Hemingway and Us

When this European adventure was first conceived off, months and months ago (before talk of Australia and Melbourne and well before the notion of a year abroad was even on the table) I knew I wanted to hike across the Swiss-Italian boarder.

You see, I read this book. Well actually, my best friend Christina read it first, and then insisted I do the same. I was fresh out of university at the time, and still overly idealistic. So, soon after Christina pushed The Paris Wife into my hands I became slightly obsessed with Ernst Hemingway and the 1920's in Paris. You see, in this book (and in life), Hemingway spent the first decade after World War I living in Paris in this tiny apartment beside a saw mill with his first wife Hadley Richardson. And that's when he decided he was going to make it as a writer.

Hemingway and Hadley spent the 20's dirt poor, but rich in love and wine and words. They moved through social circles full of famous ex-pats who escaped America for Paris at the height of prohibition. Characters making regular appearances in The Paris Wife include: Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford... to name a few.

Anyway, I'm getting off track, but it's important to convey just how excited I am about this next leg of our European journey.

So the two are living a modest life in Paris when Hemingway decides to give writing a go. Soon after he begins working as a foreign corespondent. It's hard work but he's got steady money coming in for the first time since the war, so when he gets his first paycheck he does what every 20-something does with their first big pay: he whisks Hadley off to Italy to celebrate. They take the train from Paris to Chamby-sur-Montreux and decide to hike over St. Bernard's Pass from Switzerland to Aosta, just beyond the boarder. It's June, and the snow in the Alps has far from thawed, but Hemingway is an adventurer at heart and far from deterred.

Writing to Gertrude Stein from Milan on June 11th, Hemingway bragged that he hiked 57 kilometers in two days, and that "it was a great trek because the pass wasn't even open yet". Apparently it took Hemingway "a shot of cognac every two hundred yards" to propel himself up the last snow-covered part of the ascent. Hadley, who wore low-cut oxfords, developed substantial blisters during the two days of hiking through snow, and could barely walk by the time they reached Aosta.

How romantic!

No but really, I realize this story is far from ideal, but something about it has stuck with me. I began Googling madly, everything I could find about Great St. Bernard's Pass, and was determined to one day follow in Hadley and Hem's footsteps, if I ever found myself a reason to go to Switzerland.

Flash forward to today: a regular Thursday evening, except I'm sitting in a hotel room in Martigny, Switzerland (just south of Montreux where Hemingway and Hadley embarked on their journey) ready to make the trek. We head out tomorrow morning: first by train to Orsières, and then making our ascent through tiny Swiss towns until we reach our evening accommodation at Auberge de l'Hospice on the Col de Grand St. Bernard, smack dab on the boarder of Switzerland and Italy.

To follow in Hemingway's footsteps, and Napoleon's before him, and Charlemagne's way before that, is really a dream come true. My inner history-geek will be squealing all the way up the mountain tomorrow. Now here's hoping for no rain!

Until then...

Cheers,
Heather