Greg on the Go

The next day was mostly about getting Nick to the airport and seeing him off. But they say when one door closes, a window opens up! So two days later, my friend Steve Barson showed up in Paris.

Steve is one of my oldest and best cycling friends. Steve, Paul Purmort and I started riding back in the days when I was a rocket scientist (and so were Steve and Paul). Those two taught me so much about cycling that I am for ever trying to repay them. More than a few times, they rode me into the ground, but as they also say, that which does not kill you makes you stronger. So …… thanks?

I met Steve at the airport in Paris where we rented a Peugeot (the car, not the bike) and headed back to Chambery. We made it in one day, but it was a long day. Whew. The next day after we got sort of settled into our respective AirBnB’s, we started assembling our bicycles. That was pretty straight forward and we were both happy that neither our our bikes suffered any damage during their flights overseas. Next was a shake down ride to make sure the everything was in proper working order. So Steve and I drove over to Lake Annecy. This is a ride that I have wanted to do ever since I was here before. I had ridden to Annecy and the lake, but never actually rode around the lake, so that is what we did for our shake down ride. It is an incredibly beautiful lake, about 23 miles to complete the loop. No problem for Steve, but I was really feeling it. You have to remember that I hadn’t ridden very much due to issues previously discussed, plus the fact that Nick and I did a lot of eating and drinking as we toured Amsterdam, Ghent, and Paris. So gaining more than a few pounds and out of shape, well, you can see the problem. But I made it, and it was’t too bad really.

So, now it was time for a real test for Steve. So, originally, Steve and I both were going to ride big mountains, but as I mentioned before, I was not really going to be able to do them now. So Steve had a support vehicle and dedicated photographer for his mountain assaults, starting with the famous Alps d’Huez.

Alpe d’Huez is “famous” because it has been the site of some epic battles in the Tour de France. But realistically, it was going to be one of the easier rides for Steve. It is only 8.7 miles long, but climbs about 3,500 feet or so. I am sure that Steve can tell you, to the foot, how much elevation he actually climbed. Strava! And it would only take him just over an hour to accomplish the ride.

To celebrate Steve’s first French Alp ride, we drove into Bourg d”Oisens and had lunch. We both had pasta, but Steve got the most benefit of the lunch since he did all of the effort riding to the summit. We also bought souvenir T-shirts. Got to be a tourist every once in a while….

With one summit in the books, Steve took a planned rest day. We drove the rented Peugeot through Albertville up into some of the famous ski areas of the Savoie. Tignes and Val d’sere were our sight-seeing goals for today. We were both surprised at how many cyclists were on the road. This area is very beautiful, but not really on our list of high priority riding destinations. But other riders had different ideas obviously.

We ate lunch in Tignes in the ski village at an outdoor cafe. An outdoor cafe in France? Surely you jest! But is was nice none the less.

So I mentioned that we drove through Albertville on the way up to the ski areas. Albertville was the site of the 1992 Winter Olympics and about 35 miles from Chambery. 4 years ago, I was interested in riding to Albertville, but I could never figure out how to get there by bike. The only time I really tired, I ended up riding on a heavily trafficked highway that was uncomfortable to ride on, even for me. So I abandoned that idea for the time being. But on the drive up through Albertville, I noticed that there appeared to be a bike path along the highway at some point. This gave me a new incentive to find a way to ride to Albertville this summer. There obviously had to be away to ride there. Now, I just had to find out how to do it. But that would have to wait for a few weeks.

Well, enough resting for Steve. After seeing Tignes and Val d’sere via car, it was time for Steve’s next cycling test. Today would be the Col de Madeleine, a nice 5,000 plus foot climb. Steve’s plan was to ride from La Chambre up Les Lacets, over the Col du Chaussy, and then up and over the Col de Madeleine and back down the more direct way back to La Chambre. This was a ride that was outlined by someone that had written an article that Steve had read about some years ago. That looked like an interesting loop, but I noticed that some of the route did not really appear to be real roads on the GPS. As much as Steve had his mind made up to ride this route, I convinced him that since we had an actual car, we should scout out the route ahead of time. Good thing we did. Part of Steve’s planned route turned out to be unpaved goat trails! Maybe paved at some point in time, but not these days. So we quickly developed a “Plan B”. Ride straight up to the Col from La Chambre and back down, then ride Les Lacets as a separate route.

All of the route finding took a while, so Steve got a late start and it was pretty warm to even start the ride. But no problem for super Steve. He managed the ride like the awesome rider that he is, not a problem. It helped that he caught up to a Czech rider in the last 10 K (who spoke very good english) so he had a compatriot to ride the summit with.

After summiting the Col de Madeleine, Steve mostly coasted back down the route that he road up back to La Chambre. Next, we drove to the bottom of Les Lacets for the second part of Steve’s riding agenda. We drove there because the road there was kind of sketchy for riding, but Les Lacets was worth riding, for sure. This is the one climb that Steve had identified as his priority, and how he discovered it is a story he call tell. But is was pretty impressive in it’s shear stunning visual. Its is not a long climb by any stretch. And not even really very steep. But 14 hair pin turns in one mile? That is some serious road engineering. Of course, Steve made it look easy, although he declined my offer to have him continue to the top of the Col du Chaussy. He said that he had had enough and it was time for some food. Food, yes I agreed. I am pretty sure that I had a more difficult time driving Les Lacets than Steve had riding it. It would be a game of chicken if I had met another vehicle on the roadway. Luckily, we all survived.

So Steve had a nice first week in France. Next week would offer new cycling challenges as well as more stunning scenery.

No trip to France is complete without a visit to Paris. I think it is the most visited city in the world and probably deserves to be.

Nick and I began our exploration of the great city by first getting familiar with the Metro (the Paris subway system) and how to figure out where we wanted to go by looking at the system maps. We were able to get to Les Halles-Châtelet which is a major station and walked to the Eiffel Tower via the Seine river. That stretch of the Seine goes past lots of well known museums and landmarks and helps get oriented for later places to visit. It took about an hour to walk there.

Once upon a time, you could walk right under the Eiffel Tower and have a picnic lunch on the grass there. Now, the area is fenced off with security gates to go through if you want to ride the elevator to the top (or walk 330 meters up). I think that was a result of 9/11 and the global terrorism threat. No matter what though, it is an amazing landmark and the true icon of Paris. To think that they were going to dismantle it after the World Expo it was built for way back when. Glad they came to their senses.

After seeing the Eiffel Tower, we got some lunch at one of the thousands of sidewalk cafes that Paris is famous for. I was on a mission to find the best bowl of French Onion Soup. Only on the english menus at the cafes did they call it “french” onion soup. Otherwise, just Onion Soup, right? Makes sense. The soup was pretty good! Mmm.

Next, we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and the crazy Round-About that surrounds it. I find it difficult to negotiate a 2 lane round-about in the US. The round-about that circles the Arc de Triumph is about 5 lanes, but they don’t even bother to paint lane lines. It is an automobile circus, but somehow it seems to work. Just glad I am not trying to drive around it. And the French are probably glad too.

From there, it was down the Champs-Elysees, maybe the most famous shopping street in the world after 4th Avenue in NYC. Just looking though. No Rolex’s or Gucci in my budget these days. I did see a couple of Ferrari’s on the street. I have now seen more Ferrari’s in France than I have in Italy! Not sure what that means…. That was about enough for one day.

The next day, we got an Uber from our motel and got dropped off in the Montmartre district of Paris. We took the Uber instead of the Metro because the station were we would normally get off the metro was closed for some maintenance and the subway was not running in that direction from the neighborhood we were staying in. That was a pain, but we eventually figured out a way to circumnavigate that problem by an alternate route.

We went to Montmartre to see the Scare Coeur cathedral. It is visible from most of the city since it sits on the top of a large hill and is bright white. Most old European Catholic churches are impressive and this one didi not disappoint. It was actually a Sunday, so they were having Mass. I made Nick sit in the pews for the beginning of the service, but only to hear the massive pipe organ play. After a few minutes of music, we left since neither one us is Catholic!

From there, we made our way through the cafes and art kiosks of Montmartre down the hill. We wanted to see the Famous Moulin Rouge. The cabaret shows are in the evening and a bit expensive, but we at least saw the exterior and now know where it is. After some lunch (and more onion soup) we just saw more of the city and sort of called it a day early. We were both tired from all of the walking that day. We did get some bad news though. We were talking to a couple of young american girls who said that tickets to the Louvre were sold-out for the week! We had every intention of going there tomorrow so that was a bummer.

The next day was to be Nicks last for his trip. We WERE going to go to the Louvre, but the ticket situation made us change our plans. But we at least wanted to go see the glass pyramid entrance to the museum and the surrounding Palais Royale buildings that the actual museum is in. I could see why the tickets were sold out. There were thousands of people waiting in line to get in the museum. After all, it is probably the most famous museum in the entire world so who could blame them. Just to make sure though, we asked one of the many Louvre staff who were guiding and monitoring the tourists. He said that we could actually get tickets if we stood in a particular line. And we did… and we got in! Amazing (but not a miracle). We got to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and all of the other famous paintings and sculptures. Towards the end of our visit we took some time to navigate the museum and eventually found the section that held the Dutch Masters. They had a very nice collection of Rembrandt which I was appreciative. We were both pretty weary by then and decided we had seen enough (I think we saw almost everything anyway). As we were leaving the plaza, I had decided to take one last photo of the plaza and the crowd. But ….. my iPhone was missing! Somehow, I lost it. Either I was pick-pocketed, or I left it somewhere, but it was definitely gone. After a few moments of panic and being more than a little upset, I settled down and resigned myself that it was indeed gone. Nick and I decided to go get some lunch and I started trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Get a pre-paid phone and go from there I guess. After lunch (and more onion soup), we decided to just go back to the museum and check the lost and found there. Just to make sure. When I got there, I told them what happened and asked if my phone might have been turned in there. The staff just sort of rolled their eyes at me, but checked anyway. They had two phones in the basket. One was mine! A miracle at the Louvre! We were all pretty amazed, including the museum staff!

Lastly, we walked further down along the Seine River to see Notre Dame. It had caught fire years ago and sustained major damage. It has been under reconstruction ever since. It is scheduled to re-open next year, just in time for the Paris Summer Olympics.

So it turned out to be a pretty excellent day. Got to see the most famous painting in the world (the Mona Lisa) in the most famous museum in the world!

Today, Nick and I are going to tour the Rijksmusem in Amsterdam. This museum is one of the finest in the world and also one of my all time favorites as well.

I had considered coming to Europe earlier than the beginning of June because I had heard that the Rijksmuseum was having an amazing exhibit of Johannes Vermeer this year. The exhibit featured 28 of the 36 original Vermeer paintings the exist today (I am not completely sure on those numbers, but they are pretty close). The museum had assembled the collection by having most of the known Vermeer’s loaned to them for the duration of the exhibit. The exhibit ran from February through 3 June, 2023. I inquired about tickets, but the exhibit was completely sold out by the time I found out about it. So instead of coming to Europe in May, I ended up coming in early June instead to better align with Nick and Steve’s respective visits.

