Last night I stayed at this B&B hotel, a kind of automatic hotel without a receptionist, you get in by typing a code into a machine, and open sesame.Opposite is a major truck re-fuelling stop, huge artics roll in all day and night to fill up. I eat in a “Les Routiers” style restaurant, one price for all meals, choose main course and self-service entree from a buffet. On other occasions free bottles of red wine have been provided on the tables, but here you buy a glass from the bar, probably drinking and driving artics doesn’t go together and most of the lorry drivers aren’t drinking anyway. Nice food, I have chicken and chips.No forest tracks or quiet back-roads today, a steady uphill drag on the cycle lane of the main road. It’s not too busy, all the long-distance and heavy traffic uses the motorway, so this is local traffic, not too bad. This narrow valley contains the main road, the motorway and the railway, all crammed in, so no alternatives.The occasional small town provides refreshments. There are other cyclists about, they are going up the Tour-de-France climbs nearby, “Col du Telegraphe” and “La Galibier”.
The main road goes through a good few kilometres of dusty smoky industry, it looks like they are mining roadstone or something. Huge railway sidings. Later research reveals that this is an aluminium smelting unit, which was run-down but has recently been purchased form Rio Tinto by a German company, Trimet, now being expanded, hence the extensive roadworks and re-routing of the road which confuses my satnav for a while.
Finally after 4 hours going up the main road I turn off, up steeper slopes, towards my destination for the evening, the ski-resort village of Aussois.Which appears after a couple of hours of hot climbing.
the church has an interesting looking door, dates from 17th century.
Has an elaborate interior, with piped Gregorian chant.The hotel is small and cosy and my room has a balcony with a view. There are only five of us for dinner, the others are late down so I eat alone, chatting to the friendly receptionist/waiter/perhaps cook too. He puts my table looking out of the open french windows over the mountain-tops, which go pink briefly as the sun descends behind us, bats flutter about, I can’t remember the French for “bat”, and he doesn’t understand the english, I resort to “Fledermaus” but that is lost on him too, not an opera fan obvs.
