The main street in Bozel was completely blocked this morning. All it took was a mound of snow on one side, a line of parked cars on the other and one large lorry with its rear gate lowered to the ground. Wherever the driver was delivering must have been some distance away as he was nowhere in sight and so a queue formed in both directions. It was interesting to note the reactions of the drivers as they wriggled past; most beeped their disapproval at this sign of disorder. In the season there are far too many cars in the valley for them all to be parked correctly at any one time. Each Saturday approximately 35,000 leave the area and a similar number arrive. The motorway A43 from Lyon regularly comes to a solid standstill as wave after wave of vehicles re-enacts Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. Once arrived, drivers discover that they must pay 79 euros to park in Courchevel for the week. This is an expense too far for many people, on top of all the other costs involved in a week’s skiing, so the roadsides are considered fair game unless an ‘’arrêté municipal ‘’ has been posted. Wherever there is a car park, vehicles are left for the duration, becoming snow-covered lumps which need to be dug out at the end of the holiday. I have observed an odd thing in supermarket carparks: drivers will circle round and round until they find the one remaining slot close to the shop entrance, just to avoid walking, when they could easily have left their car straightaway, close to the exit. Parking a car becomes a serious sport: try popping down to Moûtiers on market day! Nor is public transport an option; buses are infrequent and expensive so a car is essential, you just may have to keep it moving!
Local number plates end in ‘73’, denoting the Savoie. I spent time and money acquiring this designation, to show commitment to my local status. However, it will be a long time before I achieve it in spirit. I refer of course to the ‘rules for overtaking’. There are many approved spots, where you may win your ‘73’ plates. These are frequently marked by crosses or bunches of flowers at the roadside. Usually they are located just before tight bends, under bridges or similar constructions, and on stretches of mountain road where forward view is restricted by, say, a clump of trees or - for instant inclusion in the club - an oncoming vehicle! I confess I am still startled when, approaching a steep turn in a line of traffic going downhill, the coach which is negotiating the bend ahead of me is overtaken on the inside by a ‘73’ van, whose driver is probably hissing ‘Yeeessss!’ and punching the air as he finishes the manoeuvre with no casualties. Actually he is breathing some quite different words in the vernacular, but you get the sense. They just have to do it and I clearly have some way to go yet. Tourist cars are quite another thing. They don’t seem to get the hang of these roads at all. Going up the mountain, the drivers swerve out to the left before each bend to take a huge bite of the corner, the way a bus has to; going downhill they give every sign of being rather nervous - very strange. Driving around, I occasionally pick up hitchhikers, if they have no surf board with them, partly for the amusement of their reaction when they find themselves in the driving seat side. Sometimes they respond quite comically, making faces or covering their eyes to alarm other drivers. Several times a month motorcycle police come up from Albertville to hide in bus shelters with binoculars and catch those drivers who are not wearing their seatbelts or who are not observing the 50 or even 30kmh signs in villages. I don’t have any quarrel with this since the road passes through so many and it is only right not to knock down pedestrians crossing the road to go to the post office. Coming from out of town, this also spares local officers the embarrassment of catching out their own neighbours.
Mountain roads remain, in defiance of nature. Many are slipping noticeably towards the valley, their surfaces patterned with tar-filled cracks, like a black pen scribbling along the road. A few summers ago the Tour de France was to come through here and climb up to the top of Courchevel, so a glossy new tarmac surface was laid all the way. You should see the state of this road now after hundreds of thousands of vehicles have used it and several winter freezes have done their work. The roads are threatened also by the mountain itself. Where avalanches or rock falls are most likely great concrete projections have been constructed, cantilevered over the road. Below Champagny for instance, the ‘abri avalanche’ is 250 metres long and curves around several bends. Elsewhere on the same road, this week, huge concrete cubes are being placed to make a wall. Above this, engineers in harnesses dangle on climbing ropes, guiding the four inch diametre drilling attachment of a mobile crane, going deep into the rock face and then fixing giant screw-eyes threaded with cables. Probably, a steel net will be fixed to these to prevent rocks landing on the cars. Not so much road works, my friend observed, as mountain dentistry. In reality not much can be done if a big fall occurs but the effort must be made. Mostly I use these ‘Départemental’, the main roads. Recently, a disturbing notice appeared on the board in my village. It described plans to reclassify the ‘Grand Chemin’ running through Les Chavonnes as a ‘Communal’ thoroughfare, ‘’in anticipation of the future ‘urbanization’ of the village’’. Aarrgh! What does this mean? Are we to become a housing estate? Will the forest behind be further cleared? Already the large orchard at the top of the village has disappeared under the development of a dozen chalets. Where will it end? There are other worrying signs; driving through the French countryside used to be a source of great pleasure – long, straight sunlit roads, double-lined with plane or lime trees. Now it seems that to prevent sun blinded or mesmerized drivers from crashing into the trees, many of these ancient avenues will be destroyed. Less dramatically, though still savage, council workers have again pollarded all the roadside trees in Moûtiers and Albertville, leaving bare-knuckled fists of tree trunks and no ‘dangerous’ overhanging branches – a Gallic solution.
Perhaps you remember the classic French cartoon showing four cars stuck at a crossroads, their drivers draped in cobwebs, all caught in the ‘priorité à droite’ law. There’s a similar junction in Bozel, where the Champagny and Pralognan roads divide, the former having priority over traffic from Pralognan. Few visitors take heed of this, however, so I have become very wary about assuming the right of way. Meanwhile, in case you are wondering about the lorry driver, he eventually emerged from the bar across the road, carrying three packets of Malboro. He cheerfully closed his tailgate, climbed back into his lorry and drove off. A man’s gotta do what he can in his working day after all!
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copyright Julia Austen 2015