A Home In France

Three moves equals a fire.

St. Martin des Collines

We come through a narrow mountain pass on our big Harley, arriving in a village entirely surrounded by cliffs, and we see it is traversed by at least two rivers. Green fields stretch up toward the afternoon sun, dotted with cows whose bells we hear as they crop the grass.

The whole village is decked out in a riot of flowers. The sound of running water is everywhere. We are too late to eat lunch, but the proprietress of the hotel makes us sandwiches of baguettes with local Comte’ cheese and jambon accompanied by some moldy tasting wine made from a local grape called “savagnin.”

We take a corner room several flights up which overlook the farm next door. Her husband, Gilles, finds a safe spot to store the machine underneath the hotel, and we settle in for a three-night stay which turns into twenty-five years.

That evening, after feasting in the hotel restaurant like starving beasts on impossibly delicious truite au vin jaune made with the same exotic grape, we sleep like big cats with full bellies.

The moon rises in the easterly window through mists and clouds, then settles behind cliffs we dimly perceive through the other corner window. The river that runs close to the hotel wraps us in a soothing lullaby; we hear the farm animals lowing…