This is the second part of my account of a great bike tour that I did this summer in France and Switzerland through the Jura and along the upper Rhone valley. I hope that it inspires you to get out there.
Saturday 24 July: Le Sentier – Geneva 64k, 662m
I wake up to that rare thing: a morning thunderstorm: lightning flashing away in the distance. One of those days where you look at the weather apps on your phone and assess when you should make a break for it. My impression of the uselessness of the hotel is confirmed by the breakfast: hardly any selection and a rather mean sign saying that you are only allowed one hot drink.
At a certain point, the rain seems to have cleared and the radar is looking clear, so I head out. After a few kilometres warming up along the flat of the valley, I am about to set out on the one big hill of the day when the rain starts pouring down. Luckily, I am in the village of Le Brassus and find shelter next to a closed business.
I wait for half an hour, checking the apps for signs of clearing and trying to keep warmed up. I wait for at least five minutes without rain and then gingerly start heading up the hill. This turns out to be a good decision because the rain does not come back and the storm has left the air beautifully cool. The hill is pretty steep and long: 300m over 4km at an average of over 7%. But in the cool air, and with not too much traffic, I settle down and enjoy it, taking regular breaks to enjoy the changing landscape and rewarding views: a total contrast to the sweaty slog of the day before. There is something rather meditative about a long climb in cool air.
And at the top, I am rewarded with a wonderful long plateau through the Parc naturel régional Jura vaudois, 11km of gentle up and down along decently paved farm roads with views across to stone walls and cow pastures, with nothing but the occasional Saturday cyclist passing me occasionally with that friendly look of mutual respect for making it up the hill. It is quite magnificent.
Then the descent and a wonderful first view of Lake Geneva: pale blue and languid in the distance: a beautiful slow and long descent over 20k, slowly losing all the elevation that I have built up over the previous week, but getting full value.
Away from the pines to the vineyards and wheat fields of the surprising wide Geneva valley, my route keeping me on mostly quiet roads where one can sit back and take it all in.
After I pass Nyon, the slow accumulation of commuter towns as I head towards Geneva, and then after passing round the side of the airport, to the suburb of Grand Saconnex and a rendezvous with my old friend Elenka at the Slovak mission to the UN. Technically I cross another border, onto Slovak territory…
Elenka cooks an early supper of hearty meat and vegetable stew and then we head out to the centre of Geneva and the lake for a walk, catching up in person for the first time since I stayed with her on another bike trip in 2015 when she was still in Bratislava. We speak about all the difficulties of the past years but also the good moments that one can find in between if one is open to them.
We time our walk just right because as we get in the tram to go back, it starts absolutely heaving it down again. An early night in a guest room, coughing away with my bike bag propped under the pillow to help…
Sunday 25 July: Geneva – Seyssel: 64k, 511m
Breakfast is the key meal for cyclists: a chance to fuel up for the day. When I get to Elenka’s apartment, she has rustled up a breakfast fit for the Tour de France: omelette, melons, peppers, pie, coffee and finally herbal tea with honey for my rickety throat.
We say sad goodbyes and I head off through the quiet Geneva streets, downhill and out through the usual urban detritus and stop for a photo when I cross the Rhone for the first time after nearly 5km.
And then notice something in the pocket of my bike jersey: the key to the guest room… So I call Elenka and head back to repeat the whole exercise for a second time… Then finally over the river and out, out, out… Out into vineyards with hills stretching away in the distance on either side. After the storm, the heat started rising again.
I had looked at my route the previous night and realised that I could be missing some great landscape so made a short deviation along the main road to Vallery and Vulbens, crossing the French border quietly, my final crossing before my return to Brussels. Again no one around.
Then onto the Via Rhona bike route and up to the edge of the Rhone valley and beautiful views of a gorge and the L’Ecluse fort and that deep turquoise Upper Rhone. A motor biker pulled up and said that he had just bicycled up and down the Via Rhona and complained that it was getting too full of bike tourists… Yet until I reached the middle Rhone near Lyon days later, I hardly came across anyone. My only encounter was not far from the gorge, a fully laden Frenchman from Lille coming the other way and doing a tour of the region, and like me, absolutely loving it.
After a long steady and rather enjoyable uphill of 3-5% and then some quite boring countryside, I hit the highlight: a simply stunning bit of road around the town of Usinens: the Rhone valley wide open in the late afternoon sunlight: pale blue hills melting into green pastures and amazing views in all directions. I stopped for my ‘lunch’: Elenka’s cherry pie and savoured it all. No mass of passing cars. Indeed no one at all apart from some bored boys trying to use a scooter like a go-kart down the slim hill. The golden landscape in that serene moment is mine, mine, mine and mine alone.
And I think to my friends and family who tell me that I am very brave and foolhardy to be undertaking these trips. What bravery is this to pedal somewhere beautiful and take it all in… and eat a nice slice of cherry pie?
Then downhill, floating through this wonderland, a brief stretch along the main road and then the town of Seyssel strung out on both sides of the very full and stunningly turquoise Rhone.
And my hotel, the hotel du Rhone, was pretty perfect: a lovely calming room with beautiful wallpaper of golden fishes on a blue pond and A/C, wonderful A/C…
So I set out in a good mood for a dinner fit for a champion, armed with a Google Maps list of 6 or 7 places. Hmmm, my hotel restaurant: closed until Tuesday. Le Bouchon du P’tit Pont next door, ordinarily open on Sundays but ‘exceptionnellement fermée’. The Café du Pont, up past the bridge: closed on Sundays. The Hotel du Beau Sejour: shutters down, no sign of life. So I wandered across the bridge into the main part of town: the Brasserie du Rumilly: closed on Sundays. And so on…
Indeed the only place remotely open was the takeout Pizzeria La Venise, with a queue pretty much stretching down the street. I finally ordered… and was told to come back in an hour… Which turned out to be an hour and a half… I can’t say that it was the most amazing food that I have ever had in my life… but it did at least qualify as food and I scarfed it down.
Monday 26 July: Seyssel
I woke up after a relatively cough-free and air conditioned night and after a decent breakfast, got on with the usual day-off errands of clothes washing, postcard writing, and trying to catch up on my videos.
And then wandered around Seyssel, quickly establishing that a) half the place was dug up, b) the other half had left for holidays. I googled for things to do and discovered little despite the splendid surroundings.
So I had lunch at the Café du Port on the riverside and very nice it was too: a decent steak and chips and glass of the local red while the locals chainsmoked their way to oblivion.
In the evening, I walked along the bank and sat down to admire the river and a speedboat going up and down. An old man came up and made some comment that invited conversation so I engaged. He was a lawyer specialising in helping people who could no longer help themselves and was there to help put their legal affairs in order – and he hinted protect them from themselves and those who would take advantage of them. He had lived in Lyon but had ended up in Seyssel a few years ago “to be closer to my clients”.
I said that I was surprised by Seyssel: such a beautiful spot yet falling to bits and lacking life. He very much agreed. “Ce que je critique c’est une léthargie, une manque de dynamisme” (What I criticise is a lethargy, a lack of dynamism”).
We talked about Europe, we talked about Macron, we talked about populism. At the time, Macron was introducing a requirement for people to prove vaccination to be admitted to restaurants or other indoor spaces. He said that he sympathised with the protests. “I have not had the vaccine and nor have any of my friends.” He came up with the most common reason: it had all been developed so quickly.
Now my friend Elenka had pointed out to me that the MRNA vaccine was not exactly new: it had been tested during the SARS epidemic and been proven to work. So I relayed this to my new friend and suggested that one might not have made strawberry mousse before but if one had a decent recipe for raspberry mousse, one was already pretty sure that it would work. And as he walked away at the end of our chat, he said “You know, I will get vaccinated. But Pfizer.” And I thanked him and walked away thinking that I had done one small thing to make peoples’ lives better.
