Let’s go cycling

And that’s France!

The language… It’s been challenging yet rewarding trying to get by with a tiny bit of the French language. We’ve both definitely picked up quite a bit of the lingo as we’ve gone and it’s been fun to try and communicate entirely without resorting to English. A lot of the time, our accents, or our slowness, must give us away- we’d confidently speak in French only to be answered in English. Ah well.

One memorable conversation was with a young receptionist at a campground- the whole booking conversation was in broken French and we thought we did really well, she clearly didn’t speak any English and we got our message across perfectly! Until it came to explaining to us where we should pitch our tent…and she says with a smile, “would you like me to explain in French or in English?”

Even learnt to count to 100. Who knew, that 90 in French is 4×20+10. Probably all of you- but I obviously didn’t get that far in my high school french lessons. Seems a bit convoluted to me but it works!

It is noticeable that after over three weeks of hearing very minimal English, the closer we came to the border the less French we heard. Now at Chamonix and the English speakers outnumber the French vastly.

The cost… France has been a little less expensive than the UK for meals and campsites. Many of the “municipal” campsites were as little as 10-12Euro for the night, with sheltered areas where we could sit, work, eat, and charge our devices. Same can’t quite be said for the Alpine towns- Chamonix is much more expensive than everywhere else has been in France!

Food… What can we say! French food is superb. They do raw and fresh brilliantly. We’ve definitely eaten a lot more healthily here than we did in the UK, counterbalanced of course by the stupendous array of pastries and other yummy stuff that entices us in daily!

Neil’s notes
Observations of France, they don’t have rubbish collection from households, instead they have municipal disposal points throughout. These always have at least four recycling bins.

They do cycling infrastructure far better than the UK and Australia. Nearly every kilometre of our 1500 were on dedicated car free cycle paths or quiet traffic calmed roads. Every large town or city had an extensive and well used network of cycle lanes, with cyclists often having priority over traffic at road crossings.

Food and drink, the French wines are superb and cheap, they definitely keep the best for themselves. French beer is more questionable, they have a tendency to sweeten with fruit juice or add something odd like coriander. Occasional restaurants have been really good but most have had very similar menus, burgers and fries or ceaser salad. Like the UK, I expect there is a shortage of chefs and cooks and generic and ubiquitous menus become the norm without the skillsets. Self catering has been fantastic, baguettes, Camembert and really good tomatoes and fruit available individually.

20th August, Beffs to Decize, 67km
After many days of hot weather, we “slept” (or not..) through an extraordinary night of wild thunder and lightening that seemed to be right on top of us, and continuous heavy rain that proved again the almost worthlessness of our little tent. But it’s nice to be cool for a change!

21st August, Decize to Digoin, 81 km and cool.  A late start while we waited for the rain to stop, but at didn’t,  quite.  So wet weather gear it was for the first 30 or so km, then a pretty nice day for riding in the cool!

22nd August, Digoin to Macon, 90km and perfect riding weather.
A nice cool but dry day to start, and some hills now creeping in as we head toward the French Alps. ‘Twas nice to have some different landscapes and even the hills weren’t too daunting after 3 weeks of flat! May not be saying that tomorrow…

23rd August, Macon to Champdon, 96km, 1260m elevation.
A biggie!  A very  long uphill and a long day on the bikes. Our campground was small and perfect, with an amazing spring fed pool that looked very inviting, but we were both a bit worn out to jump in!

So it was camp food and sleep…then some great breakfast conversation with a lively six year old who chattered to us non stop in French and couldn’t quit accept our lack of fluency in his language.  But we got by…sort of.

24th August, 98km and 945m elevation, from Champdon to Annecy
Another huge day! Not quite such hefty elevation but enough hills to weary us (well, me).

Annecy is something else.  Such a stunning location, with Lake Annecy providing a speccy foreground to the imposing Alps as a backdrop. It’s a gorgeous outlook…and apparently a lot of the world shares that view so the town is just chaos!  Sooooo many people.  And more bicycles in one spot that we’ve seen anywhere so far in our travels.  The cycle path was so full of cyclists, it was more difficult to navigate than the road!

Anyhow, we’d earmarked a campsite…but arrive to a Complet Full sign.  And the next. And the next.  Starting to get worried (although I think Neil was secretly pleased and looking forward to adventurously wild camping in the municipality of Annecy??).

So our last ditch effort was the municipal campsite at the bottom of the lake- which also had a “sorry, we’re full” sign.  But with nothing to lose we asked, and they found us a “site” squeezed between some cabins, on a lovely bed of sticks.  For 33 Euros, the most we’ve paid in France!

A quick tent set up and we managed to squeeze in a swim in the waters of Lake Annecy before finding a burger!

25th August, Annecy to Praz-Sur-Arly, 46km, most of which seemed to be up.

A nice quiet camp site by a non existent creek.  More and more glimpses of the Alps as we go!

Awoke to the sound of a giant gas burner. Which turned out to be multiple hot air balloons taking off in the lovely calm of the morning

26th August, to Chamonix! 45km, 850m elevation, and the most spectacular views all the way.  Just wow.

We stopped too many times to take photos today.   Just such breathtaking views as we approached Chamonix and the base of Mont Blanc- Europe’s highest peak.

Rocked up to the “No Pre Bookings” campsite in Chamonix…and paid our 21  Euros in cash to search for a tiny spot in between all the other tents.  Chaos!!  Didn’t take us long to work out that there’s a massive running festival happening in Chamonix this week… so I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we found a spot to pitch our tent at all.

27th August …Snow Day!
My oh my- a cable car to Aguille du Midi. What a way to top off a splendid few weeks in France. An early start to beat the forecast nasty weather, and spectacular views of Mont Blanc and the surrounding peaks, despite the looming clouds.