Hiking to the top of La Dole

This weekend I woke up on Sunday with hope that it would be a nice clear day after several days of cold and rain. I walked out the door in shorts and a t-shirt but quickly put on a fleece by the time I was on the train and my rain jacket once I got to La Givrine, which is just past Saint Cergue and the start of my hike.

I had an espresso and croisant at the restaurant there (it's a mistake to let me go too long without coffee) and then headed off.

I soon began to wonder if I'd underestimated the conditions, since it was by now quite cold and rainy - I seemed to be the only one out walking and even the cows were looking at me like I was crazy.

Regardless, I continued towards Cuvaloup but got a bit lost when I missed the turn-off which would have taken me up the mountain, and I spent a bit of time in the 'wilderness' under the ski lifts before getting back on track.

Then, as I was puffing my way up towards the peak, a woman actually ran past me up the mountain, and a bit further on a guy ran past me going down! I saw more people running up the mountain during my hike, as well as a group of unhappy cyclists carrying their mountain bikes up on their shoulders.

It was really cold and windy at the top and I swear there was flecks of ice amongst the rain.

On the way back down the rain and clouds cleared a bit and I stopped at a mountain restaurant for an assiette de viande seche and to warm up before continuing my hike down the mountain.

As usual when hiking, I took far less photos on the way down. I did take a lot of photos of cows but the clouds meant I couldn't take any panoramic pictures of the mountains.

I did, however, take a few movies with my camera. This was quite fun but the work involved in turning it into something I can put on the web means I probably won't do it too often. It's too big to embed on the blog, but you can find it here.

Tomorrow I plan to have another go at hiking in the Jura and I bought myself some Komperdell hiking sticks today so I can blend in with the Swiss, with whom they seem to be mandatory!

Bathing and Hiking

Well Summer is officially here and we've been trying to get out into the sunshine over the last few weeks. However apart from a splash of sun early on we've had lots of grey weather recently.

It started out at Ovronnaz in Valais, where we spent a very relaxing couple of days in the natural hot spring baths and lying in the sun (Linda lay in the sun, I lay in the shade. We both got sunburnt).

We also had massages which pretty much put an end to our plans to do some hiking in the surrounding mountains because we were just too relaxed! I guess we should have done it in the reverse order.

We did, however, drive the car up a mountain road and wandered around a bit in the beautiful fresh growth forest and crisp mountain air.

The following weekend we had a bit of a wander around the Jura above Nyon where the flowers were all out.

And somewhere along the way we nipped across the lake to Yvoire in France where we checked out the gardens.

Then we had a weekend at Chateau D'Oex where we were meant to be going ballooning, but apparently a breath of a breeze was enough for it to be cancelled so we had a rather more quiet weekend driving around the Bernese Oberland and doing some hiking in the mountains.

This was quite a frustrating weekend because we'd taken a day off work to do the flight and instead we had rainy days and Linda even got caught with some urgent work. We did however manage to see some cool waterfalls and lakes, and we visited Les Diablerets which is one of our favourite places in Switzerland.

Loire Valley

Last weekend we headed up to the Loire Valley, south of Paris in France. From Nyon this is quite a long trip and we only arrived in Orleans in the evening.

This meant we headed practically straight out from our hotel to find some dinner, which we intended to be something relatively cheap and quick but which ended up being a large and heavy dinner of Loire cuisine that seemed to keep us feeling over-full for the remainder of the weekend.

At one point I picked up a Loire cookbook in a tourist shop and read the nutritionist advice in the front cover - it recommended that the meat, butter, and cream-heavy food was not a healthy diet for normal people.

The next day we headed out to see some castles - the Loire valley being rich in castles as it is with its food.

We started with Chambord, which is a dangerous way to start a weekend of castle-watching because it may well be the most impressive of the whole area. In fact it did not start life as a castle but was actually built as a hunting lodge. The castle is surrounded by forest that was bright green at this time of year.

After a "snack" of fresh bread with goats cheese and foie de cerf we moved on to Blois, which is a town with another impressive castle, although this one is built in the town and evolved over many centuries making it an architectural mixed bag.

The next day we started at Chaumont, with a fairytale castle and some pretty gardens that looked over the Loire valley.

Then we moved on to Chenonceau, an amazing castle built out over the river and surrounded by forest. We had lunch there and took an audio tour, learning the interesting history of the castle and the people who lived within it.

We finished up at Tours, one of the major cities of the region, which has a well preserved old town where we had dinner at a creperie in the main square - finishing with sweet crepes served with Chantilly cream.

On our last day we wandered around Orleans, visiting the rebuild house of Jean of Arc, before moving on back in the direction of Switzerland.

We stopped at one more castle at Sully-sur-Loire, which we'd saved for the last day because it was roughly on the way home, and found we were really lucky with our timing because there was also a medieval faire being held.

It was fascinating seeing all these people dressed up in period costumes and living out of tents of the age, even if there was some strange sights, like "American Indians" and WWII soldiers mixing with medieval knights. Everyone seemed to be having fun and getting along just fine regardless!

The castle itself was also quite interesting and we took ourselves on a tour around it but soon we were feeling the pressure of time to finish the drive back to Switzerland.

In the end we got back home with no troubles, having not really encountered any problems or traffic, but we were happy to have given ourselves time to recover after quite an exhausting and busy trip!