And then went in search of something to eat and having been turned away from the Hotel du Beau Sejour, ended up gratefully at the Café du Port for another pizza…
Tuesday 27 July: Seyssel – Aix-les-Bains: 34 km, 267m
Away, away, away, from this frustrating town of Seyssel to… anywhere… I don’t care.
On paper, a very boring and short ride over to Aix-les-Bains, but after a few kilometres of flat along the Rhone, a steep ascent takes me to sunlit vineyards, to green mountains curving away to my left, to small but happy villages and auberges broadcasting their prowess in cooking frogs… and a few elderly pelotons passing me on another gorgeous morning and giving words of admiration and encouragement.
What could have been a soulless and short ride turns into something rather uplifting and magical.
And that is before the descent to the lake. I had imagined it as dull and over-touristed as those boring lakes out of Pontarlier, but immediately I see it, I am seduced by its calm turquoise magnificence. The bike lane goes right up against the water. I seriously consider jumping in.
In a car, this show would be over in 20 minutes flat, with a line of impatient cars right behind you making their feelings known, but on a bike, you can just take your time and enjoy the sheer perfection, the sheer moment of being, and feel lucky to be there at that moment in time after all that has happened. You can absorb the gentle lapping of the lake, the perfect mid-20s temperature, the soft caresses of the sun, and appreciate being there under your own power, having pushed your own way over 300 kilometres, and no wonder you are getting some respect from other cyclists.
These are the moments that you dream about. The moments that reward every sweat-drenched ascent, every strain in your muscles, every thankless French town subsisting on pizza.
They are yours. No need to search for some layby to park. Just lean the bike against the railings and soak it all in. Well done!
Sadly the glory of the lake did not last for ever and I was finally yanked away uphill to the rather ugly main part of the town, but luckily just off a busy road, the Logis Auberge Saint Simond, an oasis of calm run by very nice ad helpful staff and again a fine small room with AC. I took it easy, going for a walk over to the lake before taking a swim in the hotel pool and then a lovely dinner outside in the setting sun: a tomato tatin, sauteed perch and finally a rather odd parfait glace flavoured with Chartreux, and all with a few fine glasses of medicinal wine. And my cough was finally going, hurrah!
Wednesday 28 July: Aix-les-Bains – St-Genix: 49k 387m
I wake up to the sound of rain pattering on the table outside my room. I start with moody grey skies as I skirt the Lac du Bourget, but all the better for it as it keeps it nice and cool and gives the lake a rather romantic and mysterious feel. After 10k, I head up the hill: not too aggressive and not too long: only 150 metres.
And then through a dedicated pedestrian/bike tunnel parallel to the Tunnel du Chat. When renovating the road tunnel, the authorities had the rather good idea of making the – now compulsory – fire escape tunnel usable and open for cyclists and pedestrians during ordinary times. It goes on for a solid and rather chilly kilometre and a half – or nearly a mile – and has been decorated every twenty to fifty metres or so with simple motifs showing the highlights and towns of the region.
Then out, away from the main road and along the quiet country roads linking La Platiere, Haut Somont and Landrecin. I have it all to myself and it is jaw dropping as I slowly and enjoyably wind my way back down to the Rhone. Do you ever feel that landscape has been designed just for you? I did that day.
Then back onto the Via Rhona, well away from cars, and the company of more conventional cyclists: a patch of wonderful landscape with the hills again peeling away in the distance, large cliffs showing the force of the glacier that must have been here millions of years before, now reduced to this narrow turquoise river.
As with the day before, all good things come to an end and as I approach my destination, my route pulls away from the river and back through farmland: fields heavy with ripening corn. Like thousands of sprouting Boris Johnsons…
Then to St-Genix-sur-Guiers. I slog up the hill to my hotel: a converted chateau, only to find absolutely no one around and a sign saying that guests must arrive between 5 and 6, so I have an hour to kill and descend back down into the town.
I had hoped for a charming small French town and… well it was small. Unlike Seyssel though, there was little charm in the buildings or setting, and little to see in the place itself. Luckily, I locate a decent hotel restaurant – the Coq en Velours– over the river from the town in the amusingly named Gare de l’Est and go in and make a reservation for the evening just to be sure.
