in the Savoie, at last

Many, many years ago, when I was young and travelling but not always free to travel exactly where and when I wanted, I spent a few summer weeks working in Switzerland. 

I partly enjoyed it, partly felt insecure and stuck in a boring job. I dreamed of running away. Getting on a train, taking off for the mountains I saw from my window. I longed to explore, to go and see what's behind that mountain ridge, to wander in complete freedom to the ends of the earth.

The mountains I saw from my window were the Alps of Savoie, white and wild and mysterious, a wilderness in the heart of Europe. During thunderstorms you could hear them boom, like the galaxy's largest drum being struck. It reverbated in me.

Now I'm in Savoie at last. Not quite in the wilderness of those highest summits. But close enough. There are immense mountains and clear, blue lakes and a chill in the evening air.

We shiver with cold as we get out of the car. After two weeks in summer-hot France, it's a delicious feeling. The car engine ticks in exhaustion after a long trek on steep roads with hairpin turns. The cheap hotel, clearly meant for skiers, is quiet in off-season and smells of pine wood and adventures. As we splash happily in the outdoor pool, there is a sound of sonorous bells. A herd of cows is returning home from their grazing in mountain meadows. 

Wrapped in scarves we spend a long, happy evening in the restaurant around the blue flame of a fondue pot, sharing Savoyard wine and giggles. The food is hot and heavy, the comfort food of a chilly mountain night.

bad night, big city

When we arrive in one of France's largest cities, we get stuck in a loop - in heavy traffic - as the navigator stubbornly insists on a route that is temporarily closed. Night is falling over hot, narrow streets in a seemingly endless city filled with cars and exhaust fumes.

Irritated, exhausted and uncomfortable, the way only an introvert gets when she needs a private space to withdraw to, I arrive at our destination. A tiny flat with no air-condition and windows that can't be kept open because robbers would climb in straight from the street and kill us in our sleep. Somebody, who knew very well how unbearably hot this flat is, decided that I would spend the night here. During France's hottest summer.

First, I need to make awkward conversation with the half-strangers we will share the flat with. I'm hungry, but too warm and exhausted to find food. Getting into bed I have the feeling of my body dissolving into liquid, into salt water and blood leaking away to leave me a dry, dead husk. The night is the hottest I've ever experienced, unmatched even in tropical countries. It nearly brings me to tears of desperation. I'm trapped and dissolving in Lyon. 

Outside are the sounds of a large city - cars speed by, people shout. As my breathing and heart-rate slow down, my body temperature goes down a little too. Drinking water helps. So I sleep, exhausted.

The next day, we taste coussins of Lyon and explore pretty streets and awesome cathedrals and exciting Roman ruins. Lyon has two rivers and the biggest city square I've ever seen. Under the right circumstances, it could probably be a nice place to live. But I'm happy to leave.

ascending into the hall of the mountain princes

We're in the south of France, following our loosely planned travel route from Pau towards Carcassonne. The heat is shimmering over withering sunflowers and vinyards. The mountains of the Pyrenees follow us like hunking, hazy clouds on the horizon to our right. 

An idea is forming in my mind.

"I know the plan is to explore France. But ... how about a little detour to Andorra?"

It takes a few seconds for K to understand what I mean. Andorra, the independent and mysterious little principality hidden in the mountains between France and Spain, where nobody we know has ever been? In those few seconds, she already warms to the idea.

I'm a little doubtful myself. I'm nervous about driving in mountains and this is more than a little detour. Heights of 2000 meters, an unknown country. Still, it can be done in a day. And it's something very different - we have to google even the basic facts about Andorra. The microstate was founded by Charlemagne, officially became a democracy as late as 1993 and is ruled by two co-princes: a Spanish bishop and the President of France.

So the next day we set off. It's our first sunless day in France. Clouds hang low and grey as we follow the winding road towards the border, the only real road from France to Andorra. Higher and higher we go, past vast caves we wish we had time to stop and see. Hairpin turn after hairpin turn after hairpin turn. There is some traffic - the French and the Spanish apparently like to go shopping in Andorra because the prices on things like fuel and alcohol is lower.

Suddenly we're above the clouds. Around us lie a sunlit vista of treeless mountains. France is behind us, beneath a lid of clouds. We pass a border station without stopping.

The first thing greeting us is a shopping centre. A shopping village really, and ski resort, formed out of modern, colourful building blocks and followed by a long line of petrol stations. The uneven French road is suddenly a smooth, tidy highway. It continues higher, through a mountain pass. We pass a herd of freely grazing cows with cowbells on, then a herd of horses with similiar bells strung around their necks. We marvel at the tenacity of many cyclists doing high-altitude training on the steep road.

There are villages but they are nothing like the villages of France, where even the newer houses look old and cute. These are ski resorts with blocky chalets lined up on the slopes. Nothing looks old here, except the mountains surrounding us.

Andorra la Vella, the highest capital in Europe, hunkers down in a valley and the summer heat is oppressive. Most of the town seems to consist of one long shopping street filled with the most popular clothes stores. The language is Catalan but most of the people are French and Spanish visitors. Slightly dazed from the exciting journey and not a little jubilant, we find a table outside a restaurant, sit down and order goat's cheese salad and white wine. 

"We made it! We're in Andorra, of all the weird places on earth!" 

For me, the most poignant contrast is that I'm sitting in front of a shop selling expensive Karl Lagerfeld clothes. I'm wearing an old, faded t-shirt that I usually only wear at my cottage in the Finnish forests, the other end of the world (because it's too worn-out to be used in public). I packed it for the trip only in desperation because I simply did not have enough clothes suitable for the hottest summer in a century. I'm not ashamed to be seen wearing it here, though. It's a symbol - I came from the remote wilderness of the North all the way to the Principality of Andorra.

After lunch, we look around (not a lot to see except shops unless you count the beautiful mountains around us) and buy a lot of small items in different shops, paying cash in the hopes of receiving two-euro coins as change. Andorra is not a member of the EU but still issues its own euro coins, which are pretty rare. I finally find one of them among the French and German euro coins littering my purse. The only thing left to do is to enjoy an icecream, fill up our car with cheap fuel and go back to France - and we find a toll tunnel that makes the return trip surprisingly quick and easy.

I descend from the mountains back into beautiful France with some unnecessary items: a cheap linen top, a fridge magnet, a stick of lime-flavoured lip balm and, weirdly, a hash brownie.

the Atlantic and a new song

You may not think you'll miss the sea when you have fascinating mountains, historical river valleys, fields full of sunflowers and old castles to look at all day long.

But if you're born and raised by the seaside, reaching the coast feels like coming home. The light, the salty breeze, the seagulls, the smell of seaweed. It's easy to breathe. Your eyes find the blue horizon, your skin suddenly longs to be immersed in salt water.

You just have to find a beach, no matter how rocky. Walk barefoot into the outgoing tide. Breathe in the eternity of the open ocean. Look for the most beautiful smooth pebble. 

If it's La Rochelle, you also have to order mussles with white wine on the pier, browse creative shops and randomly walk into a church where an organist plays a song you've never heard before and instantly love.

da Vinci, Joan of Arc and the wonderful K

The Loire valley. Too many castles and palaces to count. A royal air. The murky, slow and sensous Loire river. A muggy heat that peaks at 43 degrees Celsius.

I have found the perfect travel partner in K. Like me, she enters a place of ancient history, sighs with happiness and settles down to read the basic information provided. She then takes all the time she needs to explore every nook and cranny, study the facts in the brochure or "histopad", admire the furniture and the views from the windows, plod up and down steep stairs to towers and dungeons. We have all the time in the world. We are equally awed by standing at Leonardo da Vinci's grave and being in the room where Joan of Arc met the future king of France.

K also understands the importance of putting on mascara in the mornings, in order to be ready to conquer the world, and the pleasure in ordering a glass of wine or a Ricard with the chèvre salad for lunch. 

And she drives the car.

My role in our holiday is to speak French and translate menus, look for cute bed & breakfasts and drink Côtes du Rhône out of the three-liter box hidden somewhere in the car. And admire the views, guess the song playing on the car radio and dream up wonderful places to visit.

The highlight of our days by the Loire: not the royal ramparts of Blois or Amboise, or the free rosé provided by one charming bed & breakfast hostess, or the views from Château de Chinon - but the coolness of the murky waters of the  mysterious Loire on one golden evening when we take off our sandals and wade in the shallows.

the Jura surprise

Sometime last winter, I was browsing through Google maps and happened upon the Jura Mountains, for no obvious reason except that I love mountains and Central Europe. I dove into Street View and followed a few mountain roads, sighing in pandemic isolation over views I would probably never see in real life.

