Aye, that's us: Sep 2005, Lyon, Jura, Geneva

This was like three holidays in one: a few days in Lyon, a walk in the Jura mountains, and a few days in Geneva

Lyon, Jura and Geneva

A few days in Lyon

Sat 10 Sep - Edinburgh to Geneva

9am left home, took bread rolls because there's still a strike at the company BA outsourced their catering to. Arrived in Lyon at 10pm after flight Ed - LHR - Gen then train Gen - Lyon. Found Hotel du Simplon, which is cheap and cheerful (67euros/night). Heavy rain during the train journey had slowed a little once we arrived in Lyon. Exhausted, so slept like logs.

Sun 11 Sep Lyon

Usual French brekky, bread, jam, super-strong-coffee or weak-tea. Wandered into the old-town, the thriving food market seemed to stretch forever along a narrow footpath on the banks of the river Saone, cross the river and there's a buzzing art market too, with some very strange creations. Turn the corner and there's a huge ceramic/pottery market, don't they do anything else but have markets in Lyon? And we didn't even find the flea-market! Caught the funicular to the top of the main hill for excellent panorama over the town, which is split by the two rivers, Saone and the bigger Rhone. Something was happening at the church on top of the hills as there were a few dignitaries with strange beards and colourful gowns wandering about (with heavies in black suits).

Walked down from the hills past the two Roman amphitheatres, one large and one smaller. Sat outside for a nice lunch (2 x nicoise) at the bottom of the hill before hitting the ancient streets again. Back to the hotel for Mal to have a nice nap while Morag hit the Fabric Museum and the Decorative Arts Museum. Dinner was an outdoor affair, salads, steak, roast pork at a nice wee joint called La Petit Gourmand.

Mon 12 Sep - Lyon

Didn't sleep so well this time, it's a noisy street and the beds uncomfortable (typical French city hotel then). Wandered north toward La Croix Rousse area of town, via more ancient streets. One was particularly colourful, we named it the street of 101 restaurants. Climbed many steps on another hill (no funicular!) for another panoramic view, before heading down to go to Les Halles (the covered market), which we figured would have some eating places, but it was closed. Still found a nice lunch though!

Hotter day today, and we were near the big indoor shopping centre, so wandered into the air-conditioned atmosphere for a look, quite a pleasant place, not too crowded. Bought a few cans of Foie Gras and had a look round, then headed back to the hotel, nap time. For dinner we'd chosen a restaurant (Le Soliel) during our travels, and walked back into the old town (across one of the many wee bridges over the Saone), sat outside and struck up an amusing conversation with two older (70's) English gents at the next table (helped us decipher the menu), who had come to Lyon for a week while their wives were off elsewhere.

Morag had roasted cheese parcels then pike in bechamel sauce then tarte tatin, Mal had smoked salmon salad then roast chicken in a garlicky sauce then chocolate fondant, with 2 "Pots" of local rose.

Lyon photos. Click on any photo to see the full-size version in our "photobox" on-line gallery. The gallery will open in a new window, there you will see all the thumbnails, click on any of them to see a bigger version or you can see a "slide-show" which works pretty well. Sorry about the advertisements, just ignore them (hey, free webspace is free webspace).

Lyon Cathedral

Ceramic fair

main amphitheatre

old town

new town

restaurants

Cathedral at night

A walk in the Jura mountains

Tue 13 Sep - Lyon - Geneve to La Cure

Time to leave Lyon and head to the start of our Jura walk, train back to Geneva was a slow journey with a few changes, then at Geneva raced to the ticket office to buy tickets to our destination, and jumped on the train to Nyon (along the northern edge of Lac Leman - about 15 minutes out of Geneva). At Nyon, it was a dash around the back of the main station to a small platform with a chug-a-lug that went up the hill to La Cure. All-in-all we caught 4 trains and our three changeovers were all less than 5 minutes, made it! The chug-a-lug to La Cure was full of teenagers and younger on the way home from school. They weren't too rowdy, so it could have been much worse!

