Facing Fears

The day started innocuously enough, a short drive to Fort Roche, we were very eager to see it after we caught a glimpse last visit (before the renovations had finished), however, it was only open from 2PM on weekends and were there on a Wednesday.

We drove to the much larger Fort Barbonnet, which is only open on appointment from the town we started off from that morning, Sospel.

So far we are 0 – 4 trying to get into places of interest.

We found one of those high alpine roads with lots of switch backs just like in a James Bond movie. I was very happy zipping around the u-turn bends with the solid wall of rock on my side and the 1,000 metre vertical drops on the other. It was heaven, until my right arm and ear drum were violently assaulted. Apparently Tricia’s fear of heights is not restricted to elevated glass walkways and cable cars.

The rest of the journey to Le Col De Turini (co-incidentally famous for rally racing), had to be done with Tricia changing the gears as my arm needed hospitalisation.

We had a brief stop at a ridiculously perched church and renegotiated my driving style. The other side of the Col was just as jaw droppingly pretty.

We arrived at a hotel. According to the web it’s a gorgeous hotel. The door was locked. This might explain why they didn’t answer the phone when we tried to make a reservation. We went around the back to find a couple relaxing on the rear balcony with their books. I launched into some pathetic French to discover they were an English couple who did have a reservation but couldn’t find the owner to let them in. They had been waiting 4 hours. We sat and chatted and took it in turn to check the front door for a couple of hours. The hotelier arrived! The Hotel is pictured in the centre behind a yellow thingy in the following photo.

The room is gorgeous, with antiquey looking stuff all over. Tricia tells me it is actually “Ikea meets French Provincial”. The roar of the stream outside was amazing.

We agreed to “half pension”, which means B&B plus dinner.

Then we went to dinner…

Apparently, one does not get a choice from the menu with this system. You are basically at the mercy of whatever the chef wishes to try out on you.

The chef seems to be an avid CSI fan as the huge entrée plate we both got looked like a crime scene photo. There was this thin bloody thing all over the plate and various scattered parts of other animate and inanimate objects strewn over the top.

We looked at one another, laughed, and then ordered a big bottle of cheap champagne.

The next dish was still mooing but the crème broulet offered much needed respite. The champagne helped considerably also.