An Alpine Adventure

By Supriya Savkoor

Francofranco56

Vista from Courmayeur

One early September, about a decade ago, we’d headed to Italy to attend a wedding, flying first into Milan where my brother and sister in-law received us. They had a planned a little pre-wedding weekend excursion for us, since we had only ever visited Italy’s usual hotspots (Florence, Venice, and Rome). We had never heard of the little towns they’d told us we’d be visiting, nor had we done any research beforehand, nor had we discuss it much. A few beautiful places that they wanted us to see, and we were grateful for the pampering.

We rented a van and drove the 220 km (roughly 140 miles ) ride northwest at high speeds through lovely hilly territory, where every few hundred yards a castle was pointed out to us. At first, we ooh-ed and aah-ed at the mere thought of being within walking distance of a real-life Italian castle, but after about a dozen such sightings, we were amused and soon a tad disinterested (only a tad). (Except for the wedding we attended in a beautiful little church in a stunning castle near the famous sparkling wine-region of Asti. (Side note: It’s sparkling wine, not champagne, which is French. The Italians, we learned, and quite possibly the French, are very particular about that distinction.)

When we reached our first destination, Courmayeur, a little dot of a town in the Italian Alps, we were stunned. The breathtaking view outside the balcony of the little studio-condo where we stayed was, excuse the cliché, picture perfect. Like a Swiss postcard, only better. Vast expanses of rugged, snow-capped mountains and valleys that started within a millimeter of our balcony and went on forever. Clean, crisp air that we found ourselves breathing in like a sort of nectar along with an absolute stillness that only deepened our awe.


Franco56

Santuario Notre Dame de la Guérison
in Courmayeur, Italy

 Our first day, we hiked around the quiet little village and took pleasure in the simplest of things: the many colorful flowering plants hanging from window boxes outside many windows. The cool, clean water flowing from spigots that we had to pump, in lieu of the boring old fountains we were accustomed to in the States. The winding narrow roads with the somewhat rustic but gorgeous edifices to one side and a steep drop plunging into the infinity of the Italian Alps on the other side. We drove around quiet, empty roads and byways, from the snowy white peaks to the lush green valleys where we stopped to marvel at a distant steeple atop an 11th century church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. We got a little lost but eventually found our isolated but elegant destination, a restaurant where I got my first taste of raclette, a sort of grilled cheese that to this day astounds me. It was my first introduction to a dish completely dedicated to only glorious, superb cheese, one of my very favorite foods. And with no other seasonings or accompaniments, not even bread, it was the perfect homage.

From there we were on our way, skirting the Swiss Alps, some 4,800 km (or 15,000 feet) high, atop the highest mountain in the Alps. The weather was sharp and crisp, the air a bit foggy and chilly considering the time of year. Soon, we crossed what has to be the most hospitable border into France by way of an 11 km (7 mile) tunnel beneath a mountain and leading us into the penultimate of picturesque towns—Chamonix, France. 

Jonathan M

Chamonix, France

Lite

There, we drank in the old world charms of cobblestone roads lined with wrought-iron lampposts and hanging flower pots; little canals situated between buildings, reminiscent of those camera-ready sights in Amsterdam; lovely boutiques full of pottery and all kind of tantalizing, one-of-a-kind trinkets; patisseries with chocolate fountains and buttery pastries; delicatessens with Italian meats and cheeses; shops dedicated to fondues (sigh); and an idyllic town square straight out of a fairy tale. All this against the backdrop of the most wondrous vistas that, little did we know at the time, are among the world’s oldest and most famous ski resorts. (Case in point: the first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix back in 1924.)

From our Alpine weekend, we headed to Asti (the sparkling wine capital of Italy), not far from the tiny town (and large castle) where the wedding took place. And then on to Genoa, the beautiful port city in which Christopher Columbus was born. It was a most magical vacation, definitely kickstarted by our own sort of Alpine honeymoon that weekend in paradise.


Yann

Overview of Chamonix, France, nestled at the base of the Alps.

   


addedentry / Owen Massey

Gare de Chamonix




 \\

Grape Migrations

By Heidi Noroozy

 

For years I’ve been telling friends this story (usually over a nice glass of red wine): Gaspard de Stérimberg was a thirteenth-century crusader who took a wrong turn on his way to the Holy Land. He ended up in Shiraz, the Persian city known for its blooming gardens and lyrical poets—and for its wine. Gaspard took such a liking to the local vintage that he slipped a few grapevine cuttings into his saddlebags before returning to his home in France. There, he planted the cuttings, turned the mature fruit into a full-bodied wine, and named his new vintage after the city of its origin. A few centuries later, the Shiraz grapes went wandering again and put down roots in Australia.

