Another glorious day in France! I had a lovely sleep in
today getting up around 9:30. I did the usual morning things, rang mum and dad,
did the clothes washing and then cleaned up the room a bit. I also booked the
hotel for tomorrow night which is on the foot of the Col de la Madeleine. It’s
going to be a monster of a day in two days’ time.
Around 11 I set off into town with two main tasks, buy a new
rear tyre and get lunch from that lovely Traiteur.
Annecy is a major tourist attraction, and a major cycling
destination, and it looks to be peak season to me. So of course you know what
that means… almost all of the bike stores are shut. Yep. Close midday Saturday
and re-open on Tuesday. Sigh. Fortunately there are several bike rental stores
here and I went around those and one of them sold folding road tires. Cool. So
all I need to do is change the rear tire over this afternoon. (Yuck)
Next task is the Traiteur, think fine food deli meets the
DJs food hall. I’d noticed they were only open until 12:30 today but I got here
with plenty of time. The only real problem is that there is sooooo much to
choose from and only me to eat it all, so I’ll have to be restrained. In the
end I settled on a Compote de Lapin (Rabbit, Apricot, Prune terrine), a salad,
and a dessert a bit like a crème Brule. Then I stopped at a Boulangerie and
bought a demig Baguette Tresalpine (a lightly fatter regional baguette) and a
coke. Then I meandered down to the park by the lake to eat.
Glorious!
I wasn’t sure I could eat that much Terrine, but no problems
as it turned out.
Not even feeling overly bloated I walked back through the
town enjoying the ambience, bought a 2 boule sorbet and some fruit. It was
getting hot so I thought I should head back and work on the diary and change
the tire, so I did.
I spent much of the afternoon on the diary, getting as far
as here, and still 35Ks to go on the Tour. I also worked out route to the hotel
tomorrow (2 Cols) and I had a look for accommodation around Bourg d’Oisan (Alpe
d’Huez area) for after the Tour, which is turning out to be a problem…
Then I settled down to finish watching the Tour and managed
to stay awake for almost the entire thing. Quite a few attacks at the end, I
thought the winners was a lost cause and I also thought Dan Martin’s attack
from the leaders group was as well, but they both made it!
Next it was time to do what I‘d been putting off all day,
changing the rear tire. Oh well, nothing for it but to get it done. I gave the
wheels a good wipe down with some napkins but I still got very dirty hands.
Fortunately I always carry a small chunk of Salvol, so no problems. The tire
went on fairly easily the only thing that is a bit odd is the tire pressure,
only 90 psi which seems low. I’ll see how it goes.
Once cleaned up I headed into town for dinner. I’ve done a
good bit of walking today, with the two walks into town plus around town easily
12 K’s today. I was hungry but not ravenous so I thought I’d go for a cheaper
option tonight. Of course it ended up being 4 courses instead of 3! The entrée
was a nice salmon salad and the main was 3 lamb chops with nice potato’s Lyonnaise
and some other vegies. The waited kept trying to speak English to me, I think
it would have been easier if he’d stuck to French. For instance he gave me a
list of things to try so I picked the baked cheese cake with figs, which seemed
odd in itself, but it was actually crème fraiche with sauce. Ok though. The
dessert was chocolate mousse but I didn’t embarrass them by taking a photo of
it.
Then the long walk home and more housekeeping, shower, I rang Hans and Trees to let them know I won’t be visiting and copied the latest photos and did this bit of diary. I’m thinking of staying at Alpe d’Huez… but I think that may be just too much, it would be yet another huge climb with panniers…
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