I decided to humour myself over breakfast and punched Lake Maggiore into the sat nav. A rather optimistic 4.5 hours was the response which, like giddy little fools, we believed.
So after a failed expedition to the bakery (closed for the week), a further walk to Carrefour and Lidl (too early for both), and a well needed stretch on the yoga mats, we hit the road.
Of course we ignored sat navs instructions and chose to ride south to Gex (amazing roads, but absolutely no restaurants open to satisfy our lunchtime cravings) then over to Geneva where we parked up by the lake and tucked into some bread and cheese that we'd picked up earlier in the day (in case of such an emergency). Geneva was bustling, with lots of people enjoying the outdoor space. The weather was scorching. We were the only idiots sat by the lake in leathers.
We picked up the top of the route des grand alps at thonon les bains and had a hot, dry, fast ride south to cluses.
East to Chamonix on the amazing elevated autoroute then over into Switzerland. It was starting to get worryingly late by the time we reached martigny but we made a unanimous decision to get out of Switzerland and push on to Lake Maggiore. One days pain would earn us a day off tomorrow.
So east to Brig then over the simplon pass where we were delayed further by road works in the open tunnels and several days of very cautious traffic lights.
Riding down the simplon pass into Italy we were treated to a spectacular lightning storm. Unfortunately we were riding straight into it, but it had long passed by the time we hit the lake.
We followed the western bank of the lake north to cannobio where we pulled up at a campsite we noticed last year right on the shore.
Reception was closed but the chap was just getting in his car to leave site so he let us through the barrier, walked us round to a porch and told us to settle up in the morning.
On first impressions, the site seems fairly unimpressive but it's always tricky to find your bearings when you turn up in darkness. It's certainly busy, mainly with Germans. We pitched between two parties of young German lads. It was noisy at first, especially as we're by the road, but it settled down later. Their music is unforgivable though. Not loud, just bloody awful.
The restaurant was closed, unsurprisingly, but we walked over the road and enjoyed yet more pizza and some very cheap and reasonable wine.
Louby's heated vest ('Shall I bring it? Why will I need a heated vest in France in August?') has been on pretty much all day. Her decision to leave the heated gloves at home was a poor one which she's regretting and she definitely won't be making the same mistake again.
Sat nav is going back to school. The 4.5 hour ride it promised us ended up taking 11.5 painful hours, although we did have several stops. By the time we landed at 10pm we were completely spent. It also made some pretty dubious routing choices when trying to avoid autoroute in Switzerland but it did keep us off the expensive stuff for our short venture over the border. It's living on borrowed time though and better not give us any more nonsense.
So after a failed expedition to the bakery (closed for the week), a further walk to Carrefour and Lidl (too early for both), and a well needed stretch on the yoga mats, we hit the road.
Of course we ignored sat navs instructions and chose to ride south to Gex (amazing roads, but absolutely no restaurants open to satisfy our lunchtime cravings) then over to Geneva where we parked up by the lake and tucked into some bread and cheese that we'd picked up earlier in the day (in case of such an emergency). Geneva was bustling, with lots of people enjoying the outdoor space. The weather was scorching. We were the only idiots sat by the lake in leathers.
We picked up the top of the route des grand alps at thonon les bains and had a hot, dry, fast ride south to cluses.
East to Chamonix on the amazing elevated autoroute then over into Switzerland. It was starting to get worryingly late by the time we reached martigny but we made a unanimous decision to get out of Switzerland and push on to Lake Maggiore. One days pain would earn us a day off tomorrow.
So east to Brig then over the simplon pass where we were delayed further by road works in the open tunnels and several days of very cautious traffic lights.
Riding down the simplon pass into Italy we were treated to a spectacular lightning storm. Unfortunately we were riding straight into it, but it had long passed by the time we hit the lake.
We followed the western bank of the lake north to cannobio where we pulled up at a campsite we noticed last year right on the shore.
Reception was closed but the chap was just getting in his car to leave site so he let us through the barrier, walked us round to a porch and told us to settle up in the morning.
On first impressions, the site seems fairly unimpressive but it's always tricky to find your bearings when you turn up in darkness. It's certainly busy, mainly with Germans. We pitched between two parties of young German lads. It was noisy at first, especially as we're by the road, but it settled down later. Their music is unforgivable though. Not loud, just bloody awful.
The restaurant was closed, unsurprisingly, but we walked over the road and enjoyed yet more pizza and some very cheap and reasonable wine.
Louby's heated vest ('Shall I bring it? Why will I need a heated vest in France in August?') has been on pretty much all day. Her decision to leave the heated gloves at home was a poor one which she's regretting and she definitely won't be making the same mistake again.
Sat nav is going back to school. The 4.5 hour ride it promised us ended up taking 11.5 painful hours, although we did have several stops. By the time we landed at 10pm we were completely spent. It also made some pretty dubious routing choices when trying to avoid autoroute in Switzerland but it did keep us off the expensive stuff for our short venture over the border. It's living on borrowed time though and better not give us any more nonsense.
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