Croissants and Crampons: Le Plateau des Glières

Being in France has had the effect of renewing my interest in history, art, literature (a sweeping statement, I know). After visiting Marseille, and laying eyes upon the Château d’If, the setting of much suffering in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, I am suddenly fascinated by classics of French literature. In fact, I’m a quarter of the way into this epic of a novel, and absolutely can’t put it down. It’s astounding that now that my feet are planted solidly here, everything European has become much more fascinating than when I was sitting in a stuffy University classroom on the other side of the ocean. Not once during the course of my English degree did I have any desire to read more Dumas or Hugo (ignore the fact that they are French authors). Now I could veritably eat these books up. Napoleon no longer seems like some fanatic from the past walking into my present via a textbook, because now I’m treading on his turf and can follow his doomed path from Corsica to Paris to Elba and back again. There is so much more room for the imagination when you are closer to the source of all of this history.

This takes me to my visit to “Le Plateau des Glières”, a monument site to fighters who partook in “La Résistance”, an undercover operation against the German army during World War II. Accompanied by Elena (one of the girls I live with), and her boyfriend Diego, we spent the day wandering through this historically rich terrain. In some ways, it was hard to imagine this now peaceful place as the grounds for any kind of fighting, never mind a war of the unprecedented scale of World War II. There are constant reminders of the past in these parts that makes one thankful for the current state of peace; crosses and monuments that are tucked away in forests or perched at 2000m on the top of a mountain, that are at once terrifying and beautiful.