Lac St. Point

We spent last weekend in Besançon so we decided we needed to explore this weekend.  There is a whole list of places that are within one hour that we want to visit, but we settled on Lac St. Point since we thought it would be too cold soon to appreciate a lake, and also since we were hoping it would be free!

It is a large and gorgeous lake –actually it is the third largest natural lake in all of France.  We did our homework fast, packed a lunch and managed to get out the door by 11:00am. (Hey, that might seem late, but you try doing French and English homework with 3 kids!)

We hit the beach the first chance we got.  Unfortunately the paddleboat rental was closed so we ate our picnic and spent a lovely hour or so simply admiring the water, throwing lots of rocks and getting our feet wet.  It may not be the official end of summer yet, but colder temperatures have hit Besançon.  It gets down in the 50’s at night and rarely goes as high as 70 in the day any longer.  The lake is 2000 feet in elevation higher than Besançon so that made it chillier as well.  The kids were sad they couldn’t go for a swim.  The wind was very strong and the windsurfers were skidding across the 2km wide lake in about 3 minutes – then turning and racing right on back.  We also saw something new – parasail surfing! (featured in the top photo above) Cousins in Utah, take note – this has got to be the coolest thing I ever saw!  This guy basically used a giant kite to pull him across the lake  at incredible speeds – he could even do tricks. If you think an aerial is cool, try something that is pulling you straight up!  The entire time we’ve been in France, we have never seen water skiers or jet skis.  I am not sure if people stopped using them because they are bad for the environment or if they never started using them at all.  Maybe they are outlawed?  Anyway – this parasail surfing looked just as thrilling and fast as any skiing I’ve seen – and no need for a speed boat.  We then drove around the lake some more, discovering another dock area where birds abounded and (after lunch break ended at 2pm) they were still renting out paddleboats! We spent a fun hour paddling around – everyone took turns, even Griffin, pushing those paddles.  André and I took over towards the end to get us back in time – thanks to Zander for the romantic photo!  It was pretty chilly out on the water and I was glad I had grabbed the car blankets before we left.  Of course, all that pedaling and wind and water made everyone a bit worn out – resulting in boys who were sleeping in the back by the time we returned to shore!  There were lots of camping cars in the parking lot in this area – it seems to be quite a popular place to visit.  We are lucky to have it in our own neighborhood – and hope to return in the summer one time to have that swim!

Before heading home, we walked over a small picturesque bridge.  I was amused to see, when I looked down over the edge of the bridge, a “no diving” sign staring up at me.  Most people don’t dive off bridges, do  they?  I’ve never seen this sign on any other bridge I can recall.  I theorize that some nuts must have done it a few times – and maybe gotten hurt.  Also we were really lucky to be able to get within almost touching distance to a giant swan.  They are such magnificent birds!  I took about 20 photos – but I am restraining myself seriously by only posting the top four…

 

And here is Griffin perched on top of the lonely teeter totter, lake behind him, what a cute little guy!

 

So, here it was, only 3:30 or so and we were headed for home.  But, wait, that just can’t be all, can it?  Not  us, no way.  We saw a sign, followed it and ended up at a Miellerie – or a Honey House!

My most loyal readers (thank you for your support) may remember that we have been trying to figure out which type of honey we like.  In France, honey is serious business and there are many, many different varieties.   We had tried a couple so far, and, unfortunately, hated both of them.  Honey here isn’t cheap – each jar runs about  8 Euros- which is a lot to spend if you end up hating the stuff!   We drove up just as a giant busload of senior citizens were leaving the premises.  The grounds were filled (predictably) with beautiful flowers and buzzing bees.   We hung around outside for a few minutes looking at the colorful little bee houses and then walked into the store area.  It was totally  scary to walk in there because the air around the door was alive with bees – I was literally bumping into them as I walked in.  The only advice they had was fermer la bouche (close your mouth).  Um, ok.  I hope that works….

The store was also a factory where they harvested the honey – we got to see the honey machine at work (see video). Turns out that this Miellerie is one of the best in all of France. It has won gold medals for some varieties of its honey for several years in a row in a Parisian-held competition for most awesomest honey.  Lucky day! 

But the best part was they had about 10 different kinds of honey – and little spoons so you could try each kind!  France is such a hyper contradiction in terms of sanitation. Everyone here is freaked out about the possibility of H1N1 ending the world as we know it.  The schools have sent out letters to explain what will happen if the flu hits and, at André’s work, they have even forbidden hand shaking and kissing cheeks until the worst of the flu season ends.  But, here we were, scooping honey up out of a communal pot with our little

