North of Grenoble towards Chambery and Geneva the peaks get sharper, more foreboding, a series of juggernauts and sideways plates sliding into green hills, winter chalets and grazing Charolais. Chartreuse is a colour – an electric green, more cinnabar than sap, radioactive in its luminescence. Chartreuse is also a drink. Here, in the heart of the region is where in 1655 the monks of the Monastere de la Grande Chartreuse developed the sticky yellow-green liqueur from a secret recipe of over 130 ingredients. The famous herbal elixir is now produced in the nearby, hopping village of Voiron. Chartreuse is also a regional park. The Chartreuse Massif, capped by peaks of 2000 metres, is also where hydroelectricity was invented in the late 19^th century. This "harnessing of nature" was putting the science-savvy Grenoble and the surrounding Alps on the International circuit in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II. At summer’s end the peaks are bald, rocky, only dribbling with streamlets, the grass is wet with dew, sparkling, and the villages asleep, save the speeding Sunday cyclists, in full spandex, battling impatient drivers for skinny road rights. We manage the twisting roads, picturing before us a winter wonderland of blizzarding mountains and snow-topped roofs, chimneys smoking. The pine forests run deep from the road, black on the inside. Rich walks into the village in search of the boulangerie and returns with a gigantic pain de compagne – a traditional round, crusty loaf with a hole in the middle; hard to find and made these days only by the most dedicated bakers. The sourdough is baked over a wood fire, with the smoke from the fire helping the flavour the bread. It weighs as much as a pair of laptops. There’s enough bread here for six or seven meals. Breaking it open the inside is still warm from this morning, like cake, surrounded by an almost black, flaky crust. The church bells toll reminding us to stop, sit, nibble our picnic in the sunshine, surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of hiking trails, ancient homes, dairy cows and a history that reveals itself in layers of memorials to nationalists who took refuge in these peaks during the Nazi occupation, their cemeteries, arching stone bridges and window boxes. It’s just another day in France.

Seville