St. Luc (Vaud)

Last Monday morning, a group of us Franklin students departed campus for the first phase of our fall Academic Travel. Our destination was St. Luc, a small village high up in the Alps (in the canton of Vaud). Our bus driver, Michaele, is nothing short of a genius. It's not your everyday person that can maneuver a gargantuan tour bus along the perilous, winding, sharp turns through the mountains that lead up to these villages. Once we arrived however, the journey was well worth the stomach-churning; the view was nothing short of spectacular, and the air was so incredibly crisp and clean. After a short hike, we arrived at one of our main destinations for the day - the museum of Ella Maillart.

Maillart was one of the most famous Swiss travel writers of her time. I had chosen to do a presentation on her life and works, (the "academic" in academic travel) I think because I so strongly identified with her: she was independent, adventurous, strong willed, and speculative. She continually sought self-enlightenment and education through her travels in an extremely objective manner. She believed that to get the most out of travel, one had to specifically seek to live in that moment, in that culture, by the standards at hand. She wanted to learn from these cultures, and give what she could in return. She was everything I ever dreamed I could be, and had done and discovered many of the things that I hope my travels and my experience at Franklin will bring me. Unfortunately, she is no longer alive. However a mere five meteres from the museum is the house of Anne Deriaz, another Swiss travel writer, who took care of Maillart during her last years.

Anne's small chalet, overlooking the alps and the slopes of the valley between, stood out from all the rest. Strings of multicolored Tibetan flags adorned the porch, waving breezily over the plates of biscuits and steaming jugs of tea that awaited us. Professor Steinert-Borella (Sara, as we call her) had actually interviewed Maillart before her death and established a friendship with Anne Deriaz, which was the reason twenty-one college students were being invited to tea in a small chalet. Anne was so gracious, and as I sat inside her home, I was enchanted by what I saw: the small collection of books from a variety of countries (including a few in Chinese, which I was impressed by), her furnishings which had obviously been collected with care during her various travels, and the pure simplicity of her lifestyle.

Two days after our tea with Anne, she walked down to the Gite to give the group a writing workshop. Before the workshop began, I had assumed that it would be a classroom-like affair, with one teacher telling the students how to structure and develop their writing. After all, that was how my high school writing instruction had always been done. Anne, however, took an entirely different approach by presenting writing as self-discovery, as freeing, as a responsibility. By self-discovery, I mean that she believed that writing without constraints, just letting the pen flow freely, was a sure way of exposing our emotions and feelings. By freeing, I mean that she presented the idea [to us] that writing could be a type of escape from the chaos of our everyday lives, a moment in which only our minds, the paper, and the pen existed. And by responsibility, I mean that writers have an inherent responsibility to expose ideas, thoughts, and stories from around the world, to help others gain new perspectives and create cross-cultural understandings. 

After tea, we hiked yet again to our "hotel", the Gîte du Prilett. I suppose it was more of a skiier's lodge, a chalet of sorts. It didn't seem like much from the outside, but from within, I found that it had so much more to offer. I was put into a dorm style room of ten girls, which I was quite skeptical about, especially considering that there was only one toilet and one shower. However the bed was one of the coziest and warmest I have ever slept in, I slept so soundly (although this may have been from all the hiking). Our meals at the Gîte were incredible: Swiss style pastas, salads, FONDUE, fish, breakfasts, oh my goodness. The rumors were quite accurate: we eat on this travel constantly. During our stay in St. Luc we also had the opportunity to hike up a mountain with llamas, who are quite interesting creatures. They tended to throw fits when they got too far away from the other llamas in line, and made bizzare noises (thankfully, no spitting). We also went to the communal oven of St. Luc where the town has been making its bread for hundreds of years - we made our own bread there, fresh from the oven, which we held under our sweaters on the walk back to the Gîte because it was so cold! That was truly a sight to see - a group of american teenage girls walking around a little Swiss town with literally, "buns in the oven". I'm sure we fit many American stereotypes walking around that way!

St. Luc was a wonderful place, truly characterized by its solitude. I had a chance to take some time alone during our hike, and words cannot express how relieving it is to have that solitude. Sitting on top of a mountain, overlooking a deep valley and into the Alps beyond, I could hear no other voice than my own, and the wind whistling through the alpine grass. I closed my eyes, and for once, I could just breathe.