertical. We were joined on our upward voyage by a bevy of serious young men and their climbing gear. The view was quite nice both inside and outside the tram.

The tram takes a little over an hour and drops you at the base of the glacier. The great peak of Mont Blanc was obscured by clouds while the valley below was bathed in sunlight.

Mont Blanc may be an older distant cousin of the Himalayas, but it still dominates the landscape. It is the roof of the world it inhabits. He demands respect. It is hard not to think of him as an old veteran of perpetual war. Other mountains – Annapurna for instance , whose name means “goddess of harvests” roughly translated from Sanskrit – are clearly grande dames. This old man is showing some wear. I watched as clouds gathered around the summit, and suddenly there was an earth-shaking sound reminiscent of an explosion. Several large sections of the glacier broke free, one after the other, and shattered thousands of feet below.

The first photo in the series of three above shows the Bionnassey Glacier at Nid d’Aigle as it is today. Three years ago, the entire rock face at this altitude was covered in ice millennia old. Soon, Mont Blanc may no longer be the white mountain, but the grey one. The death of a glacier may not seem particularly significant to some. I believe it to be a great tragedy. Within that ice was stored the DNA of creatures long since vanished, information about the climate changes our planet has undergone, and quite literal watermarks of history. The ice that is melting now might have formed in 1066, or in the time of Roman occupation. It might have formed when primitive hunters killed horses at Solutre, more than 3000 years ago. It might be more recent. No one I spoke with recalled a time when the mountain was as bare as it is now. A glacier is not just ice. It is a dynamic icescape of tremendous proportions. It is a repository of our history, of our planet’s history.

This was my narrow road to the deep north. It was an honor to walk it, but it was not a pleasure. It requires balance, strength, and a good pair of shoes. While there is a path, it is not groomed ; it shouldn’t be. To climb here requires a commitment of self, both the spirit and the body. It should not be easy. For me, it was an act of faith and courage. It was awe-inspiring to stand on this majestic monument, and a joy to stand where my mother once stood. She loved this mountain. Through her I learned to respect and love the natural world even though it does not to call to me as it did to her. I have other siren songs.

I have fallen in love, as I thought I would, with this rugged place. Every year, Mont Blanc claims the lives of climbers, and yet every year they return. This past year, roughly 20,000 attempted to summit. Fifteen died. For me, it is enough to stand on the narrow road and stare in wonder at the breathtaking majesty of Mont Blanc.

This research began immediately after I left Paris from La Gare de Lyon, which is spectacular inside. The TGV did its job and I arrived safely in Macon (early, if you can believe it) and was picked up by friends. I did not feel well. Allergies, I thought. Headache. Get over it. You’re in FRANCE. The next day I slogged my way through the breathtaking Chateau de Cormatin. I knew I was in trouble. The next morning, I was taken to the doctor. He sent me straight to the hospital. The office visit was 30 euros.

I arrived at the hospital with a note from the doctor, waited maybe ten minutes in the waiting room, and was ushered into a large holding area. Blood was drawn – the least painful experience of blood-letting I have ever had. What was even cooler was that my blood was divided between three bottles (like mini-wine bottles) and thus began the blood test. A specialist arrived at my bedside and informed me I might need surgery to have my tonsils removed. At that moment, I was perfectly happy with whatever he wanted to do. A second doctor came to confer. He suggested that they try IV antibiotics for 12 hours and then see how things progressed. They whisked me off for a throat scan to see how bad the blockage was. Before I knew it I was in a hospital room that looked much like any other, trying to find new ways to communicate (it’s really hard to describe how your tonsils are if you don’t know the words). They asked if I had angina. I said no. It turns out angina doesn’t mean the same thing in French and English. At this point, breathing was my number one struggle, and so I relaxed into the care of the people around me, many of whom wore signs on their uniform that they were “en greve” (on strike). Clearly, they may have been on strike but they were very much at work.