All was not lost however. The Rijksmuseum has a number of Vermeer’s as a part of their permanent collection, and had arranged to keep a few of the loaned paintings for a while longer. The most famous of the Vermeer paintings, The Girl with the Pearl Earring was only loaned to the museum until late March, so I was not going to be able to see that regardless, unless I would go to The Hague where the painting is originally from. Alas, this did not come to pass, but the Museum is always worth going to visit regardless of the loaned exhibits.

The most famous painting in the Rijksmuseum is the “Night Watch” by Rembrandt. I knew that this painting was restored, but I miss calculated since it was still being restored and not yet finished. So the painting was surrounded by scaffolding and machines and other equipment for the restoration effort, but still offered a view of this amazing work of art.

Even with the restoration equipment, the Night Watch is still pretty amazing. It takes up an entire wall it is so large.

Nick and I toured the entire museum before I realized that somehow, we missed the Vermeer’s! So we backtracked and found them. There were still six Vermeer’s that were either part of the Rijksmuseum permanent collection or still on loan from their home museum.

It was a fantastic day at the museum. Tomorrow, we would head for Belgium, but not before we checked off the last thing on our to-do list for Amsterdam. We had to visit the Red Light district! Only to visit though. We were not remotely in the market for anything they were selling. The Red Light district is the famous part of Amsterdam where the Ladies of the Night “advertise” their services in the windows of their “work places”. These ladies of the night actually work all hours of the night and day except for the mid morning. It turned out that we had a difficult time finding the exact location of the Red Light district. We searched quite a while before we found it and were a little disappointed after we did. We were there in the early evening and not many of the “ladies” were advertising. We did see a few, and more of the empty windows where they would be later that night, but we came away with a general idea of the goings-on there. Besides the ladies who were in the side alleys, it was a vibrant neighborhood with lots of restaurants and tourist shops (along with lots of sex shops too). It was all very interesting, a true part of Amsterdam worth the experience.

Belgium wasn’t on the original agenda. But, since Nick and I did not have a rigid schedule, we decided that it was possible to go to Belgium and still see the other things Nick wanted to see. And I wanted to go since I had never been to Belgium and I wanted to drink Belgian ales (my favorite!) IN BELGIUM.

We had the additional benefit of discovering Ghent! We had decided earlier that we did not want to go to Brussels, their capital, but rather go to a smaller city. I am not really sure how we chose Ghent, but I am glad we did since it was a very nice city. It had lots of old buildings including churches and a castle. It had a canal system too, but nothing to rival Amsterdam, but still very nice.

We really liked Ghent. We found a nice, convenient hotel right across from the rail station that made getting around pretty easy for us. It was about a 15-20 minute walk to the older, historical area of town. But as much as we liked it, it was time to move on. Tomorrow, we would invade Paris.

After normandy, we headed back toward Paris and then on to Chambery. I wanted to go to Chambery so I could drop off my bicycle and not have to schlep it around for the next weeks. Nick and I spent a few days based in Chambery.

The first day in Chambery, we just walked around the city as I tried to remember things about the city, where things were, etc. The next day, we took a trip to Chamonix, a famous ski town in the Alps. I had been there a few times before, but I never really spent any time there since I was primarily hiking. I didn’t not remember it being so big and with so many tourists. But it was filled with tourists, no doubt. And for good reason. The French Alps are pretty impressive, Mont Blanc rising immediately above the town.

We spent much of the day there and then drove back to Chambery enjoying the scenery back through the mountain valleys down along the rivers.

On the third day, we decided to rent bikes and ride along the Voie Vert 63 bicycling trail to Aix Les Bains, a town I had ridden to many times 4 years ago. It is a fairly flat route, almost entirely on a dedicated bike path with no vehicles, and finishes riding along the Lac du Bourget, the largest natural lake in France.

I had my carbon fiber Cervelo, but it was still in the box, and it would have been unfair to Nick if I rode that bike when he would have to ride the rental that more closely resembled a tank! It was only a twenty mile ride, but it was my first since having my cardiac “event” as I began to call it. I didn’t feel all that great at the finish of the ride, but I did recover this time, so I took that as a positive.

The next day, we said goodbye to Chambery and drove the rental car back to Paris. We stayed the night in Paris before leaving for Amsterdam in the morning. It was a quick trip riding the bullet train. We found a hotel about 20 minutes from the train station called the Sphinx. I say we found it, but the truth is that I had stayed there many years ago and found it to be a nice place, although the stairs were NOT ADA compliant. Saying they were steep would be an understatement! I guess they don’t have an Americans With Disabilities act in Holland.

The first thing you would notice about Amsterdam is the bicycles. EVERYONE rides bicycles. It helps that the city is completely flat, except for the bridges that go over the canals. They commute to work, go shopping, go to the park, everything. No one wears a helmet and the bikes are not very fancy. But so, so many. At an intersection, there will be 100 bikes waiting for the green light and maybe 5 cars. And the bikes come in all sorts of varieties too……

After wandering about the first day and seeing the bikes, canals, old churches and other things, we ended up in Rembrandt Plein (one of the town squares) to have a beer and watch people. Mostly to have a beer though….

