Italy!

After a hot week, Chloe and I had a brief flash of inspiration and decided to drive to Italy for the day (I won't get tired of writing THAT anytime soon!). The plan was to use the Osterie d'Italia to find a good restaurant along the road to Turin, and then visit the Sacre di San Michele. The Osterie is like a Guide Michelin, but specializes in slow, regional food. In a way, it is like an entire guide devoted to Bib Gourmand restaurants. I found a restaurant called "Etable" in Bardonecchia, and made a reservation for lunch the night before, just to be sure we could get in. Knowing that we would be loading up on calories, chloe went for a run in the morning, and I went for a ride up Mt. San Martin. We left late in the morning, passing through the Maurienne valley and its legendary cols on both sides. After many tunnels, not the least of which was the fabulously long and expensive (45 euros round trip -- 65 dollars! Do you still think those bridge tolls are excessive?) Frejus tunnel. The first town outside the tunnel is Bardonecchia, and we arrived in plenty of time for lunch. The town was unremarkable, but reminded us a bit of Monetier. We went to a local patisserie, where they made absolutely wonderful fruit tarts

We bought several, and not only were the crusts perfect, but the fruit preserves that they used were excellent. Most of the time, fruit tarts are too sweet and lack any kind of texture that would remind you that what you were eating was once a fruit. The preserves that they used, however (probably home made) were just sweet enough, and retained some of the textures of the sour cherries and blackberries.

After wandering around for a while, it was time for lunch, which was fabulous. For appetizers, I ordered the thinly sliced veal and chloe ordered a vegetable flan ( sformati di verdure con formaggio fuso). Both were excellent, but chloe's was exceptional. They brought out perfectly al dente ravioli bolognese for the kids shortly afterwards, which were summarily devoured



I should also mention that this was a very kid friendly restaurant, which can be a bit hard to find around where we live. When they were taking our orders, they offered to take the kids orders first, and bring them to the kitchen immediately, so the kids could get started. Later on, they brought out a big box of toys for the kids, and would coo appropriately and say "Belissima!" or "Belissimo!".
Anyway, back to the food. I ordered a wild boar stew with polenta Concia, which were very good, but not my favorite.


Chloe ordered the pesto, which was excellent, but stolen by Alex

Finally, it was time for dessert. Chloe and I both ordered one of the specialities: "torta di nocciole e cioccolato tiepido con panna liquida e cacao". Desserts are rarely bad in my experience (except at the work cafeteria). This dessert, however, was transcendent, and very likely the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted at any restaurant (including Auberge de l'Eridan). It was a perfect balance between the hazelnuts and chocolate, and somehow magically light at the same time. I don't know how they achieved it, but it was sheer cooking magic.

The coffee was also great, as were the little cookies that came with it


After thanking our hosts and paying the bill (eighty something for everything, including wine), we loaded up the grommets and headed for the Sacre di San Michele. The road winds past two laked and some huge country estates before you find yourself in a mayhem of tiny road, crazy driving hell. Eventually, if you are lucky, you find a parking space though. From there, it is a short walk under the trees to the Abbey.








After a look around, we packed the by now very tired kids back into the car to complete our six hours (!) of driving.

The Bed

While Stephanie was here, Chloe and Stephanie found a store in the Caserne de Bonne shopping area that had a fabulous kid's bed. It was a bit like a treehouse, with unevenly cuts planks and was raised about three feet above the ground. The designer is a French guy who works in Lyon, and the bed is build by a high end Belgian company. The problem is that they have priced the bed a bit ridiculously: ~3000 us dollars *unassembled* and without a mattress. As an aside, if you ever go furniture shopping in France, be prepared for extreme sticker shock. People must be buying new furniture here, based on the number of furniture shops that seem to stay in business. However, if you look at average salaries, and then see that an entry level couch is in the thousand euro range at most of these stores, things just don't seem to add up. I guess it's just about expectations. Anyway, I loved the design of the treehouse bed so much that I decided that it might be worth building our own, and I could get Zoe involved in the building process too, just like my dad used to do with me. When I was growing up, we built all kinds of things, including a cabin in the mountains, a treehouse, a renovated bedroom, a giant shed and many other projects. It is a very satisfying, if time consuming and exhausting process to go through the planning and execution of DIY building projects, so I'd like Zoe and Alex to have the skills that were taught to me (and maybe some new tricks as well!). I started drawings in Google Sketchup, as I had done with the climbing wall and hot tub, but quickly gave up. With all the non 90 degree angles, it was too much of a test of my non existent CAD skills. Instead, I sketched it out by hand, went to the Leroy Merlin website, and wrote up a parts list. Leroy Merlin is like the Home Despot, but with marginally more knowledgable staff. Additionally, despite a maddeningly illogical organization of their stock, things are a bit easier to find at Leroy Merlin. Despite the overall expertise level being higher, the willingness to be of assistance is visibly lower. The pine boards are of excellent quality and are milled to high precision. The tools, however, are comically overpriced.
In designing the bed, one important point was to make it disassemblable -- something that I had not done before. I settled upon using carriage bolts and Rastex fittings (like IKEA uses). Doorways can be quite narrow in these old houses, so I wanted to make sure that when we move, the bed won't need to be sawed into pieces. I did all the building in the attic, which now has a thick layer of sawdust on the floor. My back is also a mess from being hunched over to avoid getting smacked in the head by beams and dowels. After around eight days of hard work (roughly 3 full days of work, and then after work hours) and three or four more delightful trips to Leroy Merlin, I finished! Then came the disassembly of the old bed, the disassembly of the new bed, the carrying of the new bed pieces downstairs (everything fit through the door -- woooo!) and the reassembly of the bed downstairs. Here are some pictures of the building process and the result
Zoe, showing me how it's done:





Back face of the bed (interior)

Back face of the bed (exterior)

Joint detail

Right wall exterior

Right wall interior

Front face interior

Front face exterior


Left wall exterior

left wall side

Back, left and right connected by Rastex, and carriage bolts

All four walls on


Floorboards carriage boilted on and roof slats attached with furniture screws (removable)


Interior

SURPRISE (I moved it downstairs and had it waiting for Zoe when she got home)!!

Testing it out

The unfinished stairs. Zoe and I went on a short hike with a sawzall to find some branches to make the rungs out of. I then spent a lot of time sanding them down.


I am quite proud of how well the disassembly and assembly worked. With two people it should only take around 20 minutes for each.

Annot Part 3

Lolo and i did a morning boulder session before packing up and heading back to Grenoble. After getting spit off of it a half a dozen times, I finally made it up the B7 on the isolated boulder nearest the epingle. yes!

Annot part 2

We went to a brand new sector today with lots of nice climbs


Zoe meanwhile made a platform for her stuffed mouse. She seems to periodically pick a new animal, and the mouse is the flavor of the month. She gets very upset when she (frequently) loses track of the souris! After a picnic, we went back to Place Vendome, where everyone climbed pretty well, and I fell off several waaaaaay scary highballs. I just couldn't summon the nerve to top them out for some reason. Then it was back to the farm for beers, petanque and dinner

Annot

We drove down to Annot today, on one of the worst travel days of the year in France (long weekend, and changeover for vacation rentals). We left early-ish, but still got stuck in quite a few mini traffic jams along the way. The first was caused by a car that had driven off the road, and the second was a car vs. motorcycle accident right before the Col de la Croix Haute. Then there was a traffic jam at every little town between Grenoble and Sisteron. Some wag had put up home made signs over the town signs in La Faurie and Aspres-sur-Buech, renaming them temporarily to St. Tropez and Aspres-sur-mer. There was a third town that had been renamed to Frejus, too. Eventually we made it to Annot and after dropping our things off, went to boulder at Requiem for Bloc for a while. There are some excellent problems there, and I'll definitely be going back. The highlight for me was a slopey mantle called "plus de cul". I hadn't been bouldering outside with friends for a while, and had forgotten how fun it can be. It also helps to be in the south of France, with warm summer breezes blowing over you while you relax in a chestnut forest.







After a few hours on the blocs, we headed back to the farm for apertifs (Cerdon, of course!), dinner and Petanque. Somehow I had never played it before, and Chloe, Zoe and I had a blast. Zoe is a little small still to be able to hurl the metal balls very far, but she did well.