Day 22 Belley to Excenevex

Posted by: Rob on 23/06/2013
Mostly cloudy
Banner showing hills behind lake on a cloudy day

Stats

71.02 mi
23/06/2013 07:29 CEST
Elevation Gain
Elevation Gain:
Up
2718.73 ft
Down
2225.43 ft
Elevation Range
Elevation Range:
Max.
2217.59 ft
Min.
748.65 ft
1396.37 mi
201.49 mi
ShowMap
1396.37 mi
201.49 mi

Day 22

I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked last night. First of all, just as I was settling down to read before bed, a band fired up outside the bar area. This would have been annoying if they were rubbish, but they were banging out Hendrix and Stones numbers, so I had no option but to get back up and go and watch! They were really good, even if it was a bit weird watching a bunch of Frenchmen knocking out some classic rock!

Eventually I retired to bed and got to sleep. The next thing I know, the church across the lake is ringing its bells. At 5 am! I know it's Sunday and all that, but do the faithful not have alarm clocks?

Anyway, I got up eventually, picked up my breakfast (2 x croissant, 2 x PAC) and got on my way.

I was on the cycle path straight away and saw a sign saying Geneva was 88 k away. I started heading along the path and started thinking how great it would be if the path really did go all the way to Geneva.

Obviously that was silly of me, as soon as I thought that, the path was blocked with a Route Barrée sign and there was no way through. And I tried a bit of off roading to get round it too!

Of course, there was no Déviation route signed, so I had to go all the way back and get on the road.

I was a bit annoyed by all that, plus it had started raining. I was soon cheered up though as there was a local time trial on! They were coming in the opposite direction to me and I watched them all come past.

At least half of them had support cars and there were some proper fast guys in there. After about an hour of this I saw the race director's car bringing up the rear, so that was the last I saw of them. I assume they came back on the road the other side of the river.

It had stopped raining by now and I stopped for an early lunch. A baguette and some sort of almond cake.

Next up I had to decide how to get over to Geneva. I decided to take the shorter route. Of course I did know what this meant - going over a massive lump!

Not got a lot to say about it really. Other than it was about 2 hours of constant uphill! I didn't see a sign at the top telling me how high I was, but it must have been pretty high.

The descent was really nice - long and gradual. Eventually I could see the lake in the distance and in no time I was on the road following the Swiss border.

It was quite interesting. I nearly went into Switzerland for the sake of it, but decided to press on. Amusingly, you could take the wrong exit at a roundabout and be in the wrong country!

I had a few miles to go to the campsite I'd found and it was a bit of a slog.

Eventually I got to the town I needed and started looking for the signs. Bizarrely, I couldn't find it anywhere. The GPS on my campsite app was telling me I was right on top of it, but it was nowhere to be found and I was in the middle of nowhere!

I decided to do the sensible thing and check the address. Doh! The coordinates in the app were wrong and the site was actually about 100 miles away!

After a bit of swearing I headed for another one that I'd seen. I was a bit concerned it might be a bit expensive as it is right on Lake Geneva! But when I got there they only charged 9 Euro, which puts it at the cheaper end of the scale!

It's very nice and I'm just having dinner right on the shore!

Tomorrow I shall be getting a ferry across to the other side, so I shall be making my entrance to Switzerland by water :-)

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Aidan on 24/06/2013 20:04:48
Tasty ice cream!
Mum on 23/06/2013 23:19:48
Again the scenery where you are looks lovely - sorry so late putting up comment - have been out. Finding quite hard to predict where you might go next now that you are in the mountains.
Karen on 23/06/2013 21:20:07
Where does the ferry go to? I was assuming it was Geneva, but on the map it looks like you are already further on than Geneva? I will tell the boys you had 2 croissants and 2 PACs - they will approve.
Kirst on 23/06/2013 21:42:10
I spent a while today googling ferries for him but most of the ones from Thonon don't take bikes. So he's cycling to Evian and getting the ferry to Lausanne.
Kirst on 23/06/2013 20:45:20
Avoid Piz Gloria!