Leaving the lake behind.A fine cockerel on this memorial. I think a cockerel is a good national animal, Lion is a bit OTT is it not, Bulldog is simply crass.
The plan for today, made back in the comfort of my living room, was far too ambitious, involving two sections of the route, challenging in themselves. So I was going to do the first section (mainly uphill) on the road, then decide about the second.
Well, the first section went ok. So I decided to do the second one off-road.
But this didn’t go well, lots of walkers on the route, some kind of event. So I looked again at the map and saw a short-cut of about 15k to go by road and join the off-road section further along.
It was 15k as the crow flies, but involved a huge drop and climb back up. An extra, unnecessary 650m of vertical climb, and the entire first section had been 520m, so I was more than doubling the day’s climb by my shortcut!
As I dived downwards towards the town of Morez at the bottom of the valley I was dreading the climb back up. it was the “Route de Premanon” a recognised cycling climb with litttle progress markers along the way telling you how far up you were. It took over two hours to do twelve kilometers. Lots of stops on the way. Still, I made it and got back on the off-road route, no on-road alternative now for 15k or so.
15k of up and down muddy …bumpy tracks.Then I got back on the road in order to descend yet again about 700m down a cliffside road, fairly busy too, boy-racers showing off their tyre-screeching skills round the hairpins. To the town of Sainte-Claude. To an old-fashoned French hotel. Hotel de la Poste, because it was opposite the post office.It had a hip-bath and a funny shower-head full of little stones. Bit smelly though.
But Madame was so nice. I asked if there was anywhere to put my bike, she indicated to put it in the reception area, but it was too big to fit really, and covered in mud from the forest tracks. So I locked it up outside.
Later, as I finished showering she tapped on the door of the room, asking where the bike was, Igoing to the door clad only in a towel, I said it was too big and dirty to go in reception, so she said to put it on the flat roof outside my room, there was a door leading there from the family’s private landing. But how thoughtful.After collapsing for an hour’s fitful dozing I had to get food. I ate in a simple restaurant and had a really nice meal, Smoked Trout then Supreme of Chicken with girolles. Yum, and two glasses of delicious white wine. Then went for a wander around town, finding this bust of Voltaire, recording that the original statue had been removed during the Nazi occupation of the area. Voltaires’ ideas still a threat after 200 years?Voltaire’s link to the area is that he lived the last 20 years of his life in a chateau nearby, towards the Swiss border. This chap was a mate of his.Night view of the river from a bridge across the valley. So to bed, well knackered.