Nice story, right? Too bad it’s not true.

In 1998, Dr. Carol Meredith, a researcher with the University of California at Davis, tested the DNA of grapevines and determined that the Shiraz variety is native to France and did not originate in Persia at all. Other details of the story don’t hold up under scrutiny, either. Chevalier Gaspard was a real knight, but there’s no evidence that he ever left France, let alone traveled to Jerusalem or Shiraz (which was never the target of a crusade anyway). Our valiant knight had joined the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heretics in the French region of Languedoc.

In another version of the story, the Greeks brought the Shiraz grape to France in 600 BC and planted the vines in their colony of Massilia (present-day Marseilles). Centuries later, Gaspard de Stérimberg encountered the vintage in this region on his way home from the crusades and transplanted some cuttings to his Rhône vineyards. There, he recovered from terrible wounds sustained in the fighting and lived out his days as a hermit—and presumably a gentleman vintner.

This story is more believable, for although Marseilles isn’t in the Languedoc region, it’s not far from it and the grapes could have easily migrated over the course of nearly two millennia. And the city of Shiraz has been part of a major wine-growing region for thousands of years—until the Islamic Republic banned alcohol in the 1980s. But the stickler this time is this: the wine grapes grown in Shiraz were white, while the present-day Shiraz grapes of Australia and France (where they’re called Syrah) are red.

So what is the true story? I doubt anyone will ever sort out these wrinkles in history. But the Shiraz mystery aside, Persia is likely the place where wine originated. Archaeologists uncovered the earliest evidence of winemaking in the residue clinging to 7,000-year-old pottery shards at Hajji Firuz Tepe, an excavation site in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran.

Iranians have another story about the origins of wine: The legendary King Jamshid was fond of grapes. He filled his castle cellars with the fruit so that it could be brought to his table whenever he felt a craving coming on. One day, he sent two servants to fetch a basket of grapes, and when they failed to return, he went to see what was taking so long. He found the men collapsed on the floor, overcome by the fumes from a barrel of bruised and fermenting grapes. The king decided the grapes had turned poisonous and warned everyone to avoid them.

Later, one of Jamshid’s mistresses was feeling sad and neglected and decided to kill herself by drinking the liquid left by the poisoned grapes. But instead of dying, the woman soon felt elated and climbed the cellar steps singing and dancing. The king realized that this miraculous juice had the power to turn despair into joy. It’s probably a good thing he never asked her how she felt the next morning when the hangover hit, or perhaps we wouldn’t have wine today.

This story brings us back to Shiraz because Jamshid is believed to have lived in the site that later became Persepolis, the palace of the Achaemenid rulers, which lies just an hour’s drive from present-day Shiraz. Even today, Iranians refer to Persepolis as “Takht-e Jamshid,” which means the “Throne of Jamshid.”

Science may have proven that the Shiraz grape has a French accent rather than a Persian one and that winemaking originated in the Zagros Mountains and not in King Jamshid’s cellar, but I still prefer the legends. I’ll happily lift a glass to old Gaspard, the French hermit, as I picture him wandering among his vines, or to King Jamshid on his throne at Persepolis, sipping a white Shiraz.

Salamati!

Vikings, Secret Handshakes, and Kings – The History of the Sinclairs

In Australia we have a term for dogs that are of mixed breed – “bitsa” (as in bits of this and bits of that). Now, I’m not calling myself a dog, but if anyone looked at my family tree, we could well and truly be classified as bitsas. Norwegian, French, Irish, Welsh, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Scottish… you name a country, chances are my ancestors are from it or tried to conquer it. (Yeah, we have a few bloodthirsty conquerors in our closet).

The Sinclairs hark back to the days of the Vikings in Scandinavia. In 911, Rollo the Viking travelled from Norway to the northwest of France. That same year, in the church of Saint-Clair-sur-l'Epte, he signed a treaty with King Charles III the Simple of France to grant him the position of Count of Rouen. Let me just say, the powers of persuasion in my family are second to none. Rollo the Viking’s descendants became the dukes and duchy of Normandy.