I ended up in a room with an elderly woman who certainly had dementia but probably was also mentally disabled. She talked for the 24 hours I had the pleasure of her company, yelled at the nurses, refused to eat, and demanded Perrier every ten minutes or so, which was not available. The French are most elegant eye-rollers, and I practiced the art with the half-dozen attendants who waited on my cantankerous roommate. We also exchanged medical vocabulary through our broken connections of language.

One nurse was particularly severe. I don’t know her name, but in my mind her name is Helga. She was NOT going to smile or engage with me any more than absolutely necessary. If you want to be coddled, don’t get sick in France. And then I asked her if I could borrow a pen. She begrudgingly handed me one. I thanked her. A little while later I handed her pen back to her. She smiled, took the pen and handed me a much nicer one. “Pour vous.” Just to be clear, she SMILED.

I was released after one night in hospital (in the town of Macon) with a bill for around $1700 and a list of prescriptions which cost about 30 euros. My regular insurance will reimburse most if not all of the cost. I cannot imagine what such treatment in the US would cost. I had consultations with four doctors (three of them specialists), a scan, what felt like several gallons of antibiotics, and an overnight stay. It was no palace, but it was clean and efficient.

Next has been the coddling. I have been well-cared for by my friends. Today was my first fully upright day, and it was spent travelling through the myriad villages of the region.

Getting sick while travelling has been one of my concerns. I need not have worried. I’ve had excellent care and am getting better by the minute.

Onward and upward.

This is the last full day in Paris. There is, as always, too much to see and too little time. However, the most important things – taking time to talk and listen, discussing weather and politics, wondering what daily intake of cafe au lait might be considered acceptable – were accomplished.

I did not spend a great deal of time in expected places. I did photograph la tour Eiffel, but from a distance through trees with Montmartre at my back. The tower is iconic. It certainly doesn’t need me posing in front of it in a bizarrely angled selfie shot. The tower, and what it stands for, deserves better than that. I did not go to the Louvre (in full disclosure, it wasn’t open). I didn’t eat a formal breakfast in an overpriced bistro. I wandered with a hunk of baguette and several bottles of water.

Here is what I saw. Look through the tress (and possibly a quizzing glass if you happen to have one) and see the beloved tower in the last photograph.

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I also went to the Tuiileries hoping for open green spaces and shade. There was some, but the heat had taken its toll and the trees and flowers wilted painfully. Fortunately, the Musee de l’Organerie (my intended destination) was open and blissfully cool. It was also filled with tourists and several hundred school children aged roughly 6-7 who walked neatly in little rows and behaved exceptionally well. Think of Madeline.

A Parisienne had described the exhibit as the work of Claude Monet. In fact, it was Alex Katz’s homage to Monet. It was not what I expected, but it turned out to be just the ticket. While Katz’s work is interesting, it doesn’t particularly appeal to me. It was designed as an exhibit in the Contemporary Counterpoints Series (see more information here). The concept behind this seems timely. Regardless of how we feel about an individual time period, artist, or work, it holds meaning and provides context. It is part of a larger discussion on the creative act and on the nature of the artist as audience, and the artist’s audience. Essentially, art tells us about ourselves in our often unglamorous human condition. How interesting, then, to bring together works from radically different time periods as part of our ongoing discourse on that most confusing of subjects: ourselves.

My first question about this was: why waterlillies? This was followed by: why Monet? The answer was staring me – quite literally – in the face. Check this out.

This is a wall-length, nearly ceiling-to-floor version of the painting in question. I’m one of those people the docents always have their eyes on. I want to look, and I want to look closely. With my nose almost touching, I looked at each brush stroke, each movement of paint on canvas. Of course this is hyperbole, but I was interested in the bits that made up the whole. How can the slight twist of a brush mere inches from the face become something perfectly clear at a distance?

Take a look. Think about perspective. Think about form. Think about color. Think about composition. This could be so many halved avocados on a counter top. But they’re not. Those pink wads are paper towels used to clean up the beets you chopped earlier. Bloody things make a mess everywhere. But they’re not. How can this scribble and dash make sense?

