Ahhh, France as We Remember It: Day 5 - Geneva to Chanaz - Hey Buddy, You're Going the Rhone Way - Rhone Source to Sea 2018

October 8, 2018

Ahhh, France as We Remember It: Day 5 - Geneva to Chanaz

If I told you that you would have a better chance of finding a camel than an open restaurant or bar in a popular French tourist town, would you take that bet?

If it's Monday, bet on the camel every time.

It took all of about 4 hours to completely rekindle our love hate relationship with this quirky country

We started the day with a trip to see the apartment Kirsten lived in when she was 'little' - about 3 to be exact. We found it pretty easily and it was sort of on our way out of tow. Once we got the requisite pics we started to work our way out of Geneva along the Via Rhona / Swiss Route-1 bike route. It follows a combination of bike trails and residential roads to get you out of Geneva to the west. that makes it a bit of a 'where's Waldo' route but we eventually made it out into rolling country to the west.

We were soon into France and we remembered why we like cycling in this country. The route was a combination of bike paths and very low traffic volume D roads through very pretty, sometimes dramatic, country side. At times the riding was just sublime.

Our goal for the day was the quaint little village of Chanaz, located where a few canals drain into the Rhone. It had several small hotels and restaurants listed / recommended on the EV 17 route guide (on-line). K had booked one of these small hotels earlier this morning. When we booked, we received a message that we couldn't check in until 5 ... ok, no big deal.

When we got to Chanaz around 4 pm it looked to be as pretty as every one had described. There were several tour busses of people wandering around the very steep streets and admiring the boats on the canal. We figured we would find a nice café / bar and have a post ride beer and wait for our 'hotel (more of a small B&B) to open.

This was the moment we realized that we had stumbled onto the set of Zombie Apocalypse.

Although there were many tourists wandering around the town, only a single Patisserie appeared to be open, and it was just closing up. Not a single bar, café, hotel or restaurant was open. Oh, and it goes without saying in France, the Tourist Information office was closed. We expect that to open sometime in the next space time dimension.

As we were banging on the door of the 'hotel' at 5:05, Christof ,the proprietor, arrived. He let us in, showed us our room and (re)informed us that there was nothing open in the town ... because it's Monday (queue the gaulic shrug)! He did offer to bring us some food and bevies to our room, which he did .. good beer, nice wine ... ok food that we had to heat up in the microwave, sort of like camping in the (old and eclectic but clean) room.

I hope this doesn't sound like we're pissed off, 'cause we aren't. Found this more funny, and oh so typical of our other trips to France. It just takes some getting used to every time.

The debate for tomorrow will be whether to continue along the Rhone to Lyon or to go south from here through Grenoble and then join up with the Rhone further south. It looks like a toss up ... stay tuned.

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Zombie by the Cranberries - what else could it be, it's even a 'live' concert (ironic eh?) in Paris no less!