Voltaire

Campanile is in the Patriarch of Ferney-Voltaire, and I'm camped here for a few days. As is my habit, I sent out for a walk this evening to see what there is to see, and try to locate the laundromat described by the desk clerk.

Did I mention that this is where Voltaire's house is? (What gave it away?) He bought land here and decided to make the village his project.

There are, of course, many apartment buildings here, but they often abut farmland. So you can find snails on the sidewalk and hear cowbells. At 8:00 not all the restaurants are open, and not many people wander about, though one fellow was walking two dogs--one of them a medium-sized bear. The grocery store doesn't stay open late, nor do the realtors, insurance agents, banks and similar establishments that litter the central area. All of which made it disconcertingly quiet for such a light time of day.

When I reached the Buffalo Grill (decorated with a mural of various American West images) I realized that there was no sidewalk along the main road, and backtracked. The school looked just as dreary from the other direction--warehouse city.

Voltaire is everywhere--a statue here, a bust there, a Rue Voltaire, an Avenue Voltaire, le chateau Voltaire, the Hameau Voltaire, a butcher shop, this shop, that shop--everything except a Voltaire Lingerie, which was probably too horrible a concept even for these Voltaire-mad city fathers. I wonder if he would have been flattered. Probably...