This summer, I found myself in the passenger seat of a car at the foot of these mountains, near the French/Swiss border. The driver programmed the navigator with our destination - the Loire Valley in the middle of France. I peered at the suggested route, winding back and forth across the navigator screen. "Looks like it's taking us across the mountains." I'm a little nervous about driving in mountains. I  don't have much experience - Finland is pretty flat.

So we drove across the Juras. It was beautiful - steep, wooded slopes, valleys with cute villages. Good roads. A very surprising hilltop fortification (Forte l'Écluse) looming over the road. As surprising as my dream coming true - diving into a map and surfacing in France.

dragons and kings and dormant volcanoes

Three thousand three hundred kilometers, seven castles, four mountain ranges, three countries, two freedom-loving ladies, one car.

Happiness is getting into a car and driving through France (and small bits of Switzerland and Andorra) without any goal, just to see where you end up. 

We ended up in a heatwave, in the murky waters of the Loire, in the airy throne rooms of ancient kings, in the vicinity of dormant volcanoes, in a wild garden party with magnum bottles of wine, above the clouds on hairpin roads, in a concert with instruments we'd never heard of, in a cave with a chained dragon, under Roman triumphal arches, in medieval villages with loud cicadas and silent bats, in a hot city flat with no air-conditioning, at tables with strange and wonderful dishes, in the middle of our wildest dreams of freedom.

hot, hotter, holiday

The dream trip to France is drawing close and I'm a nervous wreck.

In the news from France right now: airport chaos, horrible heatwave and the pandemic running rampant again. And I hate packing and am afraid of flying and it will cost me half my savings.

And I'm going to France. Medieval castles, wine, cute villages, history. I am so lucky. Even if I have to view it from the window of my air-conditioned, covid-safe car.

planning a medieval route

Planning a medieval route through Poitou, Périgord, Languedoc ... Have lovelier words ever been written? 

France is my dream country. It has all the history, all the castles, all the wine. It's almost unfair.

the Chosen

Best TV series this year (or maybe for many years): The Chosen. 

Not only is it fascinating. I can almost feel it doing something good inside me.

wildlife, various approaches

One week of vacation between the sea and the forest. Mostly alone with my books and the laptop and the wildlife.

I'm tip-toeing around nesting sandpipers, chasing away swans, swearing at mosquitoes, carrying spiders out of my bedroom, laughing at blackbirds because of their haughty indifference when our paths cross.

no stepping on the ants

I was out walking with my mother, one of the first really warm days of spring. Our walk progressed at glacial speed, because my mother is old and frail. 

Walking extremely slowly gives you a new perspective on things, especially if you're not talking or listening to music. Your mind goes into a dazed slow-motion mode. It was so slow that I started to notice the ants on the path. So slow that I actually started to focus on not stepping on the individual ants on the path. 

That's really slow, in case you're wondering.

"There are ants here," my mother commented after a long, comfortable silence.

And I knew she was trying to avoid stepping on them too. That's the kind of person my mother is - gentle and kind to people and animals, even ants. When I was little, if we found a spider or wasp inside the house, we never killed it - we caught it and carried it out into the garden. Except if the temperature outside was freezing. In that case, the spider was lovingly deposited in the garage where it had a fair chance of surviving.

I'm a bit scared of spiders and wasps but I still can't kill one without literally losing sleep over it.

Animals stir up the tenderness in me more than humans do, generally speaking. That's why, when I had slowed down enough to notice the ants on that path, my subconscious mind registered them almost as individual souls that would suffer if I stepped on them.

At times I have felt vaguely ashamed of such sensitivity. Adult life in a busy world has taught me to stride along with speed and efficiency, not caring how many ants I crush under my shoes. I still carry spiders out into the garden, sighing with relief when they are far away from me, and I'm used to being ridiculed for it.

But then I watch strangers on YouTube rescuing trapped birds, or see my sister carefully carry a ladybird to safety, or realise that my mother is just as aware of the ants under her feet as I am. 

And then I remember that tender hearts will inherit the earth.

93 percent stardust

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins,

carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains.

93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames,

we are all just stars that have people names.

(Nikita Gill)

lay me down on a bed of sheepskins

My new (second-hand) sofa is covered in sheepskins and very alluring.

It has been the scene of this year's spring and has hosted tears, covid, work, cold sunshine, tons of books, repetitive strain injury, The Chosen (this spring's favourite TV show), a birthday in semi-isolation. 

