Tintin Forums

In Tintin in Tibet, Tintin comes to know of Chang's ’plane's disaster and heads to rescue him to Kathmandu. My question is if he was not staying in Kathmandu, then where was he holidaying and where did he return from on his hike in the opening scene?

I think that Tintin was in Switzerland at the beginning of the story. France is not particularly mountainous the way Switzerland is, even though there are French signs...

I think that there was enough time for him to travel between there and India in the slot Herge allowed in the story...

They're holidaying in the French Alps.
This was made clearer in the original version of the story - published in Tintin magazine - where the first page included a panel introducing the town of Vargèse (this panel was in the place where the title "Tintin in Tibet" is now).

I believe (though I'd need someone else to confirm it, as I don't have my copy of Hergé and Tintin Reporters with me) that it said Vargèse was in the Haute-Savoie region of France.

Ed

EDIT: please excuse the double-post, snafu!

I might be wrong here but I thought that Vargèse was a fictional town? Also, neither the opening frame (which Ed mentions) nor the letter (from Chang forwarded to Tintin in Vargèse) mentions which country they are in.

Another point; the town first appears in the Jo Zette and Jocko story The Valley of the Cobras (1957) and at one point (although I don't have the book to hand) I think M. Legrand mentions that he can see Mont Blanc from the resort. Mont Blanc is in France although I expect you can also see the mountain from Switerland (even Italy!)

Jo, Zette and Jocko spent the winter (or lived there) at the beginning of Valley of the Cobras, although the town looks entirely different to the one Tintin stayed at.

When researching this for my site I could find no mention of Vargese as anywhere but in Tintin, it is not a Ski resort in France at any rate

Rik

Yes I'm pretty sure Vargèse is fictional, though I do recall some mention of it being in Haute-Savoie - it may well be in The Valley of the Cobras though. Either way it's France, though admittedly not far from both Switzerland and Italy!

Ed

I think M. Legrand mentions that he can see Mont Blanc from the resort

Ah, I've just confirmed this by reading it on the Valley of the Cobras page on jockosjungle's site! There's a link there as well to some facts about Mont Blanc. It was actually one of only 8 results which came up when Googling for ‘Tintin’ and ‘Vargèse’

Ed I do recall some mention of it being in Haute-Savoie

I also remember reading somewhere that it is supposed to be in France but annoyingly I can‘t remember where I saw this info... :/


Cheers!

But on envelope in Tintin In Tibet album it is Vargen, not Vargese. [Vargen is a town in Sweden]

But on envelope in Tintin In Tibet album it is Vargen, not Vargese.

In which translation is this, Levent? In both the English and French editions the envelope clearly says 'Vargèse'.

Ed

edcharlesadams wrote: In which translation is this, Levent? In both the English and French editions the envelope clearly says 'Vargèse'.

In the Swedish translation, it undoubtedly looks like "Vargen", the last "-se" are so thin and narrow that they look like a "n".

Speaking of Sweden, I'm a Swede but unaware of any Swedish town named Vargen (which means "The Wolf" in Swedish). There is a place called Vargön (Wolf Island), but it's not a town, and there's a town called Varberg, but none of them are close to Kalmar which Levent mentioned in another post.