spoon (OK, the spoon was disposable, but still one cough onto that honey machine would have contaminated how many hundreds of jars?).   We all shared one spoon though – so germs are definitely shared in our family.  So, it turns out there is quite a difference in taste between types of honeys.  We found out we all LOVE one named Printemps, the first honey the bees make each spring.  It is a creamy honey. I never had creamy honey growing up.  I discovered it in Utah and now am hooked – it is so much less messy!  I also found out that this type of honey is made when you don’t heat up the honey – which is supposed to retain some of the more natural elements (I guess it’s like, raw honey)  We also really liked the clearer varieties of Sapin (bees collecting nectar in the pine trees) and Acacia (collected right after the Acacia stops blooming).   Finally we bought one jar of Montagne.  The hives for this type are put up on top of a mountain and the bees get the nectar from all those great wildflowers (cowslips, perhaps?).  I have to say this honey is complex. It reminded me of a really good old Comté in the way that when you first taste it, it seems good, but then little other notes of flavors sort of come into play, bursting into your mouth. I would call it a gourmet honey.  YUM!  We also bought a couple bars of honey soap.  Um… did I mention this was supposed to be the free outing?  C’est la vie!

After our purchases we spent at least a half an hour being given a private tour of the place by one of the apiculturalists.  He was incredibly patient and kind, answering the seemingly unending string of questions that Callie

and Zander were shooting at him.  They wanted to know where the queen was, whether or not she ever leaves the hive, how long the bees live, why some of the honey comb was dark, how the bees know which kind of honey to make etc… etc…..  It was so impressive to me how well they could ask what they wanted, completely in French.  Such skill is far beyond me!  We tried to take a video of it – but mostly it is just Callie speaking – shocking right?  The man was so nice, he has visited the US before – even to see honey houses.  He told us how, in the US, many honey farmers strip hives completely of all their honeycombs for each harvest, which usually destroys the hive and kills the bees.  They then import new bees to start from scratch.  Here, in France, they always leave back some of the honey when they collect.    Man, I hate America sometimes.  He said he’d never seen such inquisitive children, but I could tell he loved their avid interest in something he is clearly so passionate about.  He even gave us a piece of honeycomb to take back home with us – it is super fragile, has to be kept out of the sun but it smells heavenly!

We headed for home, passing the familiar sight of the Chateau de Joux up on the hill.  This castle always  holds a special place in my heart because it was the first one we ever visited – right around this time last year!  I love the way it just sits up on top of the hill – looking down over the phone poles and service stations. Its builders never could have imagined that!

Rubber Ducky, you’re the one!

             Our first weekend after school started, there was to be a rubber ducky race down the Doubs.  Of course, we couldn’t miss it!  We read online that one could not use artificial propulsion on their ducks – we figured that meant no motors…. so we got excited about the other things we could do.  It was kind of a crazy morning since we were trying to do French and American homework and go to the store for final school supplies.

The French requirements are absolutely insane when it comes to school supplies.  They have to have a specific kind of notebook, with a specific type of cover, even the color is specified.  Earlier in the week, I went to three stores searching for an orange cover for one of Callie’s small notebooks (cahiers).   I also unwittingly covered Callie’s textbook with an old paper bag.  We even spent some special time decorating it with water colors and she almost got laughed out of the class, poor thing!  The amount of stuff they need is ridiculous.  Each of them has (among other things) highlighters, paints, markers, colored pencils, glue sticks, pencils, erasers, folders, notebooks, gym sneakers, scissors, pencil sharpeners, tissue boxes, photos of their heads and multiple little zipper bags to hold all the paraphernalia.  I spent over 200 Euros on school supplies (and I didn’t buy any new backpacks) – that’s worth a weekend in the Alps, folks!

But, back to the ducks.  We were running a bit behind schedule and had to race to soup up our duckies and place them on the line with all the other contestants.  Each duck cost 2 Euros with the proceeds going to benefit UNICEF.  We each had our own theories on the best way to get the duck down the river.  Griffin and I were on the same team, we were going for a sticker-covered duck armed with Styrofoam egg pontoons and a sail.  Zander was on his own and decided on a platform plus sail design.  Callie  and Daddie went the stealth route – putting some rocks on a sail-like plastic bag.  Their theory was the weight of the rocks would drag the bag under the water – but not down to the bottom of the river – oh no!  The weight would sink the bag just enough to then be caught by the faster flowing current that runs under the surface of the Doubs.  It was soon readily apparent that our ducks were  freaks, not fitting in with the other  plasticine contestants, but we didn’t care – they were fun to make! Most people didn’t do anything at all though there were a few with cool paintings or feathers on them.  We figured it must be because we were crazy Americans, plus we were psyched since we thought they might actually have a chance to win!  There were soooo many people at this thing.  The press afterwards http://abcnatation.com/natation/franche-comte/25/anb/ claimed 1500 ducks were launched and there were over 1000 spectators.  I have no idea if that is true since my estimation skills are poor but it was very crowded.

