Down into the Valley

We had an amazing visit with Cécile and Michel, and Claire enjoyed playing with their grand daughters Emy and Océlie. We got to taste raviole, the smaller delicious French cousin of Italian ravioli, creamy local goat and cow cheeses, and even Chartreuse, a liquor made by monks in the Chartreuse mountains using 130 different plants. We learned about the origins and many renovations over the centuries of their farmhouse (you can see the cows' old troughs in the living room, as the house is in the original barn), and Karl enjoyed chatting about building with Michel who had been a mason. After a delicious multi-course lunch, we struggled to convince Claire that we had to leave our new friends to get back on the bikes, as we had planned to pedal down to Grenoble. After our big ride the previous day, it was a fairly short distance, down 1000 m into the valley. Even so, all the false flat to start the ride felt like a lot of work to our tired legs! But then we got to coast down, down, down and along river trails, with mountain views from all angles, through Grenoble to meet up with Marie-Pierre and Didier.Read more