Free Day

On Wednesday Therese and I are having to move from the Franciscan convent to a church in the neighboring village of St. Blaise, where CVM will host all the rest of the kids when they arrive. I guess Therese is just used to doing things herself, so despite my profuse offers to help, she let me have a "day off" to visit the fortress at Mont Dauphin. So I got up early today and hopped the train. It was a half-hour hike up to the fort, of which all I could see was a wall at the top of a cliff; I couldn't find the route at first, so I decided to take a cow path leading in the direction of the wall, which then intersected with the correct road.

This is how much of an architectural genius the Marquis de Vauban was: he designed a fortress so that not only would the enemy never be able to take it, they wouldn't even be able to find it. Hiking up the cliff I saw the wall, but if you approach from the other direction over the fields, it is completely invisible. And it's not just a fortress, it's a very heavily fortified town. Missed the guided tour, which was a shame because most of the buildings and ramparts are only visitable with a tour.

There's a music festival tonight in Briançon, so I'll probably meet Therese for dinner and then we'll go to that separately, but right now, since I'm in an Internet cafe with computers with a profuse array of video games, I think I'll play some Half-Life.