More importantly, how can it not?

Notice the curvature. Notice the fact that the murals dwarf the audience. Notice that it took me forever to get shots of the art without all those annoying people who actually wanted to look and see.

As if the great curves of the walls were not enough, look up.

This is the ceiling, reminiscent of eyes and wombs, showing structure and superstructure. In this exhibit, the greatest gift is the space, the ways in which curvature and the unexpected invite closer examination of works of art so embedded in the culture it is quite possible we never really see them.

So ends my time in Paris. I say farewell to the AirBnB, with a little side note on the display case in the living area. It held books. How could I not look? And it held pieces of a lifetime of work and collection. I understand that the owner of the apartment is elderly (well into her nineties) but these are not things for strangers like me to gawk at. I did anyway.

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On the picture to the left, notice the lovely softcovers. There might have as many as two hundred stacked several layers deep. The books on the right of that top shelf are Victor Hugo. On the second shelf down, there are wedding photos and a few family shots. On the picture to the right, notice the bound books which held issues of a French language magazine put out by a petrol company (I believe) regarding new research and development over the course of many years. This is the history of someone’s life. I’m honored to have shared this space, even for so short a time. It would be a tragedy if these things did not continue to exist after the people who created and curated this collection are gone.

Our AirBnB was a cute little apartment on Rue du Cardinal Lemoine in the Latin Quarter. Unfortunately our meet-up with the host coincided with the Gay Pride event. One half of the city was literally cut off from the other. You couldn’t get the to the Left Bank from the Right Bank without going out of the city to circumvent it. Needless to say we were en retard. Our host was too. He was just as stuck, and had not cleaned the apartment after the last guests who had left earlier that morning. It was a bit of a fiasco, but there was a slight breeze and lots of tea.

Here are our neighbors across the way.

They all look quite decorous and I’m sure they are. This is hardly an inexpensive part of town (our building belonged to the “poor” neighbors). However, below us were a multitude of restaurants, bars, French drowning their World Cup sorrows, and Pride participants celebrating an astonishing turn-out. There was a lull in the noise sometime around 2 am (presumably the hardiest had passed out or stumbled home), only to resume at full force sometime around 4 am. There was singing. There were conversations that could be heard in….let’s say Nice, just to keep the theme going. There were things that might have been declarations of love or war.

The street sweepers were out extra early that morning and the town was covered in glitter. On the Metro the following morning, there were a number of spangled celebrants who clearly had missed their stop several times, most of them listing sideways. People were kind, propping them up when they threatened to collapse in ball on the floor. One group of young ladies was serenading the train, although they hadn’t decided on the same song. It was rather like listening to Ariana Grande singing five songs simultaneously – an entire album in one.

Yesterday, we had strolled Montmartre looking at the work of would-be artists and a few with genuine talent. It was almost all very sanitized and tourist. Today, I was in search of something very particular. Early on in my Instagram career, I had searched widely for creative people doing unique work. I came across the artist C215, whose name is Christian Guemy. He is a street artist who has been doing graffiti for more than 20 years. However, in 2006 he did his first public work using a stencil. He hand cuts the stencils from his own drawings and his work can be seen throughout Paris. Much of his work depicts people ( migrants, the homeless, notable historical figures, people in the news), he is also known for his collection of cats and butterflies. He does work on both canvas and wood as well.

On this trip I was hoping to see some of his work. Not more than a block from the AirBnB, I found these.

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Guemy is also known for his religious work, and has done spectacular work for churches. He spent time studying Caravaggio, among others and seems to have a style that is genuinely artistic and unique, and interesting blend of traditional and edgy, political and spiritual.

it was time to leave Geneva. I encountered an enormously diverse group of people in my few days in this city. My favorite folks were at the Hotel Eden (both staff and guests). The hotel was intimate, with lots of small gathering places both for guests and patrons of their excellent restaurant. I never made it beyond their vegetable salad, which was the perfect lunch or dinner for a super hot day.

