Geneva to Seyssel
We started
our morning in Geneva rather comically.
I usually let Eric take a shower first, that way he can figure out the intricacies
of how the knobs and levers work before I go.
He had just gotten the temperature adjusted in the tub/shower combo with
the European style half-glass shower screen and went to pull the lever for the
shower when he had a rather rude awakening.
The wand sprayer was aimed directly at him as he stood outside the
tub. Needless to say he yelled with
surprise and by the time he realized what was happening and shut the water off,
he had hosed down half the bathroom.
After I mopped up the water and we
eventually got all our stuff packed up, we met the representative from
Cyclomundo in the lobby of the hotel around 8:30 a.m. to get the bikes set
up. Then we were off on our way to
Seyssel. Even though it was a Saturday
morning, it was still a little tricky getting out of Geneva with all the
traffic. Once we zigged and zagged our
way through town, we finally found ourselves in the countryside fairly quickly. It was a beautiful ride. The weather was a bit overcast but quite
nice.
A little ways out of town we were
trying to pull out of the way of a bus when Eric tangled with a killer granite
curb and went down. Luckily he was not
hurt—no blood or bruises even. The bus
driver was a bit concerned and checked to make sure we were okay. All I can say is I’m glad it was Eric that
went down and not me or lord only knows what would have happened—I’m sure there
would have been some blood and possibly broken bones involved…
As this was our first day riding we
were trying to get the hang of following the GPS tracks and making our way from
town to town. Somehow we missed the café
we were going to stop at for lunch. In
France most restaurants are only open from about noon-2 p.m. and then they close. As well, many of the small towns we rode
through were very tiny with just a few houses and nothing much else.
Needless to say, after a while we
were starving. Around 2:30 in the
afternoon we finally found a lady walking her dog on the bike path and asked
her if there were any restaurants around.
She pointed us to the main highway and after a short trip down the road
we found a hotel with what looked like a restaurant. Eric went up and asked if they served food
and apparently they were closed. So we
ordered a couple orange sodas and I think the woman took pitty on us and asked
if we wanted some sandwiches. So in our
muddled French we ordered a couple cheese sandwiches (I definitely know the
word fromage.) Boy were those sandwiches
good—slices of real French cheese on a huge crunchy baguette.
It’s a good thing we were finally
able to find food, as we had some more hill climbing to do yet before arriving
in Seyssel. The ride from Geneva to
Seyssel has the most climbing of all the legs of our trip, around 2500 ft. over
about 38 miles. We powered our way
through the rest of the climbing with some gorgeous views of the Rhone river
valley and arrived at our hotel at round 4:30 p.m. Our hotel in Seyssel, the Beau Sejour, was
right on the river with a fabulous view.
After settling into our room we
headed down for dinner in the hotel restaurant (dinner was included this
night). I had read reviews that their
restaurant was very good and the reviews were not wrong. We had a fabulous meal and then were off to
bed.
Seyssel to
Aix-les-Bains
Eric got up early and did an 18
mile ride with 3800 ft of climbing up Col de la Biche while I slept in. Once he arrived back at the hotel we headed
on our way to Aix-les-Bains. This ride
was a little shorter with a lot less climbing.
It was a beautiful ride along several rivers, on lush bike paths, and
along the lakes. We stopped along the
way at a pizzeria and had a wonderful lunch before making our way into Aix-les-Bains
around 2:30 p.m.
Needless to say we had a little nap
after arriving at our room and then we went out and wandered around the city a
little bit before turning in for the night.
Aix-les-Bains to St.
Pierre d’Albigny
Eric again got up early and did a 26.5
mile ride with 5562 ft. of climbing up Mt. Rivard before we headed on our way
to St. Pierre d’Albigny. I of course
slept in, went down and had breakfast, and then got all our bags completely
packed up and brought them down to be picked up and taken to our next
destination which was Chateau des Allures.
Eric made it back from his ride about 9:40 in the morning. He then sat in the sun in our room to thaw
out for a while. We then decided to walk
down the street to the boulangerie and buy some pastries to take along with us
in case we could not find any place to eat before arriving at our final
destination—we learned our lesson after day one of riding.
At the boulangerie we bought an
apple turnover and a chocolate croissant.
As soon as I stepped out of the boulangerie, I squished them flat as a
pancake in the bag so they would fit in our Cambelback. I can only imagine if the lady selling the
pastries saw me smashing them, she would probably pass out. We returned to the hotel to get the bikes and
then set off on our way to St. Pierre d’Albigny.
