Linerolle to Geneva

Here's the final installment of the Bike Trip Saga. Total miles: 128. Total hours in the saddle: 13. Number of times I nearly died: 2 times (once when I fell off my bike and once when I was nearly pushed off my bike...read on).

We got up on Monday morning, thankful that the stores would be open (that's the reason we didn't have any food when we stopped at the Lambercey's on Sunday night, we should have thought ahead and NOT planned a bike trip over the weekend--everything is closed on Sunday in Switzerland). So, we were thankful that it was Monday, and that we'd gotten to take baths the night before, and that we still had some bread and cheese for breakfast from the night before. Unfortunately, it was raining. And everybody knows that the Pouring Rain is No Place For a Bicycle Ride. (Name that tune and I"ll give you a Pony Nuzzle).
Instead of riding we went to the cafe in town (I believe I've already made comments about what a classy establishment it was) and had some expensive and not very tasty coffee. We were only two days into our trip and words couldn't even begin to describe how tired and achey I was. Lucky for me the big hill we were supposed to ride over that day was gravel, so we HAD to take a train around it. I was thrilled. We only had to ride 10 kilometers to the train station, and it had stopped raining. It wasn't shaping up to be too bad of a day really, but it got even better.

When we got to the train station, I went to the ticket window to buy our train tickets. We were going to go around the mountain and pick up the route again right after the gravel portion.

I said to the woman at the ticket window "I need to go to Bassin" (Or somewhere like that, the actual name of the town escapes me at the moment) and she said "One moment."

She went back into the office to get someone else, who I assumed spoke English. So woman number two came up and I repeated what I said "I need to go to Bassin". She gave me a blank look and shook her head, so I tried German "Ich muss nach Bassin" and she said "I understand you" what she didn't understand was the name of the town I was trying very hard to pronounce B a s s i n. So I said "Let me write it down, j'ecris, ich schribe!" she gave me a piece of paper and I wrote it down...B a s s i n..., and passed it to her. She looked at it and said 'Ooooh Bassin' and of course she prounounced it exactly the same way I had before. When she printed out the itenerary, the bike trip got even better for me. In order to get to this off the beaten track-middle-of-no-where Swiss town, we had to go to Nyon, which was the terminal city on the route anyway. So, I decided it would be best if we just skipped the last 40 kilometers of the route. We had to get to Geneva at some point so I thought we might as well do it quicker. Laura didn't complain either.

When we got to Nyon, the weather was beautiful and we had a picnic outside the Migros. The rest of the ride to Geneva was flat and fast and beautiful, and we'd finally managed to escape the punishing headwinds that had been tormenting us for the past day and a half.

Geneva is a horrible place and I would not recommend going there. Not on a bike anyway. We had to deal with traffic, dissapearing bike lanes, and lots and lots of people. A cranky old man almost pushed me off my bike. I was riding slowly through the bike lane when he decided he wanted to walk out in front of me. I nearly hit him and then he pushed me from behind and yelled something nasty. We had planned to stay another night in Geneva and explore the city a bit in the morning, but after that horrible experience I decided that going home right away would be the best option. Plus, we already had bike tickets that were good for the whole day. So, we saw the big sites: the water spout and the huge suspended coffin. We drank some coffee and headed home on the train.

This is what 1.50CHF train station coffee machine coffee looks like. See through. I wouldn't recommend it.
When we got to Geneva Laura bought me a birthday cake. I told her my birthday would not be over until I got one, and I even made her sing happy birthday to me. I had a three day birthday, the longest one Ever.
That big thing behind me is the Brunswick Memorial, or Monument. It's a big suspended coffin with lots of carved knights and mythical creatures on it.

This is Mr. Brunswick, who I believe resides in the suspended coffin.
This is the water spout. It was installed in 1891 and shoots water 140 m into the air. The city of Geneva spends 800,000CHF a year just to keep it going. What a good use of money.