The Road To Annecy

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.