The Alps, France

Regaining Elevation

The weekend led me to lofty spires of the French Alps, and a welcome return to single-digit temperatures. Suddenly the burden of an Icelandic wardrobe is pleasantly relevant.



It's a little bit strange to spend a summer weekend visiting a small mountain town which features skiing as its primary attraction - on a national holiday weekend, no less. I have no doubt that people do indeed reside in the tiny town of Bessans, but on a morning such as this, it appears to be solely populated by wandering collar-free dogs.

Happy dogs, as for all they know, they may govern a village.



The tranquility of Tuscany is a veritable cacophony beside the absolute stillness inscribed on this place. My walks lead me through waist-deep grassy fields, perpetually damp with cool dew. Along babbling rivers, speckled with tall reeds and ancient crumbled bridges. Along rocky trails that once serviced clusters of stone cottages, their roofs long since collapsed and their rafters all splintered and splayed upward. Through scatterings of flowerpot houses, a town asleep beneath cold flickering of sunlight through tumbling clouds.



The Alps are staggeringly huge, skewing perspective and distance to a dizzying degree. I gaze from my windswept perch into comely verdant valleys, wondering whether those are cows or chalets in the distance.

A small lake sparkles over the next hill, its surface a blue so pale it might be ice.



I pass a few more days amid overgrown trails and quiet hanging rains, looking forward to shattering such concepts as relaxation in my next destination.