This was my favorite hangout. This was last tea in Switzerland.

Based on the suggestions of others, I bought train tickets online. That was the easy part. I wanted to take the TGV straight to Gare de Lyon in Paris, where it would be a short taxi ride to my next hotel. The first problem was that I had to print the tickets. Fortunately, the hotel was willing to do that. I was buying two tickets, one for the Paris leg of the journey and the next for my trip to Macon. Armed with my printed tickets, I arrived at Geneve-Cornavin, the main railway station. There, I was informed that what I had printed was the receipt for the ticket and the draft of the confirmation, but not the ticket itself. According to the attendant, my tickets were invalid. I would have to purchase new ones.

Not happening. I went to the next attendant. She explained that I had not printed the ticket. However, there was a printing service a few doors down (one wonders what their cut is) and they can print the ticket for me. I must say the printshop was super. The gentleman who helped me stopped whatever he was doing and took care of my somewhat frantic self. In ten minutes I had everything I needed and schlepped my self and suitcase back to the station. And then the inevitable happened. The train was delayed.

This is an understatement. At first it was delayed by 20 minutes. Then by an hour and a half. Then it was cancelled. Then we were going to rerouted through Nice. (Why is it always Nice?). Then the train was going to arrive, but it could only hold 300 of the 500 passengers. Oh, and it was 103* on the platform.

A little over two hours later, we were on our way via the original route but on a train so packed I wondered if people were hanging off the sides. The crowd gave up all pretense of finding assigned seats, but I happily found one in la premiere classe. Sort of. The train attendants brought us bottled water at every stop and insisted we drank it all. Unfortunately, it wasn’t spiked. At least, I didn’t notice if it was.

Finally, with much rejoicing, I arrived in the City of Light. It was dark, but Le Gare de Lyon is bright enough to illuminate the night. When I’m on my way to Macon, I hope to have time to do a little photography.

I arrived at the Berkeley Hotel in one soggy piece, and found another super cute little elevator.

It is big enough for two people, or in my case one with a big suitcase. The room was clean and simple, with a nice shower. The beds were uniquely European – two twin beds made up with separate linens but placed side-by-side. They are small by American standards – not intended for someone over 5’8″ . The other tricky part was to remember not to roll over, in case the beds roll apart and you end up in a heap on the floor.

The next day, Berkeley was gracious enough to hold my luggage while I met up with friends at Sacre Coeur. Let me just say that Paris is a city of hills, and everything is uphill. Both ways. Sacre Coeur is at the top of all of them.

This is the edifice on the highest ground in Paris.

Sacre Coeur looms over the city. While not without beauty, the Basilica has less grace than Notre Dame , for example. Mass is held daily and this is an active parish. The inside is muted for the most part.

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Sacre Coeur has a feel of permanence, like a reassuring parent watching over the city. It is solid, staid, and a bit stuffy. It is located in – or more properly – on Montmartre, or Mount of Martyrs. The basilica was built as the result of what is refereed to an “the national vow.” In 1870, France and Germany went to war. France was defeated. It was determined that the cause of the loss (and perhaps of the war too) was not political, but religious. To that end, Cardinal Guibert approved the building of the church as reparation for the sins pf France. Construction began in 1875 and was completed in 1912. Interior work continued until 1914, but the consecration of the church was delayed due to the outbreak of the Great War. Eventually, it was consecrated on October 16, 1919.

Every day should start with this:

In a room that is appointed like this:

Well, maybe not every day. But some days. And with fresh mango, perfectly ripe. If that doesn’t qualify as miraculous in and of itself, I’m not sure what does. Don’t let the empty seats fool you. This place was full earlier, but I felt it would be rude to take a photo of lots of people I didn’t know.