We found a spot at the edge of the Doubs to watch the start of the race.   There were 3 kayakers and a guy in a wet suit all helping to pull it off – they carefully corralled all the ducks into the starting gate.  This took about half an hour since they were trying to keep them all contained. Of course, we were anxiously watching for our special duckies.  As more time passed, I realized ours were missing.  I saw some ducks with balloons on them but not our special sail ducks.  I went to the organizer and asked and he said that it wasn’t fair to have a sail – because it might make us win!  Well, isn’t that the point?  I thought a sail would be a natural propulsion – who knew they considered pontoons artificial?  So, it seems they ripped off our extras and tossed in the ducks only.  Well, I then argued (see, I must be getting better at French) why do you allow balloons to be attached?   Isn’t that a sail too?? It’s not fair!  The organizer shrugged and walked away – bastard!  I delivered the sad news and the kids – showing again their resilience, rolled with it. 

And, they were off – it was soon apparent that the balloon duckies were kicking some duckie butt in the race and had a major unfair advantage.  I was comforted to see that, after a few minutes, the kayakers popped the balloons and tossed those babies back into the main pack.  It was a very, very, slow race – the Doubs is no river wild, but it was fun to just stroll along with the crowd, following the pack down the river. I was pretty sad to see no one was encouraging their duck along.  I am always looking for venues in which to scream excitedly, but this crowd was pretty subdued.  I did try yelling a few: ‘Allez, Allez, les canards!’ but no one picked up on it.  Lame-o’s!  As we strolled along, it became very  clear that this race was not to be even remotely fair.  The boaters were totally focused on keeping the pack within the  designated zone (using swim lane markers) and often pushed the duckies, tossed around escapees and pushed stragglers to the front.  It was all in good fun, and for charity so I had to try to swallow my competitive urges.  The slow pace gave us time to stop and watch the crazies at the skate park as well as wonder at the wild basil growing along the river bank (I never knew basil grew wild!)  When we joined the crowds at the finish we were quite amused since the ducks seemed to want to avoid it entirely.  Perhaps they too felt all the cheating would cheapen any supposed victory?  The real problem was that the line did not stretch over the entire width of the water and the current was pushing the ducks right around it.  After the winners were announced (needless to say, we weren’t among them) we got to watch the amusing sight of the floating staff attempting to dock the ducks.  There were some gaps in their bouyant rope and the little quackers just kept on escaping though them and bobbing on towards the ocean.  Run free ducks!!!!

 

 

I just have to close this blog with that Sesame Street classic song. If you don’t know it – I truly pity you. I grew up on Sesame Street and totally remember watching this very clip on TV as a kid.  Man, I love you tube! 

Dole

Well, it was another weekend in August and, of course, adventure beckoned.

We had decided, long ago, that we would return to Tassenier this weekend to go to the advertised fossil show we had heard about during our last visit.  Consulting my map, I realized that we could easily drive through Dole on the way.  Lots of times, as we travel, we stop in towns simply because, well, I’ve heard of them. I had heard of Dole, it’s close by and so we decided it was a perfect opportunity for a visit.

Turns out that Dole is actually a beautiful little city.  It is also situated along the Doubs and was actually the capital of the Franche-Comté region between 1332 and 1674 when it moved over to our own home town of Besancon.  We wandered through  the  town, finding the birthplace of Louis Pasteur. Pasteur was the son of a tanner, and we got to take a peek at an old fashioned tannery, which was interesting.  He is best known for pasteurization (of course) and the invention of the rabies vaccine.  After that stop we went wandering over to walk along the Rhine-Rhone canal.  The town is gorgeous and the canal is planted with so many beautiful flowers.  I loved looking at the red roofs of the town and the cathedral towering over the river.  Dole has great old medieval architecture and cobbled streets.  I loved this fountain next to the church.

 

We headed up the hill to the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame de Dole.   It was completed in the 1600’s, and as always, we enjoyed wandering around through it.  I loved the paintings on the ceilings and the lovely organ.  The kids were more interested in this giant grate in the floor.   They had been in other catacombs and  wondered what was going on down there.  Zander theorized it was a jail cell, but Callie said that couldn’t be true in a church…. Hmmm…. one of life’s  unsolvable mysteries, I guess. 

 

After the church we looked around for a place to eat and passed a bar called the cave of hell.  It turns out that some soldiers had holed up in their during the time when Louis the 11th had come to conquer the town.  Louis’ forces fought for many days but could not dislodge the tenacious local soldiers –hence this locale is known as la cave d’enfer.  We had a lovely lunch at a local restaurant.  Here you can see Griffin waiting patiently for his food to arrive (steak hache with fries is his usual order) – notice the cars in his glass!   I had the best salad I’ve ever had – bar none.  We wandered back to the car and then headed for the fossil show.  We didn’t find anything very special to buy but I did get a large piece of amethyst for only a few Euros and Zander got a great geode.  We drove a different way (as usual) to head back to our next stop and I made André pull over so I could take a photo of these immense dahlia’s – that is my hand being dwarfed by one of them – plus there was a cow crossing sign – definitely stop worthy! We ended our day with a picnic at the  river.  That’s right, we had to bring Daddie back to check out the  Loue.  We skipped the naked area and went straight to the family section.  It was great fun to play in the water together.  Made it home by around 8pm and had a restful Sunday.  Check Dole off the list!