Last Week's Hike

I realized that I forgot to post pictures of the hike that David and I took last weekend to St Helen's Lake, a city with a very large picturesque lake near Montmélian, a city not too far from Chambéry, about 21km. Well, not too far if you never get lost, and if you can find the adjoining city with no problems. Due to some unforseen route-related difficulties we managed to find an awesome old fortification which sits on a hill in Montmélian (+2km) which is only remnants today, but built in the 12th century to protect France's borders, a "nearby" collection of three lakes,which we found while trying to actually get to Lac de Sainte Hélène but then couldn't cross the river because there were no bridges at all in that direction, so we had to go all the way back to town (+12km). Then, once we found the town and a bride we had to bike all the way back the direction we had been, go around a ridge line and then finally get to the lake (+16km round trip).


We were so exhausted by the time we found the lake that we walked to it, looked around, took some pictures and gathered what "energy" we had left to get our butts home. Actually, we were so exhausted that we knew it wouldn't be possible to go the whole way so when we got back to Montmélian we just bought 1,6€ train tickets and went the easy way home. You can transport bikes for free on all local train lines, so we just let ourselves relax to get home. As a side note, it is note 100% relaxation getting a bike on and off a train, but certainly much easier than biking it the 21km to get home. After all, if you do the math we had already biked 51 kilometers (this is an estimate) which correlated to a little over 31 miles. *phew*


Here are some pictures that we took during the day:

This is the "voie verte" which is a specially constructed paved path for non-motorized vehicles (usually bikes but there are plenty of people who run, roller blade, etc) which took us about 2/3 of the way to Montmélian. Afterward we were one regular side roads, which we actually really pretty and quite calm.

This is a town that we passed call Chignin. One of the hikes in our book takes us by all the vineyards and the tower that you see in the picture. But we are holding off on doing that hike until the vines are in bloom. 

Spring time! I stopped to take a picture of some of the flowers I found along the way, including this one. Make sure you notice the enormous bumble bee that is at the bottom of the flower!

This is a picture of the mountain which overlooks Montmélian, though this is before we actually got to the city. The reason I took the picture is because all those cleared "fields" that you can see at the bottom are vineyards for the "Chignin" white wine, something we not only can, but have purchased in our local grocery store. There is only one place in the whole world that wine can be grown and we saw it! Actually we were in the "wine valley" of Savoie and we passed the vineyards for Abymes and Apremont as well. Abymes is David and I's favorite of any white wine we have ever tried. (I do make an exception actually: at the wine tasting there was a phenomenal zinfandel from Germany that was super sweet, yet somewhat acidic that was unbeatable. But for a wine in our price range, Abymes is it. Plus it is local which is so cool!)

This is the hill that is the home to the old fort of Montmélian. We were trying to have a timed photo of us on that bench, but when I tried to balance the camera on David's backpack it kept falling over, so finally I used up too many of the 10 seconds so this is a picture of me running into the photo at the last second and trying to sit down. 

David and I on a better bench with a beautiful forsythia in the background. You can also see some of the remnants of the fort that used to be on this hill. As I said above, it was built in the 12th century. Unfortunately, for unstated reasons, it was torn down in 17..04 I think, so this is all that remains today.

Happy three years of marriage (even if it was officially the week before)

Me on the hill above the prison looking thing.

This is the only other left-standing part of the fort that once stood here (except a few stone retaining walls as you climb the hill). I thought it would make a great picture so we climbed on up! Notice that I am on the end without a hill to access it! - I had to climb over the doorway to get there! But I think it was worth it.

This is the Lac de Sainte Hélène. WE FINALLY MADE IT! We were so happy when we finally got there we were kind of in disbelief. Bear in mind that we spent nearly half of all those biked miles actually in search of this lake. By the time we got there the sun we getting fairly close to setting, which mean two things: we got really pretty pictures and, we didn't have too much time to spend there.

Us at the lake. This might as well have been the top of Everest as far as we were concerned.

This was David and I's cute little picture on the nearby bench. And while we were waiting for the 10 second timer to expire, this kid came out of nowhere racing down the path on his bike (laughing and yelling and all that good stuff) and got through our line of sight and stopped just where he could still make an appearance in our photo. Oh well, I guess it's a good enough story.

This is after we left the lake and were returning back home. The sun was setting but there is a break in the mountain range so there was this really cool effect of the sun blazing through... It was a great view to end such an exhausting but rewarding day.