This spring, I have been spending money on: sofa, sheepskins, books, ergonomic keyboard, desperately needed new car tires, not so desperately needed bottle of green perfume, headphones, i.e. everything and too much.

On my semi-isolated, almost-recovered-from-covid birthday, I danced to Handel's hallelujah chorus, ate pizza with blackcurrant beer and wandered along the seafront with a friend, stopping to eat chocolate biscuits in the evening sun.

four days of melting ice

In the middle of juggling jobs, sorting out my car, sorting out a broken laptop, taking care of a needy mother, keeping myself fit, not neglecting friends, soothing my creative thirst, trying not to miss the best of springtime, planning three birthday parties and angsting over my life generally not going anywhere, I woke up one morning with a sore throat.

So I cancelled some of my work, cancelled parties, put everything else on hold, drew the curtains and holed up in a quiet flat. Realised I was exhausted, and not just from what may or may not be covid-19.

Realised that hiding in the dark, burrowing into blankets and sheepskins on the sofa with a book, knowing I won't have to see another person or make another decision for at least four days ... was desperately needed.

Four days, leading up to a birthday more than halfway through life, an unremarkable birthday to some but weirdly significant to me. What will I do with the rest of my life? I watch the birds, note that cranes and wagtails have returned. The ice is melting outside. I think of nothing in particular.

spiritual experiences of the traditional kind

I sometimes feel God by my side as I look at a starry sky, walk through a summer forest or hear a particular song just when I'm in need of comfort. 

But sometimes I have spiritual experiences of the traditional kind. Like kneeling at the high altar of a cathedral, crying.

behind a long border

The iodine tablets are sold out all over town. I feel a little embarrassed to be asking about them at the pharmacy but I don't object when one of them puts me on a waiting list - as number 35. I remember being very young and hearing about the fallout from Chernobyl drifting towards Finland. The danger is now real again.

My country shares a very long border with a suddenly very unpredictable neighbour. My father, whose father fought a war, used to be very suspicious towards our neighbour. I used to scoff. Now I understand. But my suspicions and fears are different than his. I fear radioactive fallout, cyber attacks, power cuts, being isolated and unable to get information. 

Like so many others here, I take out some cash, fill up my car with petrol, stock up my kitchen cupboards, buy battery chargers and battery-operated radios.

I feel a bit embarrassed about this too. Finland is in no danger - or are we? Nobody really knows, these days.

The armed forces are conducting a major practical exercise in town this week. It's been planned for a long time, has nothing to do with the new war in Europe. But when you watch news footage of that war, and then look up to see an army helicopter in the sky and armed soldiers in the street - something you never see around here - it's unsettling.

In this safe little country, suddenly we are nervous.

walking on broken glass

I walked on a path of crystal shards through the forest, with a warm sun in my face, and sang "feels just like I'm walking on broken glass". 

These are the days of that particular February phenomenon. The temperature is still around zero but the air can hit you with shocking mildness when you leave the house, making you reel for a moment as if you had just walked into the loveliest of June mornings. The sun is warm, birds are tuning up their first song of the year. 

But everything is still frozen. So you can walk through swampy forests, on rivers, on the sea itself. These are the days of exploring unreachable woods, seeing the city from the sea, walking out to deserted islands ...

I bring my shades and an oatmeal chocolate cookie, lace up boots made for walking on ice, and set out to discover the world.

oh, happy day on a winter night

Hot, spicy coffee from a flask. I set down the lantern I'm carrying and someone puts a sticky-sweet piece of carrot cake in my mittened hands. 

We're having a surprise birthday party on the porch, in the illumination of a dozen lanterns. The snow is thick under our boots, the forest cold and silent around the little house. The darkness of a winter night can't daunt the cheerful chattering around the cake. It is so cold that my toes are going numb but I ignore it - because birthday party in a blizzard! With pandemic and social distancing, you have to get creative. 

We sing "Oh, Happy Day" and among the half-strangers around me I suddenly recognise voices from my favourite choir, thirty years ago. I have known the birthday boy just as long, and his smile warms my heart like it has for decades. 

I hope the roads won't have snowed in before it's time to leave.

hazy at the edges

Butterscotch, caramel and vanilla is the colour of my hair these days. The world is too dry and hazy at the edges. How did it become so small? Are there still foreign and wonderful things out there, beyond my horizon of snowy fir trees and winter clouds?

I want to stay in bed, reading books.