Eric had informed me that today’s
ride did not have nearly the amount of climbing, so I was looking forward to a
nice leisurely day. However, I was
obviously misinformed. There may not
have been as much climbing overall, but it was in short very steep bursts, some
about 12% or so. We also did a lot of
“off-roading” on dirt/gravel roads through many vineyards. The countryside was beautiful, I just wish
it was a little flatter… This area was
definitely wine country. Pretty much
from Aix-les-Bains to St.-Pierre-d’Albigny it was vineyard after vineyard.
Before we did some of our final
climbs and “off-roading,” we pulled off the road and sat under a big tree and
ate our pastries, which by that time were well earned. We then powered on to our destination—the
Chateau des Allures. We arrived at the
chateau a little after 4 p.m. It is
located up on a hill with magnificent views of the valley. This was by far the nicest place we would
stay on our trip. The chateau had been
lovingly restored over a three-year time period with original tile floors,
antique furnishings, etc. Outside they
had a huge vegetable garden on one side and an even bigger flower garden and
fishpond on the other side. The chateau
and the owner, Stephen, were simply amazing and I would highly recommend this
place to anyone traveling in this region.
After arriving at the chateau, we
got cleaned up and had a nap before going down to the hearth room at around
7:30 to join the other guests for wine before dinner. There were two other English couples from the
UK and another couple from Amsterdam. Two
of the couples had stayed at the chateau many, many times before. We enjoying talking with all of them before,
during, and after dinner. Several of
them were into cycling as well.
By the time we got to bed it was
nearly midnight. Needless to say, we
slept very well. The next morning we
went down to the dining room and had a fabulous breakfast and some more good conversation
with the two English couples. At around
10:30 we finally set off for our final destination of the ride, Annecy.
St. Pierre d’Albigny
to Annecy
This was the longest riding day of
our trip at approximately 44 miles with about 2300 feet of climbing. This was another beautiful day of
riding. The scenery was amazing. Although there was not as much steep
climbing, we had a pretty strong head wind most of the way to Annecy. We stopped in Albertville at a boulangerie
and bought a couple pastries, which we ate on the spot, and we bought a couple
cookies to take with us. Later we found
a nice park along the river in Ugine and stopped and ate our cookies.
We arrived in Annecy around 4:30
p.m. and fought our way through the crowd of tourists to find our hotel. When we checked in they said they had our
reservation for one night. However, we
were supposed to have a reservation for three nights. Needless to say, someone screwed up. They ended up upgrading us for the first
night to a room overlooking the lake and they said they would get it
straightened out for us.
After we got into our room, we got
cleaned up and we were of course starving.
Most restaurants don’t open until 7 p.m., but I managed to find a
pizzeria about a mile away from our hotel that opened at 5:45. So off we went on a hike across town to get
dinner. When we arrived, we were the
only customers there—the crazy Americans that eat at 5:30…
On our way back from dinner, we
walked around the lake a little bit and then headed back to the hotel to crash
into bed. Eric had informed me that over
the last four days I had ridden 140 miles and done almost 8000 ft. of
climbing. So I decided the next day we
would have to do at least a 10-mile ride so I could get to 150 miles.
The next morning after breakfast
the hotel told us they would later be moving us to another room for the next two
nights. We went out and wandered around
town for a while, did some shopping, and then came back and got our luggage moved
to the new room. Following that, we set
off on our 10-mile ride around the lake (on the side of the lake we had not
been to yet). After returning, we went
out and got some lunch and headed back to the hotel to relax for the afternoon,
type up the last three days’ of blog and download lots and lots of photos.
Our riding totals for the trip
ended up being 151.9 miles with 8351 ft. of climbing for me and for Eric, 169.6
miles with 12,105 ft. of climbing. All I
can say is I had better come home lighter after all that riding…
Annecy
We have been relaxing and enjoying
ourselves the last few days. We have
wandered around town, window shopped, taken pictures and of course eaten a lot
of really good food and pastries. I’m
sure by now I have more than likely gained back all of the weight I lost riding
here.
The highlight of our stay in Annecy
was our paragliding experience today. We
arrived at 3 p.m. in Talloires at the paragliding school and were whisked up
the mountain side to the take-off point for our approximately hour-long flight
over the valley. Neither one of us had
ever been paragliding before so it was an amazing experience. It was very peaceful floating above all the
trees and mountains. Eric got lucky as
his instructor caught some really good thermals and they soared high into the
mountains and actually went above the mountain tops.
Tomorrow is our last day in Annecy
and we will head back to Geneva in the afternoon to overnight for our early
morning flight back home on Saturday.
