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Published: June 17th 2016
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All I can say is, it’s a good job we were on a boat with the rain that came down last night. It just didn’t let up from 6pm until 6am. The thunder and lightening were something else as well. Still, by 7am this morning the sky was blue and the mercury was rising steadily. By the time we had packed and loaded the bike it was in double figures and not even 9am.
We made a fruit and yogurt breakfast on the boat. There was a coffee machine but the water in it smelled as if it had been there some months and we couldn’t get the power working to use it so about 20 minutes in to our ride we stopped for a much needed coffee.
The road from Pisogne was mainly tunnels. Shame as the lake and surrounding area is so stunning. There is an island towards the western end and as we approached it from our vantage point high in the hills we could see what looked like a line painted onto the water. As we got closer, it was a floating walkway that connected the island to the mainland. Brilliant.
Once again the
SatNav was an issue. Why does 230 miles take 8 hours? I knew the route I had programmed in on my computer was way less than that. It seems that what you program is superseded by the preferences in the device. We had been avoiding motorways yesterday so that is exactly what it did to my carefully worked out route. Live and learn. Anyway it was quickly fixed and out ETA changed from 5:30 pm to 2pm. Rock on.
Soon we were on the motorways and the first of many tolls. The motorway may have speeded up the journey but cost more in tolls than petrol, about €34. I wouldn’t mind but every few miles we were held up in road works. Not much else to say about sitting on a motorway for 3 hours, unless you want me to talk about Italian drivers again… no, ok moving on. By about 1pm we could see the mountains in front of us. That was the sign that the trip was going to get interesting again. We were climbing steadily and shortly after paying out last toll, we crossed the French boarder and entered the Alps again.
The
motorway does something to your brain. It gets a bit linear. Alpine corners just don’t compute after 180 miles of straight lines so we pulled over for a drink, a sandwich and some Redbull (other energy drinks are available, the just don’t taste as good) to fire up the synapses again. Soon we were off and enjoying the roads we came all this way to traverse. The temperature was dropping as we climbed but that was a relief from the 26 C in the lowlands. The turns got tighter and the drops got more intimidating as we made our way the last few miles to tonight’s hotel. This one is in Ailefrode. It is a chalet hotel, in the last human outpost before Mt Ponte De La Grande Sagne. A sizable lump of granite if ever there was one. Having arrived in good time and with plenty of daylight we set off for a walk to look around the area. There is a camp site, a few hotels, a grocer and some stores selling mountaineering supplies. We spotted a small path leading off the main road. We didn’t know where it went but a path here must lead somewhere beautiful
so we headed down it. Wild flowers, brightly painted butterflies, waterfalls and more mountain views. Can’t go wrong with that.
Now what to eat?
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