La Cure is a one-horse town right on the border of France-Suisse. Staying at Hotel Arbez Franco-Suisse, we ate dinner in France and slept in Switzerland (just above the petrol-station next door, which wasn't so great. Dinner was a no choice menu, delicious terrine to start but then a pretty stodgy lump of soft cheese wrapped in bacon and roasted, sitting on top of sliced potatoes and swimming in cheese sauce - might be traditional, but a bit too cheesy! A bottle of the local red was fine (light, almost like a rose) but a bit steeply priced at 30euros. Much quieter here so should have been good for sleeping, but not after that cheese fest.

Wed 14 Sep - La Cure to Chapelle-des-Bois

We could have had lots more cheese for breakfast, no jam on offer so ended up with just bread and honey, and a croissant. There were two other couples starting the same walk this morning, so there was some worried looks at the hotle as they are supposed to drive us to the next town (Bois d'Amont) to start the walk and then take all the luggage to the next hotel. So they had to organise a second car (oh joy! we got the dog-haired car!).

Bois d'Amont is a nice wee place with a small river and old wooden houses (& the village is the main producer of wooden boxes for cheeses such as camembert in France), we walked out the back of town and up a hill - that'll work off some of last night's cheese! We gradually went into the forest, looking back over Bois d'Amont and other villages set amongst the greenest pastures you can imagine, complete with the ting-ting of cow-bells.

The weather is a bit overcast, but got quite hot walking uphill. After two hours we arrived at a "refuge", a small house offering refreshments and two rooms for overnight stays. Mal had a small coffee and Morag had a glass bowl of tea!?! One of the other couples, Chris(tine) and Gordon, had arrived before us so we chatted with them before they headed off, the the other couple Julie and Liz arrived just before we headed off again.

After another 30 mins walking we arrived at a great viewpoint, complete with nice bench to have our picnic on (picnic was the best food we had from the hotel in La Cure). The viewpoint has good views of the valley we're heading to, we're walking from one valley to the next, over the ridge in between them. It was quite a steep descent down to the valley (hard on the knees) and into the pastures containing many happy coos.

Hotel les Melezes at Chapelle-des-Bois is a small hotel right across the road from the church, in a wee village. We arrived about 4pm, in time for a nap and a wee wander to each end of the village before dinner, there must be some sporting activity here as there was a ski and mountain-bike centre at one end of town. Much better dinner than last night, but still no choice and quite cheesy. Started with a nice quiche, then chicken with rice and some delicate bits of forest fungi, a cheese course (Morbier and Comte, 2 very common local cheeses), then choux-chantilly for Mal (profiteroles without the chocolate sauce basically) and yoghurt for Morag. And a bottle of the local red.

Thu 15 Sep - Chapelle-des-Bois to Chaux-Neuve

Good brekky - eggs, ham, cheese, bread and jam. We were the last of the three walking couples to leave. Walked out the back of town past the holiday chalets and the sports shop, into meadows and woods with the grass still soaked with the morning dew. Nice sunny day, stopped for a snack just before 12, Chris and Gordon had chosen the same hilltop spot for a snack and pointed out that we could just see the summit of Mont Blanc in the distance. As we walked down the hill, along a forest path, about 50 schoolchildren came up the hill, complete with huge picnic baskets carried by 4 donkeys. What a way to spend a day at school.

As it was quite sunny we chose a shaded spot for lunch at about 1:30, before trekking through more meadows and forest paths. Mid-afternoon we arrived at the town of Chaux-Neuve, and walked all the way through this very pretty little village before arriving at the Auberge du Grand Git, where about 20 locals were just finishing lunch in the dining room. Morag had a quiet snooze on a sun-lounge with a beer, while Mal had a proper nap indoors. Once again we had a wee walk round the village before dinner, which was served in a big (and busy) wood-laden dining room, complete with local farming instruments hung on the wall and a little arrangement of stuffed animals in the corner.

