As with all Carthusian monasteries, the cloister is enormous, since each monk has his own house. (Here's a photo I found on the internet, to give you an idea)
Apart from the daily Mass and offices, Carthusian monks do everything in private, including eat, except for their weekly walk. They wear hair shirts, even in bed, and are treated to a bath once a fortnight! The HQ of the Carthusians is Le Grand Chartreuse, high up on the Massif de Chartreuse, to the north of Grenoble. We were to head in that direction later. Having since been a home for Cistercians, then Carmelites and then a national monument, currently the Certosa is staffed again by a few Cistercian monks, I believe, but there was no sign of them today.
We took the motorway towards Turin, keeping an eye on the weather. As I had seen forecast earlier in the week, France was experiencing a large band of heavy rain, right across our path, but we were going to do our best to avoid it.
After Turin we climbed into the Alps and took the Frejus tunnel. The weather was becoming more changeable as we ascended on the Italian side, and we steeled ourselves for what might greet us as we exited on the French side of the tunnel, R donning his winter gloves and closing his vents. In fact, we had sunshine (and some light cloud) in the mid 30s!
After lunch in a service station we followed the motorway northwest, and as we rounded the corner to head towards Grenoble, not far from Chambery, we were greeted by a wall of dark grey/black sky, mountain-tops completely obscured, and rain clouds appearing to pour over the edges, down the sides of the mountains - a very sudden change. This was ahead (west) and to the left (south). I made a snap decision to take a motorway branch heading northeast into the remaining clear air, and we found ourselves emerging from the péage by Albertville. Discussion followed: the clouds seemed to be edging our way from the south west so there was likely no escape. To camp (my preference) or to hotel (R's hope)? A few kms back I had noticed a sign to Tamié, a Trappist monastery about which I'd heard much from my Aunty Anne in Paris, but never worked out its location. It seemed to me obvious that we should take a look if we were this close, and after a little persuasion R agreed. We climbed up the mountains to the west, into a pass, and turned into the Abbey grounds just as we reached the top. We had to walk the last 500m to get to the Abbey church:
Sadly we were unable to hear an office - perhaps I'll have time in the morning - and just as we emerged, the heavens opened. R was quite pleased as this lent quite some weight to his "let's get a hotel" point of view. Despite the fact that there was a nearby camping, the rain and the abrupt end to the perfect weather I'd had since Romania inclined me to agree with him. We headed, post-haste, to the nearest town, Faverges, and found a hotel at a good price with rooms, a garage and free wifi - hence my ability to update the blog for the first time since Athens. At one point we surprised the locals by riding the wrong way down a long one-way street - a key road in the town had been sealed off for a market and I couldn't work out any other way of getting where we needed to be. I waved politely at the shocked looking faces in the oncoming cars.
Anyway, it's nice to be dry, and we found the most amazing bistro for dinner. Really, really good food, of the sort that I thought you couldn't get in France anymore, and very reasonably priced. I'm hoping the rain will have passed by tomorrow. At one point today the temperature was 36, and leaving Tamié it was only 13! Bloody weather, bloody France, bloody home-coming, Bloody Hell!!!