The next day we were more focused. I had seen that there was a windmill on the city map so I wanted to go see that since windmills are iconic in Holland. When we first got there, we were looking at it from across a canal and it appeared that there was some construction going on around the mill. Seeing that, I thought maybe we might be able to sneak through the work zone and get an “up close” look at the mill. The construction workers were pretty unconcerned about us, but it wasn’t clear how close we could get. Then I noticed Nick was off to the side talking to a guy so I wandered over. It turned out that Erik was the apprentice “miller” and he wanted to show us the windmill.

He showed us the wind propellers and how to rig them with their sails and then took us inside the mill itself to see the inner workings. This particular mill was set for sawing lumber, as opposed to most that were for milling grain or pumping water. It was one of only 5 lumber “mills” remaining in Holland. They released the brake and we saw the windmill blades actually turning. Unfortunately, the wind was not strong enough to mill any wood that day, but it was pretty incredible to see this ancient work horse come to life. We were fortunate because they only work on the mill on Tuesday and today was in fact Tuesday. We spent hours there, but eventually decided to go get some lunch and see more of the city. But we did tell Erik that we would be back around 4PM to go buy him a beer as thanks for taking the time to show the windmill. It was a great and unique experience.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city looking at whatever caught our attention. Old churches, canals, and Bikes. Amsterdam is one of the great cities of the world.

Ever since I said I was going to France, my friend Nick Covey said he wanted to go since he had never been to Europe. That was great news for me, to have company for the first 2 weeks of the trip. Nick wanted to see some specific things, but was generally accepting of anything interesting that would come up, just enjoying the experience. We rendezvoused at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris on June 7th having taken different flights to get there. Once in our rental car, we decided to first go visit Omaha Beach on the Normandy coast, the site of the Allied Invasion of France known as D-Day. We made it to Caan before running out of day. We got a motel and ate at some American Themed burger/malt shop restaurant. So much for experiencing great french cuisine, right? But it was fine. The next morning, we drove to Omaha Beach. We arrived there on June 8th, just two days after the anniversary of the invasion. There are lots of memorials and a museum to learn about this special place (although the museum was not open while we were there).

The beach at Omaha is very wide. There are high hills just above the beach. It was intimidating to think of all of the young american men running through the shallow water after leaving their landing craft and onto the beach during the invasion. With german troops holding the high ground above the beach and having a clear view of these American troops. The landing had to be at low tide so they could see all of the obstacles and traps that the germans had installed on the beach so they had a long way to go on the beach with virtually no cover until they would reach the base of these hills. We learned all of this because later, we listened to an english historian who was leading a tour group. He also said the the British troops at Sword, Juno, and Gold beach had much easier time of things, and even the American troops at Utah beach as well. Omaha beach was the beach where things did not go well due to many factors according to this particular historian. To say it was emotional would have been an understatement!

If seeing the beach itself was emotional, the cemetery was even more so. Acres and acres of graves. Thousands! I really think these men were part of the Greatest Generation!

Before I get started with the trip to France, I need to give some background leading up to everything. This trip was going to be somewhat different than my last trip, in a variety of ways. I had some very exciting and challenging goals for this trip. Lots of serious mountains to cycle, some new ones and some old with different routes to the top. And I was going to have some friends join me along the way.

As they say, the best laid plans….. In order to accomplish any real cycling goals, the first thing in to get into some form of fitness. That is not generally an issue, but does take some effort to get to a point where you fell “ready”. So I rode my bike a lot this last fall while I was in Arizona and things were going pretty good down there. And ski season went well during the winter too. I took a trip to Southern California in March to really start doing some more serious riding with friends in the challenging Santa Monica mountains and that was going well, making some real strides. But I had to return to Washington for cataract surgery which I discovered back in November. The thing about eye surgery is that while you recover, you cannot raise your blood pressure very much because it can damage your eye. So I had to basically do nothing for over a month, losing a lot of my recent fitness. But once I made it through the eye healing process, it was time to get back on the bike to resume training. After one particular ride, and not an extremely difficult one at that, I was just not feeling very great, not recovering as I should have. After a couple of hours of discomfort, I decided I needed to seek some medical attention since I really had never experienced anything like this before. So off to the ER at the hospital in Wenatchee. I explained that I was having some chest discomfort so they ran me through some tests to see what was going on. I ended up staying in the hospital for 4 days! Everyone suspected some form of mild heart attack which seemed pretty crazy to me, but I couldn’t deny the symptoms I was having. I had some elevated levels of an enzyme called Troponin which is released by the heart when it is under stress. A typical level is 0.00 -0.03. Mine reached a level close to 7.0 so something was definitely going on. So I was put on nitroglycerin and other medications to try to resolve the symptoms. The nitro gave me headaches, so then I was put on a small morphine dosage for that. They did a quick x-ray to see if that revealed anything, but it didn’t. Next was a CAT scan of my heart with a catheter that injected a dye to get a good look for any artery blockage. I think everyone was shocked when that came back negative. My arteries were pretty much spic and span clean. So next, it was to wait for a spot for the MRI to really get a good look at anything else that might have been causing my discomfort (which had resolved itself during the first day mind you). That took 2 days to get a spot and I could not leave the hospital or risk losing my turn in line so to speak. Finally, I got the MRI and it revealed that I had incurred some inflammation of my heart, most likely due to some infection. So the bottom line was that, aside from the inflammation, there was nothing really wrong structurally with my heart. No one really had any answers as to why this happened, but the only real cure was rest! Up to three months of rest! This was going to cause a problem with the trip to France!

