Peep show

When you have seen the highest mountains and paddled in the clearest seas, drank from medieval fountains and ate two tonnes of cheese, travel seems to become less and less about the places and more about the people who you share them with. With ten days in Spain you could pack in a lot of bays and villages and arid ranges. Or instead there can be siestas, swims and holiday waters with very special friends. I was very happy with the latter option... a few days calm and quiet for siesta catch up, followed by a week with Ollie, Jenn and their two young nippers, Hayden and Max.

So, I don’t really have any scenic photos to show you from Spain, as days were happily filled with splashes in the pool, natters with neighbours, multiple visitations of Consum for holiday water ingredients, and the odd trip to the seafront at Guardamar. More mundane was the casa cleaning and bazza bothering battery charging and replacement; but the real highlight for me were simple suppers out on the veranda, a holiday water beside me and two friends just as close.

Temperatures were halved on the return to England, and a final few days to spend with family down in the home town that is Plymouth. Plymouth is looking a bit jaded, struggling on the periphery of England, dependent on money the Government doesn’t have, and with a football team fading into obscurity. But I still love it very much...I think the familiarity and sense of home that still comes from being somewhere you grew up always comes to the fore.

Not that Plymouth was all doom and gloom – there was razzmatazz aplenty on the Hoe for the America’s Cup, and the sun was out some of the time. There was also proximity to mammoth cream teas on Dartmoor, and a roast dinner, and two nieces to alternatively play with and escape from. There was a roast dinner and another source of crumbly fudge discovered, although the pasties could have been better – I have to say I’ve been a bit down on the pasties on this trip, though it has been lacking a Pengenna moment.

But all in all I give Plymouth the thumbs up, which is handy. Yes, in the realm of travel disasters a lanced thumb is way down there, but it’s my own little incident, and one which required an over-dramatic dressing by the wonderful NHS nurses...

But that’s not the end of the story, as I have a little day trip to tell you about and – ahoy there – some scenic photos of this beautiful county in southwest England. This was pre-thumb lancing and you have no idea how painful taking photos were with the swollen pus-filled lump on my thumb. Anyway, let’s not leave you with that image but these images, from the South Hams area and across to the very English Riviera. It’s all part of what turned out to be a very popular ‘round robin’ trip from Totnes down the River Dart to Dartmouth, across to Kingswear for a steam train ride to Paignton, and then back to Totnes via the wonders of an open top double decker bus. If you want to capture the essence of Devon in one day, this would just about fit the bill.

I like Totnes a lot and, though I should probably wait until retirement, I could see myself happily living there. It’s only half an hour by train from Plymouth but nestled in the rolling green hills that yield so much fresh, local, yummy food and an above average quota of cake shops. The Dart here is suitably picturesque, broad and lazy and ideal for a cruise. At least, hundreds and hundreds of pensioners thought so, as they crawled laboriously onto the surprisingly spacious ferry.

It was an idyllic blue sky day for the meander down to Dartmouth, an impressive Devon town resplendent with its harbour and parks and cobblestones. With a well-to-do air there are plenty of expensive eateries to match, but there is also fish and chips and pasties and fudge, staples of the Devon day, and all off the diet itinerary for Mum. So she had salad while I wolfed down some deep fried battered cod and picked up some fudge to nibble on over the next few days.

We (well, I should say I) didn’t exactly walk it off – more a meander around town and along the river for a little while, before crossing that very river to Kingswear and onto the steam train towards Paignton.

I don’t get over-enthused about steam trains and engines and things in the same way many others do. Perhaps it’s too much Thomas the Tank Engine, or the acceptance that perhaps rail travel wasn’t really as comfortable as people like to remember it. But it was nice to get a seat and hear the steam try to drag us up the hill from Kingswear, through dripping green woodland and over to the red sands and cliffs of the English Riviera.

Such was the rhythm of the day there wasn’t much time to explore in Paignton, or to rediscover more youthful days like waiting for the train to pass at the level crossing, visiting the pier, and popping up to Nan’s old place up the hill. I do remember the drive from Plymouth to Paignton and back, and the crazy lanes to navigate. Perhaps because I was so used to them they didn’t seem so untoward back then, but now, the pure thought of trying to squeeze an open-topped double decker through the giant hedgerows and then downhill to Totnes seemed a bit ambitious. But we made it, and it wasn’t even too cold or breezy up top, though I did duck once or twice from marauding brambles.

