Stone Fences, Medieval Towns, and Waterfalls - from Lausanne to Schaffhausen

With our return date fast approaching we’re rushing see and do all that we have on our list for this year.  It makes us do crazy things like bike from Lausanne to Schaffhausen via the Jura Mountains  - 200 miles (320km) in two days.  It’s clear that we’ll have to come back to finish our to-do list.

Last weekend we packed up our trusty bike panniers and set out at 7am from Lausanne, heading up the now familiar regional bike route 22 to Yverdon, continuing along the vineyards bordering Lake Neuchatel, then turning west up into the Jura Mountain range.  We followed route 22 to Les Chaux-des-Fonds, and then followed the national bike route 7, which takes you up and down the hills, occasionally on dirt roads, alongside and sometimes inside cow pastures, through electrified gates (trick, push it to the side with your water bottle) and charming stone farms.  The first day seemed relentlessly up…which was confirmed with the day’s total of 8,000 feet (2650 m) of elevation gain.  We were rewarded with a long descent into the Medieval town of St. Ursanne, and a tarte flambée at the Demi-Lune restaurant along the Doubs river.

Vineyards leading down to Lake Neuchatel

Castle along the route

Heading into the Jura Mountains

Typical Jura stone fences

When the road turns to dirt...

Ahh...so many baby lambs and cows

St. Ursanne bridge

The Doubs River in St. Ursanne

Alsatian Tarte Flambée from the Demi-Lune restaurant

St. Ursanne at dusