An eventful weekend. Friday evening we went to a bike shop and purchased helmets and a new saddle. The latter to better suit la bienheureuse'sbum, the former to break the habit of a lifetime, and both because of a planned ride in the Beaujolais countryside the following day.
Lovely day it was too. Not too hot, but plenty of sunshine, and a very pleasant purpose built cycle path along the track of an old railway between Belleville and Beaujeu. The piste was only 11km in a flat, straight line, so midway along we branched out on a slightly more ambitious circuit round the base of Mont Brouilly. Another 16km, with a couple of short but reasonably stiff climbs. With a delectable picnic to start, all in all a not-too strenous and highly enjoyable day with about 35km of exersize.
Back at the car, my propensity for leaving things behind reared its ugly head. I couldn't find my treasured Chuuk hat. Tragedy. Going back through the events of the day, I decided I'd left it on the picnic table three hours earlier. No chance it would still be there. But it was. Lucky me.
On the way home, forgotten item two became evident. Stop for petrol, get out credit cards to pay, and discover French bank card missing. Fortunately (doubly so, because la bienheureuse had left her purse at home), I had enough cash to pay for the petrol. Only thing to fret about was where I'd left my card. More backtracking took us back to the bike shop. After driving straight there, I was somewhat relieved to find the card had been safely put in a drawer until I returned to retrieve it. Lucky me. Doubly lucky because the shop is closed this week, and we're off to Blighty for 2 weeks on Friday.
Sunday was recovery day, from the stress and the not-so strenuous exersize. In the evening I was back in my element, watching football. Yes, the French season has already started, and started the same way as the last seven. Comfortable, if not overly impressive 3-0 win for OL over a Toulouse side which seems likely to be among the favourites for relegation. And next weekend the real football starts...
Hot weather, head for the hills. That was the theory as we booked a weekend in Valmorel. We drove up Friday and arrived in the pouring rain. Just a passing front, fortunately, Saturday was forecast to be warm and sunny. And so it was, from time to time. We awoke however to a misty morning. Every so often it the clouds lifted and tantalisingly promised to clear away, so we stuck to the ambitious plan formulated the previous afternoon - an arduous circuit along the Crève Tête ridge above Valmorel to the east. Perhaps if we'd taken proper account of the difference in height between top and bottom of the walk, we'd have realised it was a little over-ambitious. But we pressed on regardless. Up, and up, and up, and up... 1000 metres up. And about five hours after setting off we made it to the top of the head-buster - Crève Tête, 2342m.
It was tough, but worth it. Magnificent views when the clouds lifted, moody forest scenes when they didn't, and beautiful alpine flowers of every colour & variety everywhere we looked. The video below is a panorama taken at the end of the ridge leading to Crève Tête. And having climbed to the top, it's downhill all the way home.
Exhausted but satisfied we were asleep by nine-thirty. Sunday morning dawned fine and sunny. Faced with a choice of another, less demanding walk, or taking it easy with a swim and a dawdle home in time to watch the Wenger boys on TV, we plumped for the formker. Suckers for punishment. But not stupid, because we caught the Altispace lift and started our walk to the Col de la Madeleine from the top. Lovely weather, comparatively gentle amble, lunch in one of the restaurants at the col, and I persuaded la bienheureuse that a different route might be more scenic.
First mistake. Not that it was more scenic - it was, and we had cowbell music along the way. The mistake was not fully appreciating that the alternative route took us a lot further down. And that meant it was a lot further back up to where we started. Route out: height difference negligible, total up and down - about 150m max, time taken - 2 hours. Route back, height difference the same, total up and down: more than 400 metres, time taken - 3.5 hours. 2nd mistake: a bit of faulty navigation meant we ended slogging up the marshy route of a drag lift. Still, we got there in the end. And the ride back down on the lift was lovely.
Back at the car, my propensity for leaving things behind reared its ugly head. I couldn't find my treasured Chuuk hat. Tragedy. Going back through the events of the day, I decided I'd left it on the picnic table three hours earlier. No chance it would still be there. But it was. Lucky me.