After talking to all of the doctors, we agreed that I should still go on the trip, just not to do any real difficult rides during this recovery time. Flat rides were OK, hard mountain passes were not. Well, I might have considered just canceling the entire trip, but I had these friends coming and it was still going to be a fun trip none the less. So it was decided. France it is!

Hello everyone, if anyone is out there! Greg On The Go is back on-line for new adventures. I am back in France for more cycling and tourism for 2023. I had to over come some technical issues with the Blog site, but my friend Carl helped me get it all straightened out. So here we go!

But first, before we get to France, my conscience is bothering me at lot since I said 4 years ago that I was going to share my trip to Iceland on my way home from France in 2019. Unfortunately, I did not do that for a variety of reasons. To ease my conscience I wanted to at least give a run down of that trip and share some photos since I know that is what everyone really wants to see anyway.

The trip to Iceland started from Paris on August first. I did not get into Keflavik ( the airport) until very late. By the time I secured my baggage and the rental car, it was after 2 AM before I got settled into my motel room. It was the Base Hotel, since it used to be a part of the military base in Keflavik.

My plan for Iceland is to drive the “Ring Road” which is the main hwy that circles the island, thus the name. I got a pretty late start to things the next morning due to the late hour I got in. I decided to make a “practice round” with the car and the roads by driving out to the coast before settling out on the ring road. The coast in that area was very volcanic with lots of lava floes right down to the waters edge

I hiked around and at one point must have gotten too close to an Arctic Tern’s nest since she sort of was dive bombing me as a sign to stay away.

During my “practice round” I also wanted to find out where the famous Blue Lagoon was since I was going to end up my trip there before going to to the airport in about a week.

So it was on the the Ring Road. To get there, I did not want to back track all the way to Reykjavik so I followed a gravel road to where I met the main road. From there it was pretty straightforward about where to go. There are not very many paved roads in Iceland to choose from aside from the Ring Road! I chose a counter clock wise path and set out. Along the way, there are lots of waterfalls and glaciers to see.

This waterfall was named Seljalandfoss. If you look closely, you can see people hiking beside the falls. (I did not do this since they all looked like they were getting pretty wet).

Next, it was on to Skogafoss. This one of the most famous water falls in Iceland and has been featured in many car commercials that I recognized. One thing about Iceland that I noticed is how many more tourists there were. I had been to iceland many years ago and when I visited Skogafoss then, I was about the only one there and I recall that we were able to drive our car along the river bank right up to the falls. Not any more! There were hundreds of people there and a paid parking area that was full.

I planned to stay the night in Vik. It turns out the all of the hotel rooms in Vik were full. Another big change from the last visit! But one thing about Icelandic people… they are nice and helpful. They helped me line up a place out of town in a boarding house where I was able to get a bed and a blanket. I found a good place to eat in Vik. Good homemade soup and some Icelandic craft beer. One good thing about the increased tourism was that the food and beverage situation was a lot better than before.

The next day, I explored the beach just outside of Vik. It was a black sand beach, which might be similar to some found in Hawaii (never been there) except for the sun, surfers, and bikinis. But is was beautiful in its own right. There were lots of shore birds flying around including puffins, but I was not able to get close enough for a picture.

Next, it was on to Svartifoss. This was a interesting waterfall because of all the basalt columns that surrounded the fall. There was a nice campground and park at this waterfall as well.

From Svartifoss, it was on to Hofn. There were more waterfalls and Glaciers to see on the way there. I learned my lesson about hiking on Icelandic glaciers before. It was easy going up, but I thought I was going to toboggan down and break my neck, so no glacier hiking without proper equipment this time.

Hofn was another adventure trying to find a place to lodge for the night. Hofn is a fishing harbor, but this weekend it turned out that they were hosting a Soccer tournament for teams from the entire country. No rooms in the motels at all. But there was a hostel that had vacancies. I ended up sleeping in a room with five other people, some french, aussies, and me. Coed, but it is not a big deal, for them or me.

The next day, I would make my way toward Lake Myvatn. Several water falls are along the way there as you would expect. They were big and powerful. And no rails or warning signs. You could walk right to the edge of the fall and peer over the side. I guess Iceland doesn’t have too many lawyers (yet).

There was an entire sequence of waterfalls that I visited, each impressive in its own way. The top photo is of Selfoss and the lower photo is Dettifoss, just downriver. Next is was onto Myvatn Lake.

Myvatn means Lake of the Midges and is aptly named. A midge is a small mosquito like insect, which fortunately does’t bite like a mosquito, thank goodness. The sky was filled with them!

So guess what! I couldn’t find a motel room in Reykahlid, the largest town along Lake Myvatn! I guess there is a theme here somewhere. I was able to find a place out of town about half an hour around the lake that even had a restaurant for dinner too. I don’t recall that it was outrageously expensive either, and that can also been a theme of Iceland. It can tend to be on the expensive side of things.

The next morning, I drove back to Reykahlid to go hike the volcano that is right there. Luckily, this one is extinct, not like many on the island that are still active as you might have seen in the news over the last many years.

Next stop, Godafoss. Another one of the more famous waterfalls of Iceland and the last one I visited in the northeast portion of the island.

Now, I am traveling in the north part of the island. There are some interesting features of the drive. Like long tunnels. 3, 4, 7 mile long tunnels… that are one lane! There are pullouts at close intervals, but it is still a game of chicken at times as oncoming cars approach and you have to figure out if you can make it to the next pullout or use the closest one. I didn’t encounter any wrecks so I guess the systems works. Driving along this part of Iceland is interesting. When you see the ocean, it is the North Sea and the next land that you would find to the north would be the Arctic polar cap. It really does feel like the end of the world.

That night, I found a motel on the first try! it was in Varmahlid. Nothing really interesting about the town except that it wasn’t overrun with tourists I guess. The next day, I would be heading back toward Reykjavik. There were some options here. I decided that if the weather looked promising, I would head toward Gullfoss, the most famous waterfall in Iceland. I had been there before, but it had been raining so my photos of it were not very good. As luck would have it, the weather was pretty good so that is what I did. This is part of what is known in Iceland as the “Golden Circle”, as opposed to the Ring Road. The Golden Circle is a shorter tourist circuit closest to Reykjavik and has the most tourist activity. But what the heck, right? Gullfoss is impressive. It is a multilevel waterfall that cascades into a chasm at the bottom, then flows parallel to the fall.

Finally, there is Geysir, a thermal basin right near Gullfoss. It is only a fraction of the size of Yellowstone, but pretty cool anyway. The main geyser erupts about every ten minutes so there is not much standing around waiting for it and it doesn’t erupt as high as many others either, but it is always fun to see geysers, right?

Tomorrow will be the last day. I headed back to Keflavik and the Base Motel. I was able to avoid Reykjavik entirely this trip, not that there is anything wrong with Reykjavik. It’s just that I have been there and seen most all of the sites there.

The only thing left to do is visit the famous Blue Lagoon. I will do that tomorrow before heading to the airport. It should set me up for a nice relaxing ride home after a few hours soaking in the hot waters of the resort. The Blue Lagoon is not natural. It is a body of water that was formed from the outfall of the nearby thermal power station. Almost all of Iceland’s electrical power comes from geothermal plants. Nice! And the Blue Lagoon is a nice byproduct of that power source.

The Blue Lagoon isn’t really cheap. It was about $100, but did include a towel and a free drink at the in-pool bar. But it was worth the experience because you would always regret not going, at least that is the way I looked at it.

Just a few notes on Iceland to wrap things up. As you probably know, I like to cycle and tend to look at things from a riders perspective. There were quite a few bicycle tourists I saw on the road. The Ring Road did not have a very wide shoulder so I thought that was a real negative aspect of bicycle touring in Iceland. But the biggest thing was the weather. I enjoyed very nice weather while I was there (by Icelandic standards). Having said that, almost every cyclist I saw was wearing every bit of clothing they owned it looked to me that they were not very happy in the process. August is the warmest month in Iceland and the average daily high temperature is 59F.

[My thanks to Rupert for sending me this just today. He and his wife are currently cycling in Iceland and by all accounts are having a wonderful trip. So there are exceptions to all rules] So that was Iceland, 2019. On to France 2023!

Today is July 30th and I am leaving Chambery. It is kinda sad since I really enjoyed my stay here, but I also miss home too. So, it’s time to go. Sort of. There are a few steps to this process.

The day started off with walking down to the train station. I have always noticed there are lots of taxis there and I needed one this morning. I was not going to haul my heavy back pack AND my bike box down to the train station. No way. So, I hired a taxi to come back to my apartment and haul it for me.

Then, it was on to the train. Not just any train though. The GTV. The Bullet train! Non stop to Paris Lyon Train Station in the heart of downtown Paris. In three hours at speeds that were as fast as 180 mph. Wow, that’s fast. And to go that fast, the ride needs to be really smooth, and it was!

Arriving in Paris around 1:30 in the afternoon, I needed to get to my hotel out by the Charles DeGaulle Airport. That was pretty easy since the Paris Metro, their really nice subway system, has a line the goes there. it took some time to figure it all out, and then haul my baggage including my bike box to the right place, but I made it. By then, it was around 4:00 in the afternoon and I really didn’t feel like going back into Paris in the evening to sightsee, so I just hung out in my room and later had some dinner.

My flight the next day did not leave until 10:35 AT NIGHT. What was I thinking? I wouldn’t get into Keflavik in Iceland until midnight! But it did allow me plenty of time to go see some of Paris during the day, so I guess there was a silver lining with the late flight.

So, Tuesday the 31st, I went back to the airport, first to make sure that I knew where my check-in for IcelandAir was located. Then I hopped the Metro and headed for Paris. My primary objective was to go to the Musee d’Orsay (the Orsay Museum) where Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone (in Arles) is located and I wanted to see it again.

But first, I went to the Eiffel Tower, because you cannot go to Paris and not see it. No matter how many times you have been there. I thought about climbing the stairs to the top this time, but that notion went away quickly once I saw the line (and the cost!) to go.

Then it was on to the Museum. I expected a long wait to get in, but the line went quick. I methodically worked my way through the museum until I got to the Van Gogh wing. And the Starry Night Over The Rhone was not there! Somehow, I missed it in my methodical way. So I went to the information counter and inquired where it was located. They informed me that it was currently on loan to a museum in London. WHAT!!! Oh well. The Orsay is still worth the effort since it is first rate, and if nothing else, the building itself is such a masterpiece on its own merits.

Next, it was to go by Notre Dame. You can’t get very close to it these days due to the fire, but it is still impressive, even from a distance. The front of the cathedral was un-affected by the fire and looked as amazing as ever.

By this time, It was getting close to 6:00 PM so I needed to get back to the hotel and collect my baggage and bike box and get over to the airport. That part went well and my pre-planning from the morning was well worth the effort.

I got checked in but had to pay extra for my bike box. 77 Euros or $116 USD. This was not unexpected, but they didn’t bother to charge me when I flew over from Seattle so I was hoping for the same again this time. No such luck this time. But they did switch my middle seat to a window seat, not that there is much to see at night. But it was the thought that counted, right?

So I was waiting in the gate area for the flight and decided to get a sandwich and a small bottle of wine for a dinner from the little store in the airport. Iceland Air makes you pay for a meal in the economy class which of course is my class, and I decided not to pay for the meal. Then, I heard the words you NEVER want to hear at the airport. “Gregory Pezoldt, report to the gate counter”. Oh no, that can’t be good. So I went to see what happened. Hopefully, I wasn’t getting bumped. They switched my seat for heavens sake! I told the person at the counter who I was, and this is what he said. “The flight is full, so we decided to upgrade you to Business Class to make some more room”. Seat 1C. The very first row in the plane!

This is the second big surprise from this trip with regards to the flight. Flying over from Seattle to Europe, at check-in, I was told that I was Pre-TSA approved and I could bypass the screening process. That was nice, but I never, ever applied for that status. I have no idea how that happened. Now this upgrade to Business Class. I have to say that I had real mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I have never flown anything except economy before so it was exciting. But on the other hand, I always figured that I would never miss what I never knew with Business or First Class. Well, it turns out, I was missing A LOT! The fancy meal, the fancy wine. More fancy wine. Even more fancy wine. And no cost. Well, I did have to pay the extra 77 euros to ship my bike box this time. Funny how that worked out.

After all of this, I got to Iceland at midnight, collected my bags and bike, got a rental car and got checked into the hotel around 2AM (4 AM France Time). I was pretty wiped out, but here. Stay tuned for “Heading Home- Part Two: Iceland”

Well, all good things come to an end. And the same is with cycling in France. I have made my last rides in the french countryside.

The second to last ride was a three hour ride toward Grenoble on the Voie Vert 63 route which I have ridden a few times before. This ride was during the most recent heat wave to hit Europe. The high temp only rose to 99F as far as I could figure, but it felt a lot hotter than that. Of course, I rode in the hottest part of the day. I just seem to have a knack for that, or rather a curse! Despite the hot weather, it rained in the evening to cool things off somewhat. This rain may have been nice in Chambery, but it reeked HAVOC for the Tour de France. Foul weather caused hail, flooding, and mudslides on the course to Val D’Isere and resulted in a shortened course for the riders. And again the next day as well.

My very last ride was on Saturday. It covered the same route as the previous ride, but the weather was MUCH cooler. Thank goodness for that. Rain was in the forecast, so I made sure I was finished around 1PM. It turned out to be conservative since the rain held off until around 7:30 in the evening. These last rides served no real greater purpose other than to go out and enjoy the french countryside a few more times. Well, and that I was getting antsy for riding in general.

So now, my bike is safely picked away in the box ready to start heading back to the good ole USA. But I wanted to share a little bit of what riding in France, and even more specifically in the Savoie Region of France is like.

Riding around this area seemed very safe to me. Without a doubt, the safest place I have ever ridden. There are just so many dedicated cycling routes to choose from. These routes are either separated, dedicated paved pathways for cycling only, or the most remote of back roads that exist here in France.

When you do encounter a vehicle, they are very courteous toward cyclists. I think this stems from the fact that the french seem to embrace cycling as a viable alternative to driving. I think it is part of their culture, but also has something to due with the absurd price of gasoline!

Everyone in France rides a bike. Maybe not quite as universal as the Dutch, but they are very avid. There are a lot of very serious riders too, at least they looked serous with their fancy riding kits and top end racing machines (A “kit” is the outfit that a cyclist wears) And there are lots of non-serious riders with bikes that come in all sorts of flavors. Lots of nice bikes, all the way to old “beater” bike ridden by the poor students that are going to the university here. And every kind of bike in between. Commuters ride bikes, shoppers ride bikes, families ride bikes, retired people ride bikes. There are road bikes, mountain bikes, cross bikes, cruiser bikes, and actually, an awful to of e-bikes (Bikes assisted with electric motors) that pass me up with the easiest of efforts that drive me kind of crazy. E-bikes are the bikes of choice by the French Postal Service, and food curriers like Uber Eats!

When I come to an intersection, the default is to let the bikes pass first. Being an American cyclist, I DO NOT TRUST the driver of cars at intersections. This has caused some minor problems though. At intersections, I usually stop and wave cars through the intersection first. Well, they try to wave me through. And then we sort of have a stand off arguing with hand gestures about who is going to give in first….. But the take away and my point is this: French drivers recognize bicycles and are serious about yielding the right of way.

Of course, I did find places where I would not ride my bike. The winding canyon roads that wind through the valley floors (as opposed to the roads going over the passes) seemed unsafe to me, especially between Grenoble and the village of La Grave. But there were lots of people who did not think twice about it and rode them anyway. Cars drove pretty fast on these roads and in general, they have little to no shoulder to ride on. And the center line on the road seems to only be a suggestion of where to drive. The sports cars and motorcycles go over the center line OFTEN! And then there were the tunnels! There are a lot of tunnels. Long tunnels…. and I really did not feel comfortable riding through them at all. For all of the above reasons, plus the fact that there was no bail out option for a cyclist. Just solid rock walls on the road edge. And sometimes, the lighting is pretty dim.

If cycling in the rural areas of France is safe, then cycling in the city of Chambery is even safer. There is almost no reason to ride on a street that is not either a separated bike path , a bike lane that is delineated by curbs, bollards, or other barriers, or another cases, just plain old bike lanes. You almost never have to mix in with traffic unless you needed to make a left turn on the street.

The most intriguing thing about cycling in Chambery though is the fact that aliens must live here in large numbers. They have pictures of them on all of the bike lanes which they must frequent at some time or another, but I have yet to see one in real life. But I keep looking.

After returning from St. Etienne and the Tour de France, I wanted to do some more riding of course. Who wouldn’t be motivated by that experience?

One thing everyone has told me from the area is to go see Annecy. There is a town, and a lake and they are both supposed to be nice. So that is exactly what I set off to do. Thus, The Road To Annecy, although it sounds a bit like an old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movie.

The ride to Annecy I estimated to be around 120-130 km, about 75 or 80 miles. Not a bad ride at all. I have already made a couple of exploratory rides to see about the roads getting there and how to negotiate the towns along the way. Today I felt pretty confident about getting there and back. So off went on a really nice day for riding. Sunny, moderate temperatures, and little to no wind. I rode through Aix Les Bains, Gresy Sur Aix, St. Girod, St. Felix, and into Rumilly. I was making pretty good time until i got to Rumilly. The signs for the bike route got a little hard to find after while and I had to do a lot of back and forth trying to stay on the route. Finally, I sort of gave up and found a Tourist Information Office and decided to inquire with them about the local bike route system. Plus, the people at the Tourist Information Offices always speak English! Great plan, except they were closed until 2PM and it was 1PM. So lunch it was! I wasn’t planning on having a formal lunch, just bike forod but hey, what is wrong with another meal at a French cafe? NOTHING!

The people at the Tourist Office and I got the route all straightened out They were not completely familiar with the official Bike Route, but then we figured it out. The signs may have disappeared, but the route was still a good one to travel on. So on to Marcellaz and then to Seynod and the outskirts of Annecy. My ultimate goal was to see the lake, and I knew I was really close to it, but i just couldn’t find it….. and it was a BIG lake too. I ended up in Downtown Annecy at the big train station. It was getting late and I had made a lot twists and turns through town to get to the train station, so I was getting worried about finding my way back to the bike route back to Chambery (since the signs were not very good, remember?)

I managed to find my way back to the route, but never did see the dang lake! So I knew I would have to try again later.

So, later in the week, I went on several shorter rides that I enjoy in the area, but needed to get back to Annecy and see the Lake, even if it killed me! Plus I felt confident since I now knew how to get through Rumilly without taking two hours and studied the map on where I needed to turn to avoid the main urbanized areas of Annecy and find the lake, Ha….

So Friday I was off again. One thing that was different about this attempt. It was MUCH hotter today. Like around 95F hot and I would be riding through the hottest part of the day to make matters worse. But still, 95 degrees isn’t anything that I haven’t done before so nothing to really worry about.

I made it through Rumilly without any issues today. One really interesting thing that I noticed. There were brand new bike route symbols on the shoulder of the roadway. They were not there last week, so I mean BRAND NEW. The symbols went all the way to Seynod. This is where I needed to make some better decisions to avoid Downtown Annecy this time. And I did figure it out, but not without some trial and error on the exact route to get there. Finally, there were some signs for “Le Lac” (Lac is french for Lake!). So I followed them and, Voila… I found the lake.

And it was nice, just like everyone said it would be. It was this “tropical” green color in the shallow areas, but a much darker brilliant blue in the deeper, center part of the lake. I rode along the designated bike path the follows the entire circumference of the lake for a few miles just to see more of the lake, but knowing that I was adding more miles onto my return ride. Finally I decided to turn round, but not before I stopped and dipped my bare feet into the lake and boy, did it feel nice. It was really starting to get hot now and I would have gone swimming, but riding home in wet riding shorts would have been really miserable! And cause for some severe friction and saddle soreness.

Riding back toward Annecy, I rode through the older portion of the city which was right on the lake and it was really nice. Quiet, narrow streets with lots of cafes and tourists wandering around. There were tourist pedal boat rentals and tourist shops, and tourist buses, and well, you get the idea….There was also the public beach which was really crowded.

So, now in the old Annecy City Centre, I needed to find my way back to Seynod and the route back to Rumilly and eventually Chambery. So of course, I got lost, or rather couldn’t exactly retrace the my route I had taken to get back to the bike route. Annecy is a much larger city than I thought it was. Finally, I saw a sign for Rumilly and I followed those road signs. The only problem was that this road turned out to be the highway route, which DID have a lot of traffic on it, and DID NOT have much shoulder width to ride on. And it was 10 miles to Rumilly where I knew I could get back onto the bike route. Luckily, I saw a sign for Chavanod which is a town that I had ridden through which WAS on the bike route. It turned out to only be a few kilometers of a detour and I was back on familiar ground. Whew!

So the rest of the ride went smoothly except for the hot weather. I stopped for a cold drink every so often, but made it back to Chambery safe and sound although I did start to cramp up about 5 miles from Chambery.

So now, I have only one more week in Chambery and France. The weather is going to keep getting hotter and hotter this week, so I am not sure how much more riding I will get in for this trip, Hopelully a few more rides, but probably nothing too crazy.

I do plan some future blogs about riding in France in general and another about living in Chambery just for some added perspective. Those should be fun to write and hopefully to read about.

And then it will be on to Iceland for a week of exploring the Land of Fire and Ice! And more pictures.