The food is getting better all the time, still no choices, but we had a lovely ham and walnut salad, then a bizarre looking main course, a large thick slice of ham covered in mustard sauce, but I have to say it was delicious. The cheese course gave us our first go at Mont d'Or, a lovely local soft cheese, followed by blackberry tart. With this we had a superb bottle of bordeaux superior for 15 euros.

Fri 16 Sep - Chaux-Neuve to Longevilles-Mont-d'Or

Gordon and Chris had chatted with the owner last night and he had warned that bad weather will arrive in the afternoon, and since our route today takes us up Mont d'Or for views over the valleys, we had to make plans to get there before the weather closed in. So the four of us got a lift for the first few miles to the village of Le Mouthe, from where the four of us set off into the woods, first we went past a small peat bog covered in heather, there were signs explaining the presence of this bog, and describing how in winter it becomes a giant ice-sheet due to it being so low down and so wet. We carried on into the forest and arrived at the mouth of the river Doubs, which comes out of quite a spectacular archway made of rock.

Upward we went, always uphill and stopping as little as possible, We did stop to eat some apples and a passing local told us it would rain later, so we pressed on instead of stopping for lunch. At this point it was quite sunny and hot, so we did stop at a countryside restaurant we passed, for a cold drink and a wee. Then carried on, the four of us agreed it would not make sense to stop for lunch until we reached out goal - it would be annoying to be sitting there eating our picnic watching the clouds roll in, so we carried on as the hill got steeper and steeper, and it was still quite hot.

About 2pm we got to the car park near the summit - not long to go now, as we trod uphill from there the panorama began to reveal itself, and it was spectacular indeed (see photos). In the far distance we could see Mont Blanc and other mountain ranges, peeking above the cloud line.. We had a bit of a look at the views way down in the valley from this ridge at the back of the mountain, with swallows darting about all over the place - one second they're 1000 metres off the ground, the next second they're darting past your ear. We sat down and ate a well deserved picnic, as we finished the wind was getting quite strong (and cold) and we could see clouds approaching so began to head down, back through the car park and down a different route from that which had taken us up there.

We descended rapidly through a forest walk (lots of signs of where wild boar had been digging round), and as we approached Longevilles a fine drizzle started. We arrived at Hotel les Sapins at about 4pm, tired but pleased with having seen the panorama before the weather hid it from view. We skipped the tour of town as it had rained heavily while we were napping, & straight to dinner for a lovely cheese/spinach/ham quiche, tender little pieces of filet mignon, and cheeses accompanied by a 7yo bottle of bordeaux (12 euros) before glace for Morag and profiteroles for Mal.

Sat 17 Sep - Longevilles-Mont-d'Or to Jougne

It had rained heavily overnight and was cold and windy this morning, the planned route would take us back to yesterday's summit and along its length for more panoramic views but we decided that would be pointless in this weather, so after a slight detour for a look at the next village, we headed along a lower route through ski resort (Metabief) and villages. Luckily today's start and end points are not far apart, and the planned route was quite circular, so we didn't have a long walk to do, as it was pretty uncomfortable in the wind.

At one stage, in a forest section, we found a woodcutter's hut, complete with sheltered veranda, so we sat in the shelter there, on chairs and table hand-crafted from logs, and ate our picnic, but we didn't linger as it was pretty chilly. From there it was a gentle downhill along muddy tracks until we reached Jougne, the biggest village we've stayed in so far. Jougne is spread out along a single road though town, with a motorway running through a ravine next to town, we arrived right in the middle and walked downhill toward our hotel, fortuitously finding the local boulangerie open and collecting a couple of treats.

At the Hotel la Couronne the Madame greeted us warmly and gave us the key to our small but toasty warm room, where we gobbed our treats from the boulangerie. Dinner here was superb, and we had choices! We both had the chevres (goats cheese) salad, followed by tornedeau in a lovely green pepper sauce and beautifully arranged vegetables, and then a selection from an excellent cheese-board, and a nice bottle of the local Jura red. Finished off with tarte-au-citron for Morag and tarte-au-poire for Mal. Luckily, we've chosen this spot for a rest day so will be staying here tomorrow too, we booked in for lunch.

