19th of July we could still have our breakfast outside in the sunshine, but a dark horizon already started to grumble with some thunder. While we were packing it started to rain heavily and the thunderstorm rolled over Lake Geneva causing white capped waves. It was reason enough to postpone our continuation of the Tour and wait some hours until the rain was over.
It was a well-used gained time slot to work on the journal and to pack carefully our bags. Elisabeth still offered us lunch and Wolfram wanted to help us out with our luggage to gain time for climbing up the Jurassic mountains. We finally left at 3:00pm and decided to just cross the Swiss border to France. In the beginning we could find some quiet roads which were not so busy to gain altitude up into the Jura, but after Saint-Cergue we joined the main road again and were confronted with busy traffic.
We tried to find some side roads and the sign we followed said “Toutes directions” (=all directions) which convinced us to be on the right way. But the higher we got the more we found us between cows, meadows and forests and ended on a wild smuggler path not knowing we already had unofficially crossed the French border. One farmer had a funny look at us what we would search among the fields of yellow gentian. It turned out to be a skiing area, where we had to take the track of a ski lift down to join the road again.
We made it to Les Rousses right behind the border where Wolfram was already waiting with our bags at our bed and breakfast. When I saved the tour on kommot I discovered it was in hiking mode instead of biking mode. What a difference one little letter can make. The day finished with a beautiful rainbow and a great pizza at “La Fruitière” which Robert couldn’t finish.
