French alps: The hills are alive...with the sound of cow bells

Arriving in Lyon, France, by fast train we ran into a major road block - or rather, a 'car leasing block' - as neither of the attendents could speak any english (to be fair, they may have known the word 'hello' if they put their minds to it). This surprised us as all our car arrangements were made in Australia months earlier with a company that specialised in leasing cars to Americans and Australians.

Thankfully the words 'google translator' and me gesturing to their computer helped a lot as we began to find out how to set the car's GPS to english and where to buy toll passes (Oui Monsieur, we really do need the GPS in English...).

Our goal was to arrive by nightfall in a tiny town called 'Entremont' high in the French alps. I had booked a bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere in the hopes of finding a really unique place - and I was not disappointed. However, before getting too far ahead in the story, we drove via the picture book town of Annecy at the foot hills of the alps, by a beautiful lake.

This is Annecy:

Our beautiful bed and breakfast was worth every minute I had spent searching at night after work looking for the perfect place. Just looking out the window in the morning made us feel like we'd already done something worthwhile for the day!

We had great conversations with our kind but barely-able-to-speak-english hosts about picking mushrooms, death by mushrooms, medicinal effects of alpine herbs and where to go nearby.

So we hopped in our car with our cameras at the ready and drove through breath-taking scenery dotted with flower-decked chalets up to Col des Aravis - a high-altitude mountain pass where you could go into farmers' houses and buy unpasturized cheeses, milk and butter. 

[Jahda: I believe it has been used in previous Tour de France races as a major climb. While we were there we saw a number of cyclists arrive at the summit. They had my admiration because it's a massive climb from either side. One guy had two big saddle bags on either side of his bike and was dressed in everyday gear (not 'climbing a monster of a mountain' gear) and looked like he was on his way to the markets!]

Now, somewhere deep inside of me there is a desire to be a alpine-living, cheese-making girl wearing the cute traditional dress, who lives in a chalet and eats cheese made from cows eating flowers and deep green grasses. Yes, it's true. So indulging the fantasy for a moment, I bought a large slice of 'tomme' mountain cheese (so cheap and so good!) which I ate with some small dandelion leaves and petals looking out over green hills, cows with bells, and snow-covered Mont Blanc in the background. (The house with the cheese is in the second pic below!)

Later on we clambered up into the forest to see what mushrooms we could find. On the way we feasted on small wild strawberries and saw huge snails! We couldn't believe the size - no wonder the French eat these plentiful morsels! As you can see, as a tribute to my sister, Janelle - who used to put snails on the tip of her nose for fun and watch them climb up - I spent some time admiring these funny little creatures.

It turns out that the mushrooms we found had this strange habit of turning blue when cooked, so, while they were indeed edible, no one actually eats them. I discreetly noticed that our hosts used other mushrooms in the French feast they cooked us for dinner.... oh well, the process of finding them was fun.

Too soon we left for the swiss alps where we hoped to hear yodeling over the mountains and eat more cheese...

A.