GREETINGS FROM THE HAUTE SAVOIRE
Well, we are finally in rural France, just outside Geneva, in a valley called the Vallee Verte, and boy is it green. Our good friends Hannah and Erik live with their two boys, Finn and Frankie in a cool OLD farmhouse/hunting lodge that has parts that date to the mid 1600’s! It’s an amazing building with nooks, 3 foot thick stone walls, and lots of space, including a spectacular view of the adjacent mountains. A good place to start as we make our way around the world. We caught up with Hannah and Erik last night over lots of wine and managed to drink ourselves out of our jet lag. (so much for the classic advice not to drink)
Hey, and we are finally not packing, planning, or running around San Francisco. Our flight on Lufthansa’s new business class was really nice, and we both slept really well on their near flat-bed seats (pods) that have every modern convenience and can be adjusted into about 1000 positions. We will definitely seek out Lufthansa again in the future though for one big reason. Taking your bikes overseas with them is easier than taking them on BART. Really. After our gracious friend Nico took us to the airport (rush hour on a long weekend, no less), we just rolled our bikes to the counter, got luggage checks on them and then handed them to the oversize baggage handler 20 yards away. No boxes, no taking off the pedals, and no stress! Amazing; as they didn’t even make us turn the handlebars. And what about the other end in Geneva you ask? They cane out alone on a cart and were handed to us in perfect condition. Awesome. The combination of a German airline and a Swiss airport made the whole experience a breeze. We will not choose United again if we can ever avoid it.
Today, we were both going to cycle towards Lake Geneva after a nice relaxing day yesterday, but the jet lag finally hit me a bit and we got up too late for such a big ride, so we’ll probably just explore the area a bit. I couldn’t resist getting out yesterday on the bike for some truly jaw dropping scenery.
The photos don’t do the Alps justice. The hills and Cols are big, so luckily we are fresh from our Colorado experience at 12,000 feet…..
Au Revoir Mes Amis
Tags: France and Switzerland, Travel, Tag Index
rich.coffin