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Published: October 29th 2011
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I am always prepared to be a flâneur when visiting foreign places. In his book A Writer’s Paris – a guided journey for the creative soul, Eric Maisel defines the flâneur as “an observer who wanders the streets of a great city on a mission to notice with childlike enjoyment the smallest events and the obscurest sights”. I think this is a difficult art form for most Americans. Often taught to be ethnocentric, and even if interested in non-American places, taught to rush through as many sights as quickly as possible, we find it nearly impossible to give value to such ‘trivial’ experiences as watching a small child playing in a Parisian sandbox, or enjoying the endlessly circling flight of pigeons around an Italian church’s bell tower, or marveling at the changing hues as the sun sets over the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. So, get into shape for walking, but when you arrive force yourself to slow down and really look at the things that are surrounding you. So what if you return to the States without photos of everything your friends think you should have seen? Isn’t it enough that you can say to yourself “I saw life in
Paris, or Florence, or Rome, or Yorkshire”? Just such an encounter with life, catalyzed by a flâneur stroll, happened to me on a recent trip to Switzerland.
As I walked slowly back from turning in my ski equipment at the rental shop towards my chalet in the Swiss village of Axalp, I was captivated by the grandeur of the mountains. The snow-covered peaks reminded me of the many mountaineering stories I had encountered as an adolescent and still loved. I had dreamed of climbing some of these peaks – the Eiger and the Matterhorn to name just two. I had never managed to generate enough passion and courage to do this, yet my stroll was allowing me to revisit those dreams. But the mountains were not the whole, or even the main part of this flâneur experience. I paused to watch and photograph the children being taught to ski on the gentle slope where I, a few hours earlier, had been trying to remain vertical on my skis. I walked a few more steps and paused to gaze across a velvety snow-covered valley to a hillside that was crisscrossed with the geometric patterns left by hundreds of skiers. Both
the unbroken and ski-etched surfaces possessed grandeur. The one from the smoothness that made you want to lay gently into its embrace, and the other from the appearance of a giant finger having traced lines into the white expanse. Less than 100 meters further on, I again stopped to stare at and photograph the scene, this time the chalets that looked as if they had been picked up and pushed down until they were half submerged in soft, white cake frosting. After a 45-minute stroll that could have taken only 5 without my repeated stops, I arrived at our chalet. I hesitated at the door and turned to look behind me. For the first time, I noticed the tree that stood just across the road and not more than 50 feet away. The colors and shapes possessed by the trunk and branches of this large hardwood made a beautiful contrast to the white blanket surrounding its base and laying along some of its thick horizontal branches. Again I gazed for several minutes, and snapped numerous photographic records of what I was seeing. The world would not have ended if I had hurried back from the rental shop to our chalet.
But, I would have been poorer if I had not chosen to apply the discipline of the flâneur.
Being a flâneur, however, does not always mean that you experience life separate from human contact. In fact, I believe that some of the best opportunities come when you throw yourself into the breach so to speak. For example, I love European coffee bars. The language is always foreign to me and the coffees are almost always wonderful. But the main reason I am so fond of these places is because of the nearly universal reaction I elicit from the servers behind the bar. They always demonstrate body language and verbiage that indicates their belief that I have ordered the wrong product. Like one morning, when I moved to the front of the line at the Zurich airport espresso counter and said “Espresso dopio, please” the young woman looked at me with raised eyebrows and said in her best English with a Swiss German accent, “Do you want strong coffee?” I laughed and replied, “Yes, I would like very strong coffee.” They are even more perplexed when I leave the long thin sugar packets unopened and the milk untouched – I
like very strong, black coffee.
I also love flâneur-esque interactions involving European ticket agents. They are almost always helpful, but also almost always slightly harried – as I would be if I had to answer, in a multitude of languages, the same questions of “When did you say this train leaves?”, “What platform do I need?” and “How do I get to that platform?” So, when I brandished the printout of the train information sent to me by my host who lives with his family in Brienz, Switzerland – a printout clearly containing platform and time for my train – while asking the above questions the woman behind the glass responded with “Sir, it is written on the sheet that you are holding.” Ticket agents 1 : stupid American 0.
As I boarded this train I reflected on the fact that my wife Frances and I have had some of our very richest flâneur experiences while riding in trains, buses and taxis in foreign countries. I think some of the enjoyment comes from the novelty of mass transit for two Americans who use their cars to go everywhere. But the main reason this mode of travel has generated so much fun for us is the very presence of the masses, and the opportunity to listen and watch them do life. A prime example was the train trip from Zurich to Brienz via Lucerne that followed my interaction with the weary ticket agent. Even if I had not looked outside at the snow covered landscape, it would have been obvious from the water proof pants worn by many of my fellow travelers, along with the bags filled with skis and snowboards, that I was traveling in winter time. When I did happen to glance up from my book to give a soft whistle of amazement at one of the many houses with a cap of 4-5 feet of snow perched on its roof, the young woman across from me laughed and said “A lot of snow!” A conversation evolved during which we exchanged information about where we were from, to whom we were married and how many children we were responsible for. Finally we got around to why I was in Switzerland. When I explained that I was here to lecture, serve on a PhD committee and to visit with friends, she gave the usual and accurate assessment that I was extremely fortunate to have a job that paid me to travel and see the world. However, when I then told her that the next day, in the Swiss Alps, would mark the very first time I would ski she looked even more alarmed than the woman who served me at the espresso bar. Her query of “Do you have good insurance?” was eerily similar to my wife Frances’ “Well, I guess it is o.k. for you to go skiing, since we have enough life insurance.” It’s sometimes hard to be a flâneur when all around you are those predicting your sudden and imminent demise.
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Welcome Michael :)
On behalf of the moderators here at TravelBlog, I would like to welcome you to the site. All are welcome, especially flaneurs. Happy travels, wherever they may be. Nick