Storytime in Saint-Lary-Soulan

Getting a bargain on off-season travel is instinctual when you are young and poor, trying to cram it all in. It is however, a gamble. I was at Saint-Lary-Soulan for a ski holiday at the start of the season, but we were there before the snow… and every other tourist. Unexpectedly, we had to account for time that we didn’t previously have, in a tiny town of 1000 we felt lost in the stone village. Trying to work out a plan we pawed over the solely French resources.
We were walking back from the supermarket. Brows furrowed; head in brochure, when a change in the light caught my eye. We had passed under a streetlamp. An ornate street light with a Victorian style lantern box that bathed us in a white glow.
In New Zealand the streetlights are tall and bare for illumination only. This light before me had broken free of some story. We were nestled in the middle of the mountains and when I looked away from the street lamp I knew that this was the image that I would carry with me long after this trip was over. The mountains were looming and intimidating behind me in front of deep navy backdrop. The hills appeared to be glowing, and I was drawn into the story. I expected Dracula to fly down and sweep me away. Wandering down the empty streets in the dark not another soul in sight but us, I could feel our murder slipping by undetected in time or man riding by in a carriage and a top hat to say that we are no good for their daughter. It was liberating, exhilarating and thrilling to be in a place that had only ever existed in your imagination before.
Near to the light was a giant mosaic bear. It would have been 4 meters tall and was wearing a yellow shirt, one arm was wrapped around a small mosaic blond haired boy, the other arm held and egg. To this day I do not know what that bear stood for. Did they fear the bear? Honour the bear? If I ever have one piece of advice for travelling it is this, never let anyone make you feel bad for taking silly pictures. Pictures are what you have when you get home; when your sky is orange and your streetlamps plain. At some point reality will catch up and these silly pictures will be all you have to remember it by. So don’t just take artful landscape shots, you can get those of the internet. Take the picture lying dead in a giant bears arms. Those shots will remind you that you were there. Of the unearthly blue glow. The thrill in your heart as a bear swept you off your feet for a night you’d never forget.