Saint Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day from San Valentino in Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a church in Rome (I've been laying in wait to use this photo for just such a blog entry since I took it over Christmas break). Nothing says "I love you" quite like a dessicated skull!

In France Valentine's Day is low key and mostly just for couples, so stores don't go all out with the pink and red decor like they do in the States (which is a welcome change!). I neither like nor hate this most Hallmark-y of holidays, but I still celebrated by going out with a bunch of fellow assistants for a decadent "café neige," a shot of espresso suspended between cream of white chocolate and chantilly. YUM.

Rochetaillé

A couple weekends ago I went with a few of my roommates, Alice and Emilie, and Emilie's friend Francisco, to nearby Rochetaillé, a small town just outside of Saint-Etienne that's got some great hiking trails.

Every once in a while we get these little glimmers of warm, sunny days that are just barely sufficient to remind us that winter will one day end and the temperature will actually consistently rise above freezing (thankfully this weekend is also such a time -- gonna get up to 50 today, and maybe 55 tomorrow!). In mid-January it was especially welcome, and we piled in Emilie's little Citroën to escape Saint-Etienne's smoggy congestion.

We did the "tour des deux barrages," or a walk around two dams. The first dam is the Barrage de la Gouffre d'Enfer, or the Dam of the Pit of Hell. Not even kidding, that's the exact translation. It's way too pretty to be the gate to Hell, though it does look rather imposing from the side you climb up.

A set of stairs off to the left leads you up to the top of the dam. I was expecting to see a big lake on the other side, but the dam was empty (though still pretty, in a desolate wintery kind of way):

We continued a couple kilometers further to the second dam, which has the slightly less evocative name of "Barrage du Pas-de-Riot", which I'm actually not quite sure how to translate. Online dictionaries keep trying to give me the translation into French of "riot" instead of telling me what it means in English, so I'm going to guess it's someone's name.

Both these dams were made in the 1860s to provide Saint-Etienne with drinking water, and Pas-de-Riot was made since Gouffre d'Enfer wasn't providing enough during Sainté's rapid growth during the Industrial Revolution. I don't know to what extent they're still used to collect water for the city, but they do make for a lovely stroll outside the city! I wish Rochetaillé was in running/bus distance, but sadly it looks like you really need a car to get there. Hopefully I'll be able to go back and take more pictures once the weather warms up for good and plants start blooming again.

Saint-Etienne off in the distance: