17th of July the sky cleared after some rain showers overnight and there was no haze at all blocking the view over the complete Lake Geneva. The motto of Less-is-More is each time put into question when we load our bikes with our bags. Today one more item was added, because my cousin Julika had a Garmin which never got to be used and my cell phone for navigation started to suffer in the heat. So I had something new to learn and drove crazy with all the possibilities of installation last night.
When we started together with Nicolas on the bikes I thought I was able to manage this tool, but it didn’t work no matter how often I touched the “Start-Button” on the screen. Finally we asked in Vevey at a bike shop someone for help. The young lady wasn’t sure if she was able to give some advice but looked at my problem and just asked if I had pushed the “Start-Button” on the side of the device instead of on the touchscreen. I had to laugh so much how simple the answer could be and was very grateful for the great service of www.velomania.ch
Nicolas wanted to let us ride along the lake shore, but the official bike route climbed up into the vineyards and offered us spectacular views of Lake Geneva and the mountains all the way up to the glacier covered giants like the Grand Combin. Back at the lake shore we avoided downtown Lausanne, but nevertheless we came by the Olympic Committee. The further west we came the more often we had a chance to see the majestic Mont Blanc still representing its name in full beauty.
At the church of Saint Sulpice we were lucky to find a lady being right by the office door to give us the pilgrim stamp, because a hearse was parked in front of the main entrance and Robert was worried I didn’t realize the situation and would stumble into the service like a tourist. Luckily I didn’t but I felt reminded of the scene of “Les Vacances de Mr Hulot” when his spare tire rolled into the graveyard with all the leaves stuck on it looking like a wreath and being nailed to a wall by the mourning service and losing its air. Luckily Nicolas had pumped up our tires this morning and we didn’t run the risk of fixing tires in front of the church.
We continued along the lake shore and found ourselves in wild forests at Boiron beach. The bike trail climbed up into the vineyard hills and did come by Bursinel, where we even found another stamp for the Saint James trail. The next village was already Dully, where our friends Elisabeth Alfonso and Wolfram von Laun were expecting our arrival.
For the evening we had planned a dinner with our friend Jurg Hess, because he had to leave the next day. Through him I got to know Nima Bandi Sherpa in Nepal 31 years ago and this friendship with her lasts hopefully for many more years and will lead to more projects for the Nepalhilfe Starnberg in cooperation with Nepal Green Tara Foundation.