Speaking of people, there was one woman who I had noticed yesterday and thought I recognized, although I couldn’t place her. She was with someone, and I didn’t want to interrupt. This morning she was alone, but left almost as soon as I arrived. She was dressed distinctively in all black. Her dress was reminiscent of styles worn in the Victorian era with black stockings and boots. She wore a black poke bonnet trimmed in lace, satin, and beadwork. It’s possible that I remember the style of dress more than the person, but I’m fairly sure I’ve met her. In the early 1980’s I did a lot of volunteer work the the United Nations Youth Association and Amnesty International, and I think she dates from that time. Anyway, she had a presence that would have been noticeable even if she weren’t so splendidly dressed. I think her name is Kitty, although my memory is unreliable.

Stranger meetings have happened. Once, when I lived in Perth, Australia, I was walking down the street and ran into someone I had known in Bellingham, Washington. It would be hard to find two places more geographically distant.

And then there was the gentleman in the seat next to me on the flight to London a few days ago. He was wearing an Okemo jacket (Okemo is the name of a ski resort in the town in which I live). Not only does he ski there, his sister owns a house on West Hill. What are the chances? The world is not so very large after all.

So, in the middle of blazing heat, I ventured forth to the waterfront which I had hoped would be cooler. It was pleasant under the trees, but the waterfront itself was practically a blaze (which is oxymoronic, but so be it).

This guy and a bunch of his friends were swanning along. The heat threw a haze over almost everything and the sun was relentless.

This was the view from the walkway to the breakwater. It was well past midday, and everything from the near distance to the horizon was this lovely moody apparition.

Close to the shore, everything was lightwashed like a gently faded 1950’s postcard. The heat seemed to bleach everything.

However, these buildings retained their stoicism and stood at attention. Their crisp symmetry is reassuring.

Fortunately, someone remembered to water the flowers.

Someone found a cool spot on the other side of the breakwater.

And of course the iconic Jet d’eau. It is one of the tallest fountains in the world, although it had a practical purpose when it was built in 1886. There was a hydraulic plant at La Coulouvreniere, and the Jet d’eau was used to release excess pressure. However, it quickly became an attraction, and so it was amplified and moved to a more prominent location on the lake.

And here is one of my favorite things. This piano invites you to stop and play. Several people did, and one of them was quite good. “If music be the food of love, play on.”

For those of you who travel, particularly over longer distances , you’ll be familiar with that weird phenomenon called jet lag. Even if you’re a pro (or in my case an old pro) some things just take a little time. So today has started slowly with cafe au lait, equal parts of hot milk and hot coffee in steaming silver(ish) pots. It was followed by – ahhh – freshly baked bread, the smell of which woke me this morning around 4:00 am. I seem to have a morning theme going.

So coffee it was, followed by one of the best showers I’ve ever had that includes – get this – a view of the skyline. And don’t get me started on the soap and shampoo. Seriously, this is heavenly.

So here’s the view to the left of my little balcony.

Just in case you thought I took a wrong turn and ended up in Tuscany, this is the view looking in the other direction.

Geneva is not particularly large – in some ways it’s a little like Burlington., Vermont. It’s centered around Lac Leman both geographically and culturally. There are arts on the waterfront and pleasant gardens to wander through. It’s dog-friendly, bike friendly, kid friendly, and tourist accepting. Mostly. There are perils involved if you understand enough French to know what other people are saying about you. I overheard a conversation behind me in which one man decided I was American because of my size while another said I couldn’t be because of my fair skin. I turned around a gave them an eyebrow and a grin. They nodded politely.

So politeness seems almost universal here. Except for bus drivers. I’ve only met one, and he was one too many. The instructions I received were to walk to the corner, take a right and look for the word bus on the street. I did. Buses passed me. When I saw the next one with my number on it, I waved. The driver slammed on his brakes, opened the door and started shouting at me. Let’s say I got the gist of it. I apologized. He stopped, looked at me, and shouted “Montrez, montrez!” So I did. At which point he gunned it back into traffic and I quite literally fell flat on my….well, you know. Come to find out, “BUS” painted on the street means a bus and taxi lane, not bus stop. Logical, right? I’m blaming jet lag.

On to acts of kindness. To the lady at Logan Airport who had to pat me down twice, thank you. I know you were more embarrassed than I was. To the US Customs who searched my bag and put it back pretty much the way they found it, thank you. So I roll clothes when I pack them. Now they’re folded. Life is good. What surprised me was how difficult it was to leave. When I got to Geneva, they scanned my passport and told me to have a good stay. The end. I wonder if they know what a thorough job US Customs does.

Last but nowhere near least are my fellow passengers from London to Geneva. We were late leaving. Like eye-crossingly, darkest-night, perpetuator-of-headaches-and-ire late. So there was I surrounded at the gate by a posse of businessmen wearing suits that clearly cost more than my entire wardrobe for the last ten years. They were groomed, manicured, Patek-Philliped, and pressed into tight creases. They all had that fresh from the gymn since the cradle body, gently greying hair, and a mien that spoke of aristocracy. And there was me. They after you, madame’d me on to the plane and off of the plane. While other people waiting impatiently at other gates seethed audibly, I was in the middle of a flock of starched emperor penguins who never once displayed any obvious emotion regarding the entire mess. I gather it was a “Western Europe” thing. A plane had an engine fire, which caused everyone to be backed up. For some reason Nice kept coming up as the culprit. Or maybe that was just the British explanation. A millennium or more of political and social tension tends to lead to general snarkiness.

Oh, and I really can’t thank the folks here at Eden Hotel in Geneva sufficiently. The gentleman manning the lobby last night was as kind as they come. The front desk has been immensely helpful (except for the bus incident, which was really me). And, boy, coffee and fresh bread. It’s the way to go.

The old saying immortalized by Robbie Burns (and then anglicized and bastardized by a host of others) is nowhere more apparent than when one travels. The best-laid plans often go awry whether mouse, man, or unsuspecting traveler. It is inevitable. It is also how good stories come into being. While it is not always possible to remember this in the moment, it is part of the richness of adventure.

Today was one of those days, for reasons large and small. I woke up at 3:00 am. I got up at 3:30 feeling a bit frantic. I unpacked and repacked my suitcase, consumed three cups of really strong tea, did the last of the laundry, sat down, and concentrated on breathing. I’m prone to panic in moments of transition, but usually a deep breath and a stern self-talk later, I’m all good. This morning I had to remind myself that with very few exceptions, everything was expendable. Aside from the inevitable paperwork that accompanies travel, my phone, my camera, and my credit card, everything else was just stuff. While I’m not brave enough to undertake this particular journey with just a backpack, I’ve done plenty of trips with a camera bag containing the obvious and a change of clothes. The trip isn’t about the stuff.

It’s about the guy at the terminal who shared an eye roll and a grin with me over a fellow traveler who clearly had the world’s worst sinus infection and a comparable attitude. It was about the elderly mother seeing her middle-aged son off. It was about the profusely apologetic taxi driver who seemed to believe he was single-handedly accountable for rush hour traffic. It was about the bus driver who patiently repeated instructions at every stop. It was about my lovely friend who drove me to the Dartmouth Coach. It was about arriving at the hotel intact and being greeted by a woman with a gorgeous smile. It was about drinking another cup of tea – kind of like parentheses around the day – that tasted more like stale coffee and was still almost satisfactory. And it’s about a clean bed in an air conditioned room.

Stuff can be helpful, but as often as not it’s a hindrance. Stuff has a way of controlling us. It demands upkeep, cleaning, repairing, organizing, and – perish the thought – dusting. Am I taking too much stuff? Probably. But it’s a lot less than my panicked self wanted to bring.

So plans went awry. And then they all came together. What will stick with me is the people, the feeling, and – if I’m lucky – not much stuff.