Sun 18 Sep - Jougne

Today will be a challenging day, we're booked in for lunch and dinner. So better go for a walk and earn it, about 10am we set off to do circuit into the valley below the bottom end of town, up the hill on the other side of the valley, then back down into the valley and up our side again. This took about three hours, the highlight was a small village along from Jougne which had brilliant gardens, one complete with scarecrow guarding the veggie patch, and lots of intricately constructed woodpiles (it might get cold here in winter!). So we arrived back at the hotel about 1pm, in time for a shower before lunch. Unusually for a Sunday and a hotel with such good food, the dining room wasn't full, but you can bet we were after a four-course (27 euro) lunch. Morag had red-mullet in tomato sauce, then confit-du-Canard, while Mal had trout fillet in butter sauce then the duck also. We washed this down with a bottle of the local cremant (fizz, 20 euros), then the cheese course followed by tart-au-citron for Morag and tarte-au-chocolate for Mal. Delicious!

After that we had a wee stagger up the hill to the other end of town, but the wind was too cold to stay out for too long, so back to the hotel to catch up with some washing, writing notes, and checking the route for the next couple of days. Then it was time for dinner! We shared a chevre salad and a cassolet d'escargot (wee snails in a cream and white wine sauce, they were pretty chewy if you ate them with the supplied fork, better to spoon them in with a load of the sauce). Then Morag had quail fillets (a wise choice as they were quite small), Mal had the delicious tornedeau de beouf again (a bad choice, too filling). By now it was getting difficult to eat, managed to have a small portion of cheese to accompany the last of the red wine, but could only manage small pieces of tarte-au-chocolate and ice-cream for dessert.

Mon 19 Sep - Jougne to Les Petits Fourgs

Farewell to the fabby Hotel La Couronne, maybe just as well. We waddled back up the hill to the other end of town, then into the forest along a dirt track, climbing about 200m, the extra height brought us up into the mist sitting round the tops of the hills, for quite a while we could only see about 50 metres in front of us. So as we walked along a path described in the walking notes as "a long broad ridge with views over the valleys and the Mont Blanc massif" all we could see was the path ahead. It was also a cold wind, so pretty uncomfortable for walking, wished we'd brought gloves and woolly hats!

As we descended the mist cleared away and we got some shelter form the wind, so when we arrived at the point where we could stay in France and soon arrive at the next town, or turn into Switzerland for a detour, we thought we might as well do the extra. The border was marked by a wire-fence and a sign. Soon after crossing we found an excellent picnic table in the middle of nowhere, we quickly ate lunch in the cold and headed on again, gotta keep moving to keep warm. Eventually we arrived at the town of L'Auberson where the walking notes hinted that we could get a hot drink at the "Cafe Industrial", we had to walk the length of town to find it, passing on the way a house with a thermometer on the outside wall - 4 degrees celsius, no wonder we were cold.

The cafe was right out of the 1960's, which is when the lady working in it opened it up we reckon, still with the same furniture and same posters on the walls. But the hot chocolate was hot and milky, and the pins and needles in our fingers indicated we were thawing out. So we headed back out and through town again and back to the border, this time a real border crossing with a guard standing at the doorway, who nodded at us as we passed. Across more meadows, past a wee chapel (closed) on a hill, past many more happy coos, and along the length of the village of Les Fourgs - a farming/working village, where they don't have time to put out pretty flower displays and stuff like that. Out the back of Les Fourgs and through a few more meadows until we arrived at Les Petits Fourgs, where we found Hotel les Creux des Pierres. This place is a bit more like a combination hotel and family home, and was very cosy once they turned the heating on. By now Liz and Julie had caught up with us again (they had an extra day in Longevilles) and the four of us were the only guests, so we shared a table for dinner, no choices again but delicious it was: cheese tart, fresh trout in white-wine and butter sauce, then cheese and a share in the Monsieurs birthday cake, which was accompanied by a couple of bottles of excellent local chardonnay, then as we were having a good chat, we had a bottle of the local cremant as well. Suspect we kept Monsieur and Madame up later than usual.

Tue 20 Sep - Les Petits Fourgs to Le Mont des Verrierres

Quite a short walk today, if we'd hurried we could have done it in three hours, but we had no need to so sauntered along through lots of green pastures and lovely forest paths, and past a lot of quaint farm buildings. At one point, as we opened a gate to leave one field, all the coos in the next-door field decided that we must have food or something, as they all came charging to the corner of the field - stampede. Luckily they didn't break thought the fence and follow us, but they must have thought we had something delicious in our rucksacks!

After stopping in the corner of a field and sitting on some rocks for our picnic, we headed round the corner and managed to spot a red squirrel scampering up a tree - quite a rare sight those critters. In the last hour or so of the walk, once again four of us together, there was a lot of mushroom spotting going on. Most of these where ones you wouldn't want to touch, never mind eat, but they were interesting to look at.

The Hotel le Tillau is pretty much n the middle of nowhere, but seemed to have alot of people staying at it, the car park was full. Our room was in the roof space, so pretty small and with sloping-in roofline, Mal could only stand up straight in a few places in the room. No pre-dinner walk as there's nowhere to walk to except into the fields, down in the dining room there's a huge fireplace and there was a crowd of people. Once again we shared a table with Liz and Julie, tucking into seafood salad (despite being as far away from the sea as you can get), then yummy veal, a selection of cheese (including a liquefied one and very garlicky one), accompanied by a couple of bottles of beaujelais. For dessert Morag had blackcurrant tart and mal had chocolate mousse. We were tempted by a bottle of cremant but decided against it as we have a long walk tomorrow.

Wed 21 Sep - Le Mont des Verrierres to Les Rasses (Suisse)

Liz and Julie are staying here an extra day, so we set off on what promises to be the longest walk of the holiday at about 9:30. For the first 30 mins we retraced our steps from yesterday (this time sighting a fox running across a field) before heading off to the south-east. It was cool but clear, with the sun shining, so we were hopeful of having good views on today's summit, Le Chasseron. As always, lots of happy coos around, with their bells. Most of the morning was spent walking along forest trails or kicking the dew off the grass on trails through meadows.

At about 1pm we arrived at a small village - La Chaux - that had conveniently placed a picnic table in the centre of town, so that was the spot for lunch - the usual ham/cheese baguette, salad (with dressing in a wee sachet), leaving fruit and cake till later. From there we headed into a forest via a very impressive ravine with trees growing sideways out of the rock walls, toward the town of Sainte Croix. As we approached the town we passed long lines of huge concrete blocks placed by the Swiss to stop WW2 German tanks, we skirted round Ste Croix and began the long ascent to Le Chasseron through some fields and along increasingly steeper and rockier paths.

At about 3pm we reached a bar/restaurant and stopped for a cold drink - it's sunny and hard-work. Eventually the ridge came into view and the views began to emerge as we struggled up the hill toward the edge of the ridge. To our left we could see the towns we'd walked through today and yesterday, plus lots more hills and valleys that we'd probably walked through on previous days.

To our right we could see Lake Neuchatel and our next stop, Les Rasses. Once again, in the distance we could see Mont Blanc and several other peaks, you can just tell the difference between the snow covered peaks and the cloud line. The ridge keeps climbing slowly for quite a while before you get to the restaurant and car/park at the highest point, by now it was 4:45 and quite windy. So now it was steeply down the hill toward les Rasses, and by now we both had sore feet and aching legs. The path quickly goes into forest where eagle-eye Morag spotted another red squirrel, it took about an hour to descend to Les Rasses, which is a very pretty little village, lots of very expensive looking chalets (by now we're back in Switzerland).

The Grand Hotel lives up to its name, plush carpets and furniture greeted us as we arrived in our muddy boots and smelly walking gear. But they mustn't have minded because they gave us a superb huge room, with two balconies, huge bed, comfy sofa, big bathroom. No time for a nap before dinner, but we made time for a hot bath each. Dinner was a set menu: consomme aux herbs, salad (nothing special), nice lamb casserole, and an Italian ice-cream thingy drowned in highly-dangerous distilled liquor. Our bottle of local Shiraz (50Fr) was nearly the cheapest on the menu and was fine.

Thu 21 Sep - Les Rasses

We had an extra day here, so late breakfast and decided to catch the bus to Ste Croix for a look around. Might as well have not bothered as it's not much of a place, but we did check out train times for tomorrow and buy a bottle of Mumm to have tonight (when Julie & Liz arrive) to celebrate successfully completing the walk.

Dinner tonight was tomato soup, mushrooms in sauce on toast (yuk says Mal), then chicken with tatties and veggies, and some ice-cream. Liz and Julie caught up with us again so we went to our luxurious room and shared the bottle of Mumm and congratulated us on finishing the walk.

Jura walk photos. Click on any photo to see the full-size version in our "photobox" on-line gallery. The gallery will open in a new window, there you will see all the thumbnails, click on any of them to see a bigger version or you can see a "slide-show" which works pretty well. Sorry about the advertisements, just ignore them (hey, free webspace is free webspace).

Cork factory at Bois d'Amont

fields

to Chapelle des Bois

Hotel les Melezes

refuge @ Pret d'Haut

Auberge du Grand Git

pot plants @Chaux Neuve

Source du Doubs

fungi

at Mont d'Or

Jougne in valley

Mont d'Or to Switzerland

near Longevilles

cowbell collection

picnic spot

Mont d'Or in mist

hotel Couronne

woodpile near Jougne

scarecrow near Jougne

chimneys near Jougne

crossing the border

converted barn

Auberge les Cruex des Pierres

a confusion of paths

happy coo

Morag's favourite

Hotel le Tillau

crossing the border

near Col des Etroits, day 7

waiting their turn

from Le Chasseron

from Le Chasseron

Grand Hotel, Les Rasses

Grand Hotel, Les Rasses

A few days in Geneva

Fri 22 Sep - Les Rasses to Geneva

We had planned to have lunch in Ste Croix, but since we had a big buffet brekky and the town had so little to offer, instead we caught an earlier train to Geneva, where we headed for the local shopping centre to hunt out more cans of Foie Gras. We're here to visit les Holberton, who we haven't seen for a few years. They've moved since we were last here, but we still managed to hunt them down. We arrived at their place just before 5pm and Deb was already home, so we three sat out on their plant covered balcony and had a cold drink - quite hot again now.

After a while Roger and the three girls arrived home. We spent the evening talking, eating and drinking, then finished off with a bit more drinking, just in case.

Sat 23 Sep - Geneva

All seven of us piled into the Holberton autobus and headed off to France to check out the "broken chalet". First of course, lunch, this was had on the terrace at a restaurant with views over mountains bigger than you believe possible. After the feast we drove round a mountain or two to arrive at the broken chalet, and yes it is quite broken, but in a spectacular spot, with access to a couple of chairlifts and views to die for. It'll be fantastic once they get the purchase completed and can start rebuilding/restoring.

Time to walk off lunch, so we walked along a path at the back of the chalet and hunted down another load of dangerous looking mushrooms until it started to get chilly. Back to Geneva for another evening of chatting, eating and drinking. Just like the old days!

Sun 24 Sep - Geneva to Edinburgh

Caught an early flight so that we wouldn't have a really tight turnaround in Heathrow and just as well as there were delays and queues and delays. Just managed to get on our flight to Edinburgh only 15 minutes late, home and gave the washing machine a battering before slumping into bed exhausted.

Work tomorrow :(

Geneva photos. Click on any photo to see the full-size version in our "photobox" on-line gallery. The gallery will open in a new window, there you will see all the thumbnails, click on any of them to see a bigger version or you can see a "slide-show" which works pretty well. Sorry about the advertisements, just ignore them (hey, free webspace is free webspace).

grooming the flying dog

acting like kids

acting grown-up

view from restaurant

more mushies

view from the broken chalet

Copyright Malcolm Holt and Morag Medwin, 2002-2005

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