My Tour de France
Last summer I watched almost the entire Tour de France, breaking personal records for hours spent in front of the television. This summer I'm on my own Tour de France and spending more time on the bike than I did in front of the television. Although the seat is a little less comfortable than my mom's couch, France is better in person.
On my first adventure I cycled between Saint-Genis Pouilley, France where my friend lives and Lausanne, Switzerland. The Swiss have amazing cycling maps with national and regional routes included elevation information and points of interest along the way. They have bike paths and lanes all over the country with signs at every turn that are color coded and numbered to correspond to the free cycling map. Paying for a guided tour of Switzerland is almost unnecessary, at least for cheapskates like me who don't mind sleeping in other people's filth in random hotels and carrying my own stuff.
The bike ride to Lausanne along Lac Leman(Lake Geneva) passed peach farms, wheat fields, castles, huge houses, sunflower farms, and quaint cobblestoned streets.
While exploring one of the towns along the way I heard a Swiss man playing songs I recognized on the guitar. He was playing "Nothing Else Matters" my favorite song my Metallica that I saw live in concert a few years ago and at one point attempted to play on the guitar. In butchered French I tried to express this to him, he seemed to understand and we had a fun conversation about music. We both knew the same band names and even though he knew about as much English as I knew French he did know the names of songs in English and had a lot of tabs with him. He alternated back and forth between playing French songs and singing them well and English songs and singing them with a great voice and a silly accent.
In high school I played the guitar for long enough to learn most of the chords and by watching his hands and the tabs I could figure out which part of the French song he was singing and practiced pronunciation by following along. If only language learning in school was as much fun as having a Swiss man sing to me in a park overlooking Lac Leman I think everyone would be at least trilingual. Although my voice is certainly not one of my highlights I decided that since I actually knew the songs and how to pronounce the words I would sing for this stranger and swallow my typical embarrassment. I was particularly amused while helping him with an Elvis Presley love song because he did not know what the words meant or that singing it with a girl in a park might be construed as romantic.
After my long lunch stop I continued to Lausanne and decided to take the train home so I could make it before dark. I didn't know if I had another 70 K in my legs and had really wanted to see the cathedral that Jamie had told me about so I hadn't turned around earlier. The trains had special bike rooms marked on the side of the train. I couldn't believe how easy cycling was. The only downside to the day was that my ticket home was 25 dollars and for my bike was 15. In Morocco one could get across the country for 40 dollars, not just home from a bike ride!
The next day I headed out on a route I found on http://www.bikely.com/ which is a really cool googlemaps supported website where people share routes all over the world. I searched for the cities I wanted to visit and found an amazing 75 mile route around the Jura mountains. I stopped at an old fort over looking the river gorge by Bellegarde and found maps galore of the region with every waterfall, church and information center carefully marked.
I followed the route around the back of the Jura passing pastures of cows, enjoying the sound of the cowbells. Before beginning the assent of the Jura to cross back over to the side where Jamie lived I stopped in the alpine village of Mijoux and ate the best apple tart of my life. I think the scenery, the long road behind me and the quaint French passterserie could have made anything seem good but the tarte was gorgeous and crisp and flaky and sweet and a bit sour and life was amazing.
I summited the Col de la Facucille at 1323 m and happily put on the coat I'd been carrying around all day for the 11 K decent at 8% grade. The views of Lac Leman and the alps were worth all of the climbing. There is nothing like a reward like apple tarts and world class panoramas to inspire me to pedal farther.
On my first adventure I cycled between Saint-Genis Pouilley, France where my friend lives and Lausanne, Switzerland. The Swiss have amazing cycling maps with national and regional routes included elevation information and points of interest along the way. They have bike paths and lanes all over the country with signs at every turn that are color coded and numbered to correspond to the free cycling map. Paying for a guided tour of Switzerland is almost unnecessary, at least for cheapskates like me who don't mind sleeping in other people's filth in random hotels and carrying my own stuff.
The bike ride to Lausanne along Lac Leman(Lake Geneva) passed peach farms, wheat fields, castles, huge houses, sunflower farms, and quaint cobblestoned streets.
While exploring one of the towns along the way I heard a Swiss man playing songs I recognized on the guitar. He was playing "Nothing Else Matters" my favorite song my Metallica that I saw live in concert a few years ago and at one point attempted to play on the guitar. In butchered French I tried to express this to him, he seemed to understand and we had a fun conversation about music. We both knew the same band names and even though he knew about as much English as I knew French he did know the names of songs in English and had a lot of tabs with him. He alternated back and forth between playing French songs and singing them well and English songs and singing them with a great voice and a silly accent.
In high school I played the guitar for long enough to learn most of the chords and by watching his hands and the tabs I could figure out which part of the French song he was singing and practiced pronunciation by following along. If only language learning in school was as much fun as having a Swiss man sing to me in a park overlooking Lac Leman I think everyone would be at least trilingual. Although my voice is certainly not one of my highlights I decided that since I actually knew the songs and how to pronounce the words I would sing for this stranger and swallow my typical embarrassment. I was particularly amused while helping him with an Elvis Presley love song because he did not know what the words meant or that singing it with a girl in a park might be construed as romantic.
After my long lunch stop I continued to Lausanne and decided to take the train home so I could make it before dark. I didn't know if I had another 70 K in my legs and had really wanted to see the cathedral that Jamie had told me about so I hadn't turned around earlier. The trains had special bike rooms marked on the side of the train. I couldn't believe how easy cycling was. The only downside to the day was that my ticket home was 25 dollars and for my bike was 15. In Morocco one could get across the country for 40 dollars, not just home from a bike ride!
The next day I headed out on a route I found on http://www.bikely.com/ which is a really cool googlemaps supported website where people share routes all over the world. I searched for the cities I wanted to visit and found an amazing 75 mile route around the Jura mountains. I stopped at an old fort over looking the river gorge by Bellegarde and found maps galore of the region with every waterfall, church and information center carefully marked.
I followed the route around the back of the Jura passing pastures of cows, enjoying the sound of the cowbells. Before beginning the assent of the Jura to cross back over to the side where Jamie lived I stopped in the alpine village of Mijoux and ate the best apple tart of my life. I think the scenery, the long road behind me and the quaint French passterserie could have made anything seem good but the tarte was gorgeous and crisp and flaky and sweet and a bit sour and life was amazing.
I summited the Col de la Facucille at 1323 m and happily put on the coat I'd been carrying around all day for the 11 K decent at 8% grade. The views of Lac Leman and the alps were worth all of the climbing. There is nothing like a reward like apple tarts and world class panoramas to inspire me to pedal farther.
posted by Cammie at 1:23 AM
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