Don't believe everything you see

Learning from our Turin experience yesterday, our first stop today was the tourist office, right next to the Palais de Justice. The woman there gave us a map with a tourist route around the old town marked on it. "Two kilometres -- it'll take you about an hour and a half.” We actually ended up spending the whole day on it -- there was so much to stop and look at.

The old town is a maze of narrow streets with a network of even narrower passages allowing access to the depths of the large blocks of buildings, built with narrow frontages to minimise property taxes. From 1295 to 1563,  it was the capital of the kingdom of Savoie, which extended over a large area on both sides of the Alps. Duke Emanuel Philibert then moved his capital to Turin. We had been thoroughly confused by the history of Savoie, so we visited the Musée Savoisien en route, one reason why the tour took us so long. The dukes also held the kingdom of Sardinia and there was a lot of changing of boundaries before the area was finally split between Italy and France, the Alps becoming a border. We also learned in the museum that Chambéry was occupied by the Nazis late in the war, and the Allies bombed the area around the railway station, which is why this part of town is entirely new.

We also had a lunch stop: Chambéry offers many cuisines, not just hearty mountain food, and we ended up at one of three Indian restaurants. Mainly because the proprietor was standing outside and engaged us in conversation. His terrace was empty while the Indian next door had plenty of French customers. But he has only been there a year, having moved from Paris, and we enjoyed our meal, especially my starter of a substantial, spicy raita with peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, and grilled aubergines. 

Afterwards we visited the cathedral. I'm generally not too enthusiastic about church visiting, but this one is notable because the entire interior is done in trompe l'oeil. Everything you can see in this photo except the structural arches (and the windows obviously) is flat paintwork. There's a wider view here. We had to walk up to some walls and touch them, the shadows and relief are so well done. Chambéry turned out to be a more interesting and attractive town than our initial impression suggested. 

We walked back to the hotel through the park, where a festival was clearly about to happen, with many stalls being set up. Chambéry has a connection with Burkina Faso, and holds an "immersion" festival every two years -- hence the drumming last night! It looked as if it was going to be fun, with lots of African food, art, and music.

Refreshed with an artisan ice cream, we got back to the hotel at four, picked up our bags, and crossed the road to the station. We had to get a regional train that stopped practically everywhere in order to get to the TGV station in Valence. Like most regional trains, it was late, giving us a 5-minute window to catch the TGV. A horde of luggage-laden passengers poured off the train, staggered up escalators and across the concourse, cursed at the electronic gates demanding to scan tickets, then rushed down more escalators and onto the train. We were all still jamming the aisles and trying to find our seats when the train moved off less than a minute later. But once we had settled in, it was the usual calm, comfortable ride, enhanced with a bag of cashew nuts, some chilled rosé, and working wifi.

We were in Narbonne at 9:15, managed to grab a taxi immediately to get to Aunt B's because our luggage was too heavy to carry, and had a quick five-minute catchup with her before driving home. Because it was late, and our house-sitters need to be up early in the morning, we'd decided to sleep at Ingrid's again so as not to disturb them. A quick cup of lemon and ginger tea and bed.

If you missed any of my blow-by-blow account of our trip to the Italian Alps and are raring to read it, it starts here! I'm still trawling through photos trying to catch up with myself.