For many years we've been fortunate to have a mountain retreat in the village of Saint Gervais Les Bains Mont Blanc (to give the correct and full title). Technically the peak of Mont Blanc sits within the commune boundary of StG.
We started going to this part of the French alps something like 20 years ago when the children were young as it is a great place to learn to ski, basically as soon as they would take the children in ski school. Then after a number of years of coming every winter and then starting to come in the summer we bought somewhere, then as the children grew up and more and more people wanted to come out with us we sold that and bought somewhere a lot bigger. Both places we renovated, by that I mean ripped back to the walls, then new everything from there on in.
StG is not just a winter resort one of the things we've seen change the most in 20 years is the summer in the valley in the last 10 years we've had two visits from the Tour de France including a summit finish at Le Bettex. We've had countless other cycling events start/finish/come thru the village in that time as well such as Le Dauphine. We also have the Tour de Mont Blanc every year. The village also has the Tramway de Mont Blanc pass thru it as well.
It allows us to enjoy our passions of skiing (all of us), cycling (me), walking (mainly my wife), eating good food and drinking good wine (all of us).
Anyway today was the 43rd Agricultural Fair, this should have been the 45th, but a small event called COVID intervened in the middle.
Put simply they close off the village from 0400 on the Sunday morning animals arrive, stall holders arrive and finally people arrive from about 0900. It is a day long event with plenty of food and drink available from one of the local clubs putting on a catered lunch an dinner in the Espace Mont Blanc all the way to stall holders selling all types of food such as Tartiflette, you also have a lot of the local drink producers such as the Marmotte Brewery and Distillerie Saint Gervais, the later has the distinction of being the highest distillery in Europe, plus the owner happens to be a friend.
You have stall holders selling cheese, meat, clothes, fruit and vegetables, cow bells, hand carved "stuff", lots of other things you would typically expect and associate with the Alps, pretty much everything as well as lots of local clubs and societies. You also have the StG mountain rescue, artisan apple crushing, the local orchestra and bands, the ski resort team selling discounted ski passes for the upcoming season, roofers, tree surgeons, the list just goes on. Of course the local shops restaurants and bars are open as well, even the local car dealers bring up vehicles.
Oh yes and of course lots of animals cows, horses, sheep to name just a few. Like every other agricultural fair they also judge and award prizes for the animals.
Having been coming to and resident (for some of the year) for many years it very much feels like home, we know a lot of people and you seem to spend half your day catching up with people you bump into in the street or whose shop you pop into.
Somehow they always manage to have perfect weather for it as well, today was no exception.
I will write some more about StG, the scenery is as you'd expect stunning and so much has changed for the better in those 20 years, of course the start of the ski season at the top of the Chamonix Valley is only 6 weeks away!
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