The origins of the surname Sinclair comes from the church where the treaty was signed and in 1162, some family members settled in Scotland when Henry de St Clair of Roslin took over the lands in the north-west province of Lothian. A few generations later, Sir Henry Sinclair fought at the Battle of Bannockburn and in 1320 signed the Declaration of Arbroath that he, along with other influential men, sent to the Pope to initiate Scotland’s independence from England.

We liked to hang out with royalty (as opposed to being hung by royalty), especially with those from France, England and Scotland (perhaps that has trickled down to my young daughter who is obsessed with princesses). We also became earls in Orkney and Caithness in Scotland and have been involved in bloody battles such as the Battle of Hastings in England as part of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. We won, by the way. If I listed all the battles my family were involved with, we’d be here most of the day…

The Rosslyn Castle, situated seven miles (11 kilometres) south of Edinburgh, has been home to the Sinclairs since 1070 and still have in the family today. In 1115, the Sinclairs were involved with a group of knights who patrolled the roads during the Crusades to keep them safe. They became known as the Poor Knights of Christ, and later, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem granted them use of the old Temple of Solomon as their meeting place. The Poor Knights of Christ changed their name to the Knights Templar and so began the legend of a mysterious organisation that many believe launched the group we know today as the Freemasons.

Scotland is dotted with many remnants of our history, the most impressive one being Rosslyn Chapel (not to be confused with the castle of the same name) in Roslin. Built in 1446 by William Sinclair, the elaborate stone carvings are often referred to as “Bible in Stone.” Quite a few Sinclairs are buried there, fully clad in their suits of armour.

As with most family histories, not all the facts are available now, yet we do know that when the Scottish Sinclairs arrived in North America, most were illiterate, and so when asked by the census clerks how to spell their surname, they didn’t know how. Their thick Scottish accents also made it difficult to be understood, so many more variations of the surname were invented – Sinclere, Sinkler, Sinklaire and so forth.

Within half a century of arriving in North America, most clan members had changed their surname back to the correct spelling aside from a few who have remained Sinkler to this day. 

On my mother's side we were involved with the Spanish Armada and the Battle of Waterloo, so if you haven’t got the hint yet, don’t mess with my family or me – we know people.

I don’t know about you, but I find it fascinating to learn about family history. I think there are some legacies in our bloodlines that carry on through the generations.  Every time I hear Scottish bagpipes and drummers, I get shivers and feel the music pump through my veins, yet I’ve never set foot in the country. I’ve not invaded any countries or joined any secret organisations (yet), but my family’s history lives inside me. I’m a product of my ancestors, and they’re a part of me. I reckon that’s kinda cool. By the way, you may now refer to me as Countess Sinclair.

How about you? Have you ever looked into your family history? What did you discover?

The Crime of Being Different

If I lived in Iran and had the choice to wear the mandatory hejab (scarf and knee-length tunic) typical in that country, or to go bare-headed, I’d choose the latter. It’s a lot more natural to me, and I’ve not yet mastered the fine art of keeping the scarf on my head. It tends to fall off, and I have to constantly tug it up again, which can get rather tedious. There are certain situations where I’d wear hejab voluntarily – while visiting shrines, attending religious ceremonies, or as a guest in a traditional family’s home. But these things are not frequent items on my itinerary during a trip to Iran.

Of course, I don’t have much say in what I get to wear on the street, since hejab in public spaces is the law in the Islamic Republic, and I’m a law-abiding traveler who respects the rules and customs of every country I travel to, whether I like them or not. The way I see it, my struggles with the elusive scarf are more than worth the price of entry into such a fascinating society.

Still, I’m well aware that many Iranian women do find the hejab requirement a burden. But not for the reasons often cited in the West, where may people see hejab as the most visible symbol of women’s oppression in the Islamic world. But to Iranian women, hejab itself is not a sign of oppression, but the fact that the generic garment removes the choice of expressing one’s personal style and individuality.

I wish someone had mentioned this to French President Nicolas Sarkozy last spring before his government passed a law prohibiting Muslim women from wearing the full veil in public. The item the law refers to is the niqab, a piece of cloth worn across the face and hiding everything but the eyes.

Sarkozy sold the niqab ban to the public as the need to “liberate” women from the “prison” of their Islamic dress code. Huh? Did anyone ask the women whether they wanted to be liberated? Whether they felt “imprisoned?” Does anyone in the 21^st century still believe that Muslim women are not allowed to draw breath unless their fathers, brothers, and husbands grant permission?

