24th of July at the Country house of “ La Grande Sauve” the smell of freshly baked croissants in the oven woke me up. A beautiful table setting looked very inviting and we felt our dreams of French travel coming true. Our metal horses were happy in their dry stable, got enough oat for the rest of the day and I could saddle them. During breakfast conversation with other guests we got some helpful information for our further plans as they were coming from the Bordeaux region. They recommended us to avoid the Landes, which completely lost their pine tree forests through huge forest fires. Even the lady from Avignon…

23rd of July we were allowed to leave our luggage at the B&B to find a place to charge our bikes in the city. There were exactly two posts for doing so at the Town Hall of Autun. They were cleverly built to put your charger inside a box, which one could close with its own lock to be safe against rain and burglary. So now we could use the time during the charging of our metal horses to have a look at the city, which was one of the most interesting places founded by emperor Augustus as “Augustodunum” in the years 16-13 B.C. It was supposed to be a…

22nd of July leaving the city of Chalon-sur-Saone north we were able to join this time a different type of “voie verte” (green way) not anymore following railway tracks but this time along the “Canal du Centre”. We immediately had some Netherlands associations and the slope along the canal is only rising at the locks. The closer we got to the vineyard hills and their castles and villages the more we were reminded being in the French region of Burgundy. In general we chose to use good old paper maps for better orientation and a backup by komoot and Garmin. But to be honest these devices can’t cope with the…

21st of July we were happy to have some cash with us, because a lightning had probably interfered with the internet system of Lons as no-one was able to pay by card anymore, neither at the restaurant nor at the hotel and we had no access to WiFi anyways. We left Lons-le-Saunier after a typical French breakfast at the “resto” à la place called “Mjiam”, which was exactly the right expression for how yummy the “pain au chocolat and raisins” were. We were lucky to continue on the old railway line with the “voie verte” for our next leg to Chalon-sur-Saone. It was very windy and clouds moved fast and…

20th of July our breakfast showed already its French side. There was no more Birchermüesli from Switzerland, but Gilles and Isabelle offered us self-made yoghurt and jam with the croissants and Morbier cheese. Gilles was a bike and motorbike fan. He admired my special check rail for my bike which I use to fix the GoPro. I explained him that Robert didn’t want to see me with a GoPro on my helmet which looks in his eyes more than ridiculous. Gilles agreed and said it was very reasonable not to fix it on a helmet as it probably had caused the cerebral trauma of Michael Schuhmacher during his ski accident.…

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…

18th of July I got up with the first rays of sunlight on the Mont Blanc by 5:30 am, because Wolfram explained me the tradition of their Rotary Club of Lausanne lunch meetings allow only a ten minutes flash presentation. So I started extra early in the morning to select the “Less-is-More-Essence” of my “Less-is-More-Presentation”. It took me quite some time on such a complex subject and the early morning was faster over than expected. By 11:00 am we had to leave the house to drive to Lausanne. The Rotary Club Lausanne will count next year a hundred years old history and holds its meetings in the Lausanne Palace. Therefore…

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…

16th of July we felt really honoured being hosted by family de Lavallaz. Their family estate dates back to the 16th century and appeared to us like a castle. Even the entrance to the courtyard was already very impressive and Jean-Marc had sent me a photo way before our arrival not to misinterpret it as a museums entrance. It is very impressive when you can see the family tree and the ancestors from the 16th century look at you in the great room and the year 1643 is graved in soap stone of the furnace. Even a wall panel had a painting of the important passage at Châteaux de Saint…

15th of July started a bit cloudy, but after the 30°C from yesterday we were happy not to be under the direct sun again. Our first goal was already seen from the beautiful little lake, where we had dinner with our Rotarian friends from Sierre yesterday. The whole landscape of the valley was shaped due to a huge landslide, when the Rhone glacier pulled back after the ice age 10.000-15.000 years ago. It left a mixture of hills and little valleys filled with lakes in a kind of disorder to the common main valley of the Rhone. A perfect place to settle since the Bronze age and even Roman ruins…