La Salette

Yesterday went off without a hitch. We arrived at Gare de Lyon in plenty of time and the trip to Grenoble was uneventful. We were both extremely tired, mostly because we were worried about the alarm going off and the wake-up call being successful. The alarm was Shirley's BlackBerry, which for some reason would not change to local time. So, we set the alarm for 10:30 at night, which was 4:30 a.m. local time. And, I set up the wake-up call, but because the automated service commented in French, I was not sure if it worked or not. Anyway, neither of us got any sleep because we did not want to miss the train.

When we arrived at Grenoble, our taxi driver, Alexandre, was there waiting for us. He was a Godsend. If not for him, we would still be roaming around the Alps looking for La Salette. It is always more complicated than Google maps implies. Alexandre knows the area, although he had never been past the small town of Corps, the closest town to La Salette Fallavaux. He hunted down the last bouquet of roses in the town for me to take to the cemetary. Another bonus about Alexandre is that he took English for seven years and was eager to practice. Being that we were running on no sleep, this meant the world to us.

After Corps, the road became really rustic, a series of switchbacks, not all with guardrails, and we were at about 1,ooo metres at this point. La Salette is higher, and the Sanctuary of Notre Dame de la Salette is higher still. But the cemetary was exactly where I was hoping it would be. We came around a corner and there was the Canadian flag flying. There was a couple there from Quebec, visiting the lady's father who had died in the crash.

There was a visitor's book, and I left some information about my father that was missing from his grave. I would like to have this information added to his gravestone, and so we continued up to the Sanctuary, where I was hoping to find out who maintains the cemetary. We found out that the cemetary is the property of Canada and Quebec, and that all relevant decisions are made by the archbishop of Quebec. So that is my next project. In July 2009 a group of people went up to the crash site, brought down the wreckage, and made the sculpture which is now in the entrance to the cemetary. I placed three roses on my father's grave, one for my mother, one for my brother, and one for me.

The road from La Salette Fallavaux to the Sanctuary is even crazier that the road from Corps to La Salette. Add to this the fact that it was a cloudy day and after a certain height we were driving in the clouds. Shirley was a little concerned and asked Alexandre, because he had never been this way before, "are you afraid"? He said "absolutely not". That made her feel much better. I have been on much crazier roads in Central America, so this was nothing for me.

We made it to the Sanctuary in one piece and it was shrouded in clouds. It was a bit surreal, because here is this terribly religious place that served beer, wine, and liquor. We stayed only long enough to find out about the archbishop and headed back to Grenoble. We had to hang around there for a few hours until our train left for Paris. We got back around 10:30 and were home by 11. A long and very emotional day.

If anyone reading this blog ever gets to Grenoble and needs a guide and/or driver, you cannot go wrong with Alexandre. Here is his contact info: alexandre.marillet@taxis-grenoblois.fr. Tell him Maggie sent you.

Shirley made a couple of movies of our trip yesterday, that we have been trying to post all night. No luck ... will try again tomorrow.