It could be (and has been) argued that the niqab is a religious symbol and a secular society is justified in banning it in public, along with the symbols of other religions. In fact, this was the argument behind the 2004 decision to prohibit girls from wearing headscarves in French schools. (At least there was no pretense about “liberating” them from their scarves.)

But is the veil really a religious symbol, like a Christian cross, the Star of David, or the Muslim crescent? I doubt many veiled Muslim women would see it that way. They wear the veil because, to them, it is required for a woman to protect her modesty. And if the niqab is a religious symbol, then why not the khefiyeh (the checked scarf that many Arab men wear on their heads)? Why should only women be singled out?

Interestingly, in the months since France’s niqab law went into force, it has rarely been applied. Only a handful of veiled women have been arrested or fined, even though many are simply ignoring the ban. Unfortunately, attacks (both verbal and physical) against veiled women are on the rise. Bus drivers refuse to allow these women to board, shopkeepers and restaurants deny them service, people on the streets hurl insults and sexual innuendo at them. For many, a trip to run errands or drop children off at school has become an ordeal.

This unfortunate trend isn’t coming out of the blue. There has long been an attitude of suspicion against Islam in Western societies. Even here in the United States, I sometimes feel a sense of disapproval when people give me startled and sometimes pitying looks after learning I am married to an Iranian. But when a legislative body passes a law as discriminatory as the niqab ban, it gives people license to express and act on attitudes they would otherwise have kept to themselves.

But let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? The niqab ban isn’t a form of liberation. It’s islamophobia.

King of Bongo Bong

Photo by Philippe Jimene

“Mama was the queen of the mambo, Papa was king of the Congo….I’m the king of bongo, baby, I’m the king of bongo bong.”

These whimsical opening lyrics to Manu Chao’s “Bongo Bong” song are set to music borrowed from the old Black Uhuru song, “Anthem.” I love it, along with other Chao songs. This song is one of the exceptions, but Chao sings mostly in French and Spanish. And while my understanding of those languages is limited, Chao’s music speaks to me, even when I don’t know what exactly he’s crooning about. It’s the music I crave on lazy, rainy days, occasionally as background music when I’m writing or generally chilling out.

Manu Chao was born in Paris in the early 1960s to Basque and Galician (Spanish) parents. He’s both a singer and songwriter, creating music that is punk, hip hop, ska, reggae, alternative, rock, pop, jazz, you name it. He infuses Latin salsa and flamenco, Algerian rai, French chanson, and Caribbean and African beats into his music. And he sings in a variety of languages – Basque, Galician, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Arabic, and Wolof (an African language spoken widely in Senegal). This amalgam of languages and genres gives him a distinctive sound that you won’t hear elsewhere. Sometimes he’s moody and mellow, other times cheerful and dancey, sometimes light hearted, and at other times political and serious. If it sounds like everything but the kitchen sink, give it a listen. (I’ve included links to some of my favorites at the end of this post.) His music offers something for everyone. He hasn’t made much traction in the English-speaking market, but his songs are well known in Europe and South America, many of them reaching the top 10 in France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and much of South America.

Chao started several bands with his brother and friends in the early to mid-80s that were received well and popular in Paris, but these bands didn’t take off in a big way. Then, in 1987, he, his brother, and a cousin formed Mano Negra, which may have been named after an anarchist group in Spain. On tour in South America, they performed out of a retired train. This band did well but eventually disbanded.

In 1995, Chao formed a new group, Radio Bemba Sound System, which gets its name from the communication system Cuban revolutionaries used. With this group, Chao really found his groove. He released albums both completely in Spanish and in French, including different styles of music on each. His Clandestino album includes bands from diverse backgrounds, such as Mexico’s Tijuana No!, Brazil’s Skank, and Argentina’s Todos Las Muertos, in the hopes of recreating the sounds from street music and the bar scene from those cultures. Chao injects political messages into some of his music, riffing on themes of immigration, ghettos, social and political issues, immigration, and injustice.

Punk and reggae historian, Vivien Goldman, writes that Chao is “one of the punkiest artists out there that I can think of.” And yet, his “inclusionary” style, as Goldman calls it, has helped propel Chao into one of the most successful distinctive sounds. Clandestino, for instance, won Best World Music Album in 1999 from France’s Victoires de la Musique awards.