Then I am finally able to check in. The owner walks around with no mask on and no reaction to the fact that I am clearly wearing one. Indeed, everyone there is walking around without a mask, even though the infection rate in France is soaring.
For the money that I am paying, I expect at least a decent room where I can escape from the Covidiots, but am given an airless and baking hot small top floor garret with just about enough room to lay out my bags.
My consolation comes with another decent dinner though at the place I had booked: sitting outside in the back garden with a glass of white, and a three-course meal of smoked trout on a bed of cucumber, pickle and pureed beetroot, followed by the signature dish of ‘coq en velours’: cock in a creamy brown sauce, and finished with a glacé flavoured with verbena, a bit sweet for my tastes.
Then reluctantly back to that hot and COVID-heavy hotel, windows as open as I can get them and fan full on all night… You can’t have everything.
Thursday 29 July: St-Genix – Pérouges – 71k, 480m
Again, away, away from this noxious place before I succumb to the germs: even the breakfast was poor. Absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.
But a beautiful morning to be out and I was not the only one: I was overtaken by another peloton on the road out of Gare de l’Est.
France is a wonderful place for cycling: not just the landscapes and towns – shitty little places like St-Genix notwithstanding – but the attitude and patience of the drivers. It’s as though they are scared that the riders in front of them might contain the next Tour de France winner. Nowhere else do drivers treat cyclists like royalty, even in holy Belgium where there are regular shouts of encouragement to the straggling cyclist.
And again I saw it on that morning as a car waited a solid three minutes behind a bunch of riders going side-saddle and not going at a particularly fast pace. In the UK, there would have been angry shouts and swearwords exchanged and in most other parts of Europe, some crazy bit of overtaking, pancaking the cyclists into the hedges. But not in France.
Always a good sign to be on the penultimate riding day and loving it, loving it, loving it. Only my loyalty to my dear exhausted boss drives me back home to replace her for August.
But the Rhone is flattening out. Good for the wine. Less good for the interest. So it was a long hot day in the saddle, trying to keep myself going. Ironically the best bit was when I was forced to take a deviation because of a bridge closure and took off uphill away from the main road to the pleasant village of Lluis before a great descent back to the Rhone.
At St-Genix, I had decided to indulge myself and try out the local pastry, given that the tourist information signs had been banging on about it. I ask at a local bakery, and she points to a great massive cake as if I am an idiot, so I duly buy and save for lunch. When I open it for lunch and cut away a slice, I find it to be a cake made entirely of… red… Not strawberry, raspberry, redcurrant or anything interesting like that. Just red food dye. Red syrup with bits of candied red. There really is nothing redeeming about that town.
Finally I reach Meximieux and my hotel, picked for its closeness to the historic town of Pérouges and have a good wander about the town before heading down for dinner.
The hotel restaurant is packed so they give me a table indoors and ignore me for the rest of the evening. Having seen frogs’ legs advertised on restaurant boards since Seyssel, I go for it. The frogs are fine but are smothered in garlic, taking away whatever taste they might have had.
But at least the hotel has AC and people wearing masks…
Friday 30 July: Pérouges – Lyon : 45km, 189m
The end of the road. Final days on the road can be so sad and anticlimactic. I set off reasonably early – 10am on the dot which is good by my standards – pressed out by the forecast of imminent rain, thunder, hail, frogs (garlicked and non-garlicked), cats, dogs, locusts…
I beat my way through an extremely boring 45k of monotonous country lanes, sandy towpaths, mud paths, and boring, boring suburbs, with not an automatic cheese dispenser in sight. I would even have settled for an automatic red pie dispenser. But on, on, on to my endpoint with the skies gloomy but not stormy overhead. Even the entrance to Lyon was boring: long bike paths along the now bloated and brown Rhone with not a glimpse of the city until the final stretch: an urban promenade floating under bridges and filled with bikers, joggers and the homeless.
