The nice lass who runs the place was manning reception. I popped in to settle up. She has a lovely softly spoken French accent. It beats my ridiculous Yorkshire French accent hands down. I spoke to her in French but it was obviously too much to bear because was trying to steer the conversation into English. I much preferred it when she spoke in her native tongue.
First pass we hit today was Col de l'Iseran. It's probably my favourite Alpine pass. The road and scenery is nothing short of amazing. The views from the D902 are stunning and it takes true determination to keep your eyes on the road. At the top it's a bit of a glacier fest and the air up here feels as fresh as it comes.
And, despite the bold claims of the Col de la Bonette, this is genuinely the 'highest paved mountain pass in Europe'.
Just before Bourg-Saint-Maurice we pulled into a little roadside restaurant and bar called Auberge le Perce Neige. We fell into some nice wicker seats on the patio and ordered drinks. Catherines beer looked more appealing than my coffee in the blazing heat. There were plenty of locals eating the menu du jour which looked great but we just wanted drinks and a rest. The couple running it were lovely. They happily charged my depleted camera for me so I could take lots more pictures of Catherines looking smug with ice cold beer.
Onto Cormet de Roseland and more incredible scenery. As tectonic plates collided and created the Alps, I suspect that the area around here was the epicentre of some major geological action. There's craggy mountains and huge folds of rock jutting out of the ground at all angles. It's a proper car crash of mountains.
We stopped in Beaufort to pick up cheese, bread, wine and a few provisions for tea. Beaufort cheese is delicious. It's got a real distinct nutty flavour. You can find it back home if you look carefully. We bought a big slice of special reserve. The lass in the deli said it was hand produced on a farm and tried to emphasise the amount of time and effort involved by pointing to a grainy black & white photo of some old boy attending to important cheese duties. No idea if this was all true but we were sold and she made a good sale. We stopped just north of the town and ate lunch in a little picnic area on the road to Flumet.
By the time we reached Col de la Colombiere we needed a rest. Drinks at the passes can be nasty. Think of the vending machine hot chocolate we had yesterday. The restaurant up here though bucked the trend and knocked up two perfect espressos from a huge industrial gaggia coffee machine. It was only €1.50 a pop. We even got a cute little waffle shaped biscuit with it too.
The last stretch of Route des Grande Alpes before Thonon is always a favourite although you don't often see it dry like today. It constantly flicks left and right in a huge series of lovely bends at the bottom of a narrow gorge.
It was running late but we wanted to clear Geneva. The weather was good and the roads were quiet. If we waited until the morning it could be completely different.
We passed the scene of our accident from a few years back and the cafe that took us in after it. The fountain in Geneva harbour was turned on this time. It's huge. Riding past you don't realise just how massive it is until you notice the dots at its base are actually people.
Geneva is full of beautiful people but even that couldn't convince me to spend any more time there.
We took the shortest path through to the French border and found a little municipal campsite in Gex. Change from €15 and the showers seem great. The pitches are massive and all hedged off into individual plots. We couldn't ask for anything more.
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