And he branches out. The blind married couple from Mali, known as Amadou & Mariam, are also trailblazers in the Africas, blending Cuban, Syrian, Indian, and Dogon musical styles into their own popular music. Chao produced the couple’s 2004 album, Dimanche à Bamako. He also wrote a song, “Me llaman Calle,” for the 2005 Spanish film, Princesas, and won a Goya nomination for Best Original Song. Time magazine later named it one of the 10 Best Songs of 2007 (when Chao included it on an album he released that year), ranking it number 8.

Watch and listen to a few of his best-known songs:

Bongo Bang and Je Ne T'aime Plus

 Clandestino

La Trampa, with Tonino Carotone (of Maldonado from Argentina)

Enjoy!

Grape Migrations

Prince Entertained on a Terrace
from "Divan" by Hafez

For years I’ve been telling friends this story (usually over a nice glass of red wine): Gaspard de Stérimberg was a thirteenth-century crusader who took a wrong turn on his way to the Holy Land. He ended up in Shiraz, the Persian city known for its blooming gardens and lyrical poets—and for its wine. Gaspard took such a liking to the local vintage that he slipped a few grapevine cuttings into his saddlebags before returning to his home in France. There, he planted the cuttings, turned the mature fruit into a full-bodied wine, and named his new vintage after the city of its origin. A few centuries later, the Shiraz grapes went wandering again and put down roots in Australia.

Nice story, right? Too bad it’s not true.

In 1998, Dr. Carol Meredith, a researcher with the University of California at Davis, tested the DNA of grapevines and determined that the Shiraz variety is native to France and did not originate in Persia at all. Other details of the story don’t hold up under scrutiny, either. Chevalier Gaspard was a real knight, but there’s no evidence that he ever left France, let alone traveled to Jerusalem or Shiraz (which was never the target of a crusade anyway). Our valiant knight had joined the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heretics in the French region of Languedoc.

In another version of the story, the Greeks brought the Shiraz grape to France in 600 BC and planted the vines in their colony of Massilia (present-day Marseilles). Centuries later, Gaspard de Stérimberg encountered the vintage in this region on his way home from the crusades and transplanted some cuttings to his Rhône vineyards. There, he recovered from terrible wounds sustained in the fighting and lived out his days as a hermit—and presumably a gentleman vintner.

This story is more believable, for although Marseilles isn’t in the Languedoc region, it’s not far from it and the grapes could have easily migrated over the course of nearly two millennia. And the city of Shiraz has been part of a major wine-growing region for thousands of years—until the Islamic Republic banned alcohol in the 1980s. But the stickler this time is this: the wine grapes grown in Shiraz were white, while the present-day Shiraz grapes of Australia and France (where they’re called Syrah) are red.

So what is the true story? I doubt anyone will ever sort out these wrinkles in history. But the Shiraz mystery aside, Persia is likely the place where wine originated. Archaeologists uncovered the earliest evidence of winemaking in the residue clinging to 7,000-year-old pottery shards at Hajji Firuz Tepe, an excavation site in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran.

Photo by Sarah Stierch

Iranians have another story about the origins of wine: The legendary King Jamshid was fond of grapes. He filled his castle cellars with the fruit so that it could be brought to his table whenever he felt a craving coming on. One day, he sent two servants to fetch a basket of grapes, and when they failed to return, he went to see what was taking so long. He found the men collapsed on the floor, overcome by the fumes from a barrel of bruised and fermenting grapes. The king decided the grapes had turned poisonous and warned everyone to avoid them.

Later, one of Jamshid’s mistresses was feeling sad and neglected and decided to kill herself by drinking the liquid left by the poisoned grapes. But instead of dying, the woman soon felt elated and climbed the cellar steps singing and dancing. The king realized that this miraculous juice had the power to turn despair into joy. It’s probably a good thing he never asked her how she felt the next morning when the hangover hit, or perhaps we wouldn’t have wine today.

This story brings us back to Shiraz because Jamshid is believed to have lived in the site that later became Persepolis, the palace of the Achaemenid rulers, which lies just an hour’s drive from present-day Shiraz. Even today, Iranians refer to Persepolis as “Takht-e Jamshid,” which means the “Throne of Jamshid.”

Science may have proven that the Shiraz grape has a French accent rather than a Persian one and that winemaking originated in the Zagros Mountains and not in King Jamshid’s cellar, but I still prefer the legends. I’ll happily lift a glass to old Gaspard, the French hermit, as I picture him wandering among his vines, or to King Jamshid on his throne at Persepolis, sipping a white Shiraz.

Salamati!