In the months following my arrival in France in the autumn of 1969, I hardly set foot outside Lyon apart from my trips out to teach English in various outlying factories. By early 1970 I had just about enough money to treat myself to a train journey up to Bourg Saint Maurice in the French Alps. Mountains were not a completely unknown quantity to me as I had been over the Furka, Grimsel and Susten passes in Switzerland the previous summer with my sister and her family on our way to and from Lake Garda. But I had never seen the Alps in winter.
I don't quite know how it happened but I managed to miss the last train back to Lyon so had to steel myself to a Night on the Bare Mountain. Luckily for me, the weather was extraordinarily mild for January and it was easy to keep warm by walking around the town and even travelling a little way up the road leading to Val d'Isère and the Little St Bernard Pass. I can't think why I didn't spend more time in the station - perhaps it was closed. The next morning, whilst waiting for the train to take me back to Lyon I treated myself to a tin of pine drops, just about all I could afford. You can still find these sweets on sale in supermarkets and the tin has hardly changed at all.
I don't quite know how it happened but I managed to miss the last train back to Lyon so had to steel myself to a Night on the Bare Mountain. Luckily for me, the weather was extraordinarily mild for January and it was easy to keep warm by walking around the town and even travelling a little way up the road leading to Val d'Isère and the Little St Bernard Pass. I can't think why I didn't spend more time in the station - perhaps it was closed. The next morning, whilst waiting for the train to take me back to Lyon I treated myself to a tin of pine drops, just about all I could afford. You can still find these sweets on sale in supermarkets and the tin has hardly changed at all.
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