A final crossing over the Rhone and through some tunnels to my hotel, where the rain finally came after I had checked in, leaving my poor bike in an internal courtyard to take it. While I settled into the Brasserie Georges next door, a good old hall in the grand style such as one used to have in Brussels with the late lamented Falstaff, and ordered an andouillette. It comes out with a bed of mashed potatoes and gravy and a medicinal but cheap Côtes du Rhône. I slice it open to an almost sickening odour almost as repellent as that dairy and plunge in to its awful, nasty, delicious wonder.
And then I take a nap.
A Friday evening in Lyon, the gastronomic capital of France. I find a nice bistro near my hotel where the wine is plentiful, the ambiance good, and… I really don’t remember what I had apart from that it was good and I wandered back to my hotel replete, following the bridges over the Rhone and the Saone, some lit up, the city breathing a slow nervous release.
Saturday 30 July: Lyon – Brussels
I always find myself fidgety on last days even when in my case, my departure isn’t until 7 in the evening. I scratch around Lyon, looking at my watch, with eight hours to go…
It is an odd place: a mixture of several cities and a meeting point of cultures and parts of France: tied both to the hills and to the south by the Rhone, but also recognisably industrial. It is a mixture of fancy middle class and gritty working class. A city of yellows, reds… and greys. It is recognisably still Lugdunum. Suddenly an image from an Asterix book read many decades ago flickers back in my mind.
The fact that two rivers meet, sidling alongside each other for a few kilometres somehow sums it up. I wish I had more time to wander, to get lost.
I wander up to the hills overlooking the city, to the Roman remains, to the basilique, and then back down again across the rivers… in search of an American. Earlier this year, I had read Bill Buford’s book “Dirt” about his experiences as a trainee chef – and already famous culinary author – in Lyon. I was curious to visit the area that he lived in, between the Quai St Vincent and the Place Sathonay, and to try to guess at where the bakery run by the late Bob was – where Buford serves a kind of apprenticeship – and where the Bufords lived. Sadly his favourite local – Le Bouchon des Filles – is closed for August but I find a restaurant on the Place Sathonay that is buzzing with people on a sunny Saturday lunchtime and I sit and order. A smoked trout with a side salad. And then a chicken supreme almost on its own, like a moment when a rock star steps away from the pyrotechnics, the light display and the backing singers, and just sings…
Almost on its own. There is a small guitar accompaniment of stringy well-fried chips. And nothing else. It is simple. It is magnificent. It is time to go home.
And so I wait for my time to leave, watching police vans and protesters at an anti-Macron protester amass on the bridges and when I do ride towards the main station, I have to take a few detours to avoid the protestors and the police barricades.
Then after waiting an hour for my train to be signalled, a rush to get it up onto the platform and twisted and turned into some kind of shape to be lugged aboard the train and protected against idiots who cannot see that it’s a bicycle and all done while wearing an FFP2 mask, dealing with idiots who refuse to wear the mask and this is getting tiresome all these idiots I really do not need this why not start thinking of someone else beyond your lunkhead small willied self just putting that out there I want to live and it’s a bloody bicycle what do you think it is no please do not crash your suitcase into it or I will cream you.
There really must be easier ways of doing all this. And I am tired, tired, tired and it is time to get home. And eventually the train pulls into the Gare du Midi at just after eleven on a Saturday night and alone on a grey platform, I bring Susan back to life.
And off I go, a blinking light attached to my GoPro, up the hill, reversing the route taken on a grey morning two weeks ago. Out through the bars, the prostitute-heavy Avenue Louise, the empty petrol stations, the slow signs of Brussels also starting to emerge, out along the Avenue de la Couronne and the Boulevard General Jacques to Auderghem my sweet home, and just after midnight I am back home and everything is safe.
And I pull out of my saddle bags a dinner sandwich of Rosette de Lyon with cornichons. And a bottle of Cotes du Rhone bought earlier in Lyon. For purely medicinal purposes.
And I sit outside on my patio and enjoy.
I hope that you enjoyed this. Either way, please leave a comment and let me know what you enjoyed or what I can improve. Thanks a lot.
