Another walking tour, this time in Tournon-sur- Rhone. This is opposite Hermitage on the other bank which makes pretty expensive wines. They have something above organic in growing the grapes, nothing artificial, no machinery and only one variety of grape for red wine - syrah. It's been pretty cold here, but today we had high winds which make 5C feel like minus 1C. This is the Mistral blowing down from the Alps and is very nice when it's 40C but not so good today. While out, our guide bumped into a friend and we had a bit of kiss-kiss. She explained the etiquette. No lip touching on any part of the face, you must make the moui sound, in Tournon it's 3 kisses, (different number in other places) start on the left, although that changes in other places, too. She said that's all there is to French kisses - apparently they didn't have a word for tongue-in-mouth French kisses until about 15 years ago. It's Galoche.
Marc Seguin, the statuesque guy, is from round here and apparently invented the suspension bridge and the steam locomotive boiler. He built a suspension bridge here in Tournon in the early 1800's. When they knocked it down a few years back, they covered the statue's head with a blanket so he wouldn't witness it's destruction. When you look into it, Seguin was more of an improver than inventor. The Menai suspension bridge by Telford was earlier & Seguin had visited Stockton-Darlington to see Stephenson's Rocket before inventing an improved version.
Hope the Mistral stops soon- I would like to get out on the bike.
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