5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book on French Alps (Pralognan), 7 July 2006
By Ivan Lefkovits - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pralognan La Vanoise (Paperback)
It is probable that only people travelling to Pralognan will come across this magnificent book. We are able to name a few places where Winter Olympic games were held and clearly beside St. Moritz, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Lake Placid, and Val d'Isere we recall also Pralognan. The book describes a place and it describes people, and it tells the history of an epoch gone.
I have read the English translation by Sylvia Lachmann of this book, and I read it from cover to cover. It tells the development of the place during centuries, it tells about salt mines, about children bringing goats to the pastures, about the first ascents to the mountains, about the early stages of tourism, about the time when the first roads were built, and it tells you about people and about their life.
This book gave me a lot for my first visit, and it definitely gave me the impetus to visit the place again.
If somebody wants to know which hotel he should choose, or where should he do his shopping he can buy one of many travel guides. If on the other hand he wants to understand the place (for that matter not only Pralognan), there is only one book to buy: Pralognan La Vanoise by Jacques de Leymarie and Sylvia Lachmann.
Review written by:
Ivan Lefkovits
Basel
Switzerland