Thus the round robin was done, much like the European travels, starting and finishing as they did in Devon. Despite having what seemed like record-breaking time to indulge, it felt like it went quicker than ever and there was so much I didn’t get to do. Like a trip for a Pengenna pasty for instance, though I probably made up for that in the cheese department. The signs were right to go though as, for once, Devon was gloomy and drizzly and cold as I left on the train to London and beyond. Like many before me, departing Plymouth – next stop the Americas and a return to the new world.

Advance to France with pants and no chance of nutritional balance

My travels regularly include intercontinental transportation of various substances, all of which are entirely legal despite probably being as harmful to health as weapons grade plutonium. There is pork pie and clotted cream for the arteries, washed down with bags of crisps and nuggets of sugary fudge. There are noxious items for washing. More obscure are children’s pants and a sleep sack, all of which were offloaded in France for Al, Vero and Guillaume. While bag space can be freed up and subsequently replenished, the same cannot be said for my body, which takes on more and more and more without as dramatic a reduction, gradually expanding like an oversized suitcase until it can squeeze no more in.

That’s probably left you with not such a nice image, so let’s show you something far more agreeable, like some of the cake and cheese related products pumped into my system as I explored and ate my way through a little corner of France and Switzerland.

Of course the cuisine is just one part (albeit a substantial part) that makes this place one of the more pleasing little corners of the world. It is the perfect accompaniment to soaring Alpine peaks and chocolate box valleys, shuttered facades and sparkling lakes. Thus you can have a very, very good day out with bread and cheese and come back home and stuff your face with some more. And from whence comes the term Ç’est la vie...

You can even get decent world renowned spring water to wash it all down should you wish, courtesy of Evian, where we headed on the first Saturday. As a spa town it had the expected genteel air one would expect of such a place – the lakeside promenade on Leman, the grand baths and casino, and the oh-so-continental high street with its higgledy-piggledy narrowness and plethora of window boxes. Which makes the musical fountains all the more out-of-place, what with their bizarre C-list rock-jazz-operetta playlist and dodgy synchronisation.

The dramatic crescendo of this region is of course the Alps, from which pure spring waters trickle and rock-jazz-operetta blares out of Audi convertibles. They are great roads to travel on, dodgy music or not, and of course – if you enjoy pain – cycle on. The peaks and valleys and forests and clusters of chalets and mountain towns get you singing tunes from the Sound of Music or Heidi, which makes at least a welcome change from Thomas the Tank Engine, Night Garden and / or Pingu pounding constantly through your head. On a flawlessly sparkling Sunday the hills were well and truly alive, with the sound of picnics, carousels and bouncy castles around Le Grand-Bornand.

If that all sounds a little cheesy then brace yourself, for today as the cuckoo clock chimes, we take an army knife to a block of cheese, catch a mountain train, and follow it up with a dose of chocolate all in a suspiciously neutral kind of way. Is Switzerland some kind of paradise – I mean such breathtaking and manicured scenery side by side, excellence in two essential foodstuffs, and the freedom to abrogate any kind of responsibility by not taking sides in anything important whatsoever. As a nature loving, food indulging, indecisive Libran, it seems like the perfect place.

This is captured in the town of Gruyeres, in which everything is so deliciously, wonderfully cheesy and that includes not only the cheese. Perched atop a small hillock in the midst of bigger, rising foothills, the town offers all the flowerboxes and fountains, shutters and turrets you could ask for. Once you’ve had your fill of that you can have your fill of the other – for us it was fondue using of course some of the cheese in which the town takes its name (or is it vice versa?!)

Taking a passionate interest in food sourcing, Al and I decided to visit the local Gruyere factory, where quaint little notions of Swiss maids hand-milking cows and mountain men churning away to hand craft each individual wheel of goodness were quickly and obviously dispelled. Some cow told us about all the different things she ate, while some ingenuous robotic devices suggested the men milling about in white coats were primarily there for decoration.

The real question to address was how much cheese do you need to eat to weigh down a mountain railway so that it cannot ascend at stupendous angles and heights? Quite a lot I would say, since even Al and I could have no effect on the little carriage taking us from Moleson up to Plan-Francey. It was purely about the ride, which resembled more a rollercoaster down a mountain than the 7:47 from Surbiton to London Waterloo. And while a bit of cloud shrouded the tops, there was a lot of neutral ground to see.

Clearly then we needed to eat more, and if you can’t stomach any more cheese, then how about some chocolate? Not just any old chocolate, but apparently the oldest most traditional Swiss chocolate, the supposed saviours of chocolate from the French aristocracy about 200 years ago – Mr Caillers and friends. It was I suppose too much to hope for something resembling Charlie and the Chocolate factory but it was ten of Allan’s Swiss Francs well spent on a factory tour, and we could pass for a couple of Oompah Loompahs at least. The history of chocolate was there before us, followed by the sight of endless chocolate lines oozing out of machines to be processed, wrapped and packed, and eaten by me. Somebody please drag this man away from the chocolate degustation.

With such Swiss excess something had to give and it was exercise. It’s not so tough when you are faced with an Alp on one of those staggeringly clear deep blue days, where cowbells echo from valleys afar and mountains encircle the landscape. Our little climb was breathtaking in many ways, though a far lot easier than climbing the Col de la Ramaz in a bike, some of whom we passed on our way to Praz de Lys.

I think with our ascent of something like 400 metres it was quite justified to have a spot of lunch atop a peak as reward, providing a chance to once again re-engage with the world of local saucisson, cheese and bread. And while there wasn’t quite an ideal siesta spot among Alpine meadows, there was a perfectly acceptable hostelry to provide a cold beer alongside the Marmots. The hills are alive with the sound of them.

The sporty activity continued apace over the next few days, though I won’t kid you that it was impressively energetic; neither was there any great reduction in saturated fat intake along the way. The tiring rounds of par 3 golf were balanced out with Yvoire ice cream...a rather inspired idea by my brother and a very, very chilled moment to sit in the lakeside sun and be contentedly self-satisfied.

Then there was that majestic Olympic sport involving endless walking round a DIY store looking for a light bulb and keeping a two year old happy. We persevered, and even had energy for an afternoon cycle ride all the way to Switzerland, which is not as impressive as it sounds. I think however I had brake friction equating to a category 2 climb, or I like to think so anyway – it makes me feel less pathetic about my inability on two wheels. To be sure, the bike was pretty much a write off after an hour with me, which either says a lot about my diet or the quality of the bike, or both.

The next day it was a return to the mountain stages, and a short but steep walk with Al and Guillaume. For the first time in quite some time, the sun was only sparingly glowing, and the odd spot of drizzle was in the air. The legs could feel it on the way up following the previous day’s cycling endeavours, but a rewarding vista was once more the, well, reward. And it was great to see Guillaume making an early start on Alpine peak-bagging, as well as wearing a top I had bought him in Target.

Those efforts must have been a little draining on him as we followed lunch back at home with a jaunt into Geneva, via car, bus, another bus, and ferry. Here, the sun was back again and returning in warmth and strength, the lake sparkling and parks a-buzzing. We never did get to see some of the animals in the botanical gardens, apart from chasing a peacock and possibly some frogs, but it was nice and shady for a spot of playground playing, shady shade dwelling, and watery watering. Oh, and since I haven’t mentioned food since at least lunchtime, we had tartiflette for dinner, leaving a residual linger in the air for a night of cheese filled dreams involving cows and mountains.

I’m not so sure if we watched three hours of Thomas the Tank Engine that night but I know the next day – my last day – was spent marvelling at the marvellousness of the Swiss rail system. Okay, so it was railways in miniature but it was just so impressive and cute and on time like clockwork. It helps that it was in a magnificent Swiss setting, at the end of Lake Geneva where the mountains circle closer into the shore and the Rhone squeezes its way into the lake. And it also helps having the excuse of a train obsessed two year old to be able to ride on several different engines, through screaming tunnels and over impressive suspension bridges. I don’t know if it makes up for hours and hours of Thomas the Tank Engine, but it goes a long way.

And so, like the proverbial steam train chuffing into Tidmouth sheds after a day doing stupid things and engaging in sardonic mutterings with other engines, the time in France, and Switzerland, was coming to a close. A deluge hit, of rain and cheese and final cakes, and then all was dark. It was still dark when I took a ride on a big jet plane, but there was a big gleaming sun emerging on the horizon. It reminded me of a wheel of gruyere, and with that I dozed fitfully to Spain.