Hi, my name is Tomomi.

Cycling the Western Alps

Day One

We had an early morning start to catch the 6:46 train from Paris to Annecy, starting in the pitch dark and disassembling my two bikes into bike bags at Gare de Lyon. Upon arrival, it was a pleasure to find the Lake just a few minutes away from the station. Locals and holiday-makers alike were enjoying the water and sun.

We were eager to get going, so we rode alongside the lake until we left it behind and wandered into the hills. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea to pick up lunch at Annecy, as the towns grew sparser and sparser! But it was a nice, warm-up ride to the cute town of Le Grand-Bornand and we were happy to have a big dinner once there.

Day Two

We split a sandwich for breakfast in preparation for the day and started the long climb up Col de la Colombière with its classic mountain views of Haute-Savoie. Once we were up the Col, we got to ride down it, which was great fun. It was scorching hot, though—in early afternoon, the heat wave caught up with us. We stopped for lunch in hopes of finding a cool spot to rest for a few hours. It wasn’t to be, so we decided to forge ahead into Chamonix Valley. Luckily, the road turned out to be a well-maintained bike lane that goes parallel to Autoroute Blanche. And even better, we spotted a little body of water along the way where people were bathing. Jackpot! The temperature was perfect. What better way to cool your core temperature than floating on your back in a lake in the French Alps? After about two hours, we went our merry way. Unfortunately it was a tough ride up to Combloux, as I missed a crucial turn then struggled to navigate the hills. We were nearly depleted once we reached the hotel. It was one of those multi-chapter days, where I look back and marvel that all of those events happened on the same day.

Day Three

Since I wasn’t sure how we’d be feeling, physically and emotionally, I’d planned three potential routes for Day Three. The most optimistic one involved an extra 15km to check out Megève in the morning but that idea was quickly scrapped. E and I agreed that getting to our next destination as early in the day as possible was the key to enjoying the day, considering what we’d experienced from the heat wave the day before. So after a lovely breakfast, we dropped into Saint-Gervais-les-Bains in the early morning, enjoying the cool temperature and town buzz. It was a lovely, quiet forest ride through this part of Chamonix Valley. My legs felt strong. We stopped in Les Houches for a quick supermarket lunch, looking on sweat-drenched hikers coming down from their hikes. They looked dazed from the heat, relieved and happy in equal measures to be done for the day. It spurred us to keep going, and we made good time to Les Praz where we were gifted with a hotel room upgrade! Revived by long cold showers and couch time, we ventured out in the evening. I’d chosen a hotel within walking distance to the télécabine up to Station La Flégère, so that we’d have the chance to appreciate Chamonix from higher up. I’d stayed at Refuge Le Flégère in 2015 while hiking Tour du Mont Blanc and wondered occasionally in the years since if my memories had exaggerated the beauty of the views. But no, the Mont Blanc massif is majestic. We celebrated with a beer while gazing upon the Valley in which we’d just cycled through.

Day Four

The next morning, we rode into Chamonix Sud to catch the Flixbus to Courmeyer. It wasn’t the best experience—the bus was an hour late, with no updates in the app, and we had to shove our naked bikes next to all the suitcases which isn’t what I had understood when I bought a bicycle supplement ticket. But the seasonal bike shuttle bus had been sold out when I went to look for tickets a few months out, and I was relieved to pick up Flixbus tix for 25 EUR a pop. It is a practical, accessible way to get from A to B.

Getting out of the road maze of Courmeyer was a pain but we were soon flying through Aosta Valley to Aosta. The cycling was a bit boring, being on car roads with the Massif to our back. But thankfully we were able to check-in early to the Airbnb to escape the worst of the heat. Once the sun went down, we wandered around town and had some yummy gelato and cold cuts. We’d made it to Italy!

Day Five

This was a rest day slash hiking day. I pulled out the All Trails app and we took a télécabine up to Pila to do a short hike in the mountains. There was a mountain biking route, too, which I see more and more in ski areas and feel quite ambivalent about. There was more to see in Aosta but many of the sites were closed and anyway it was just too hot. We went for a great seafood dinner and a viewing of KPop Demon Hunters back at the Airbnb, instead.

Day Six

We woke up early the next day, anxious to start our ride. The first 30km through to Saint Vincent was a wonderful bike lane parallel to Aosta river. It was shaded and cool enough to make us forget about the heat wave. We were reminded pretty quickly though, though and we stumbled into a bar in the town of Bard to find some calories. I downed a cold Coke and a pastry, not able to eat lunch.

Bard, population 134, is the home to Forte di Bard. It’s a medieval castle that turned into a Savoy stronghold which Napolean burned to the ground. (Also the site of the opening scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron) It’s been completely renovated and there were plenty of nattily dressed Italian tourists rocking up for a visit. I would have loved to check it out but we decided we needed to conserve our energy to actually make it to Ivrea. It was a good call. The afternoon ride was a slog, despite the beauty of the Piedmont countryside. Ivrea was half-deserted due to it being Assumption of Mary weekend. Our hotel kindly pointed us to the few restaurants that were open, and we went for another great seafood dinner.

Day Seven

This was our last day of cycling. After a wonderful breakfast on the hotel terrasse, we hit the road, having given ourselves the option to hop on a train. The heat was starting to wear me down. My legs still felt strong but I could feel the start of a cold in my body.

After lunch at Chivasso, we decided that indeed, we could accept skipping the industrial area outside of Turin under the scorching sun, and pulled into our final destination on a commuter train.

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We had a day and a half in Turin before hopping onto the high-speed train back to Paris. The highlight was Museo Egizio, the Ancient Egyptian museum. It was spectacular and I enjoyed getting to learn about Ancient Egypt almost as much as the cycling!