We left La Cibourg after having a delicious breakfast of fresh croissants and coffee. The management was adamant that we be out by 9 am, probably part of the "Oh we feel sorry for you" arrangement. We bid Adieu to the creepy statues and pedaled off to La Chaux de Fonds.
The national swiss routes are all on back-woods-Switzerland-back roads. They wind through beautiful rolling hills, and we were mainly in horse country, so the danger of running into cows was less. In fact, we only had to stop for one cow crossing the whole trip. The first time I spotted a group of horses instead of cows my first reaction was "oh those are funny looking cows" oooohhhh. We had to dodge a few tractors, but for the most part we were on our own.
It's much nicer to bike in Switzerland than to hike. A lot of the hiking paths are asphalt or heavily trafficked. One never gets the feeling of being 'Outdoors'. Or, maybe if you're used to Idaho wilderness you never get that same feeling. Even when we climbed to the top of Bunderspitz: There were beautiful alps as far as they eye could see, but also villages dotting the valley floor. It's disappointing to do a grueling five hour uphill hike and be welcomed by a view of the town I just left behind. When I'm biking though, seeing towns is exciting, because it means you've covered distance since the last one, or it means that I'm going to stop and eat ice cream....
We biked through some pretty desolate back woods low-population swiss country side. We climbed a big hill and I needed to lay down next to my bike for about half an hour.
There was no crying, and I had a nice view of a yard full of goats.
Later, I fell off my bike coming down a steep mountain. Luckily, I was slowing for a curve when it happened. A bee flew in my helmet (It may have been a small fly...but I was positive it was a large nasty bee that was intent on stinging me to Death.) and when I reached up to get it out I lost control and fell into the side of the mountain.
Danger! Don't Fall Off Your Bike!
I Fell Off My Bike.We dropped down over another huge mountain.
We were hoping to find somewhere to stay right at the bottom, but of course nothing is that easy. First we had to ride over a small mountain on a gravel road. Seriously? Swiss National Road Bike route? On Gravel? What am I... a mountain biker?We started looking for "Chambres" or "Zimmer" signs right after that. Luckily the first one we found was suitable. I knocked on the door and asked the woman if she had a free room. She said she had, and that it was 40 francs a night for each of us. Then I asked her if food was included. She looked over at Laura and then back at me and said "Du hast gar nichts zu essen?" I said "nichts! nichts!" in my most pitiful voice. She said "there is a restaurant up the road, you can get a nice steak" Laura made a horrified face and I said "Good enough", so we took our stuff in.
As the woman was showing us our room--which was actually the entire upstairs of her house. She must have grown children that only visit her occasionally and so she rents the upstairs of her house to passer-by in the mean time--Anyway, as she was showing the room, she said "Well, if you like I can give you some pasta and tomato sauce, and you can pick vegetables from my garden if you are very hungry" By this point we were speaking english, by the way. Anyway, so instead of a pity bed, we got a pity dinner, and it was the most delicious one I've ever had.If you're ever in Lignerolle Switzerland, I would recommend staying with the Lambercys, they're quite friendly.
This is what the town of Lignerolle looks like. I'm pretty sure there are only about 15 people who actually live in this town.
I wouldn't recommend eating at this resturant. We went there for coffee in the morning around 9. There was a whole group of smokey men in there (perhaps the entire population of Lignerolle), and sticky trap full of fresh flies right on top of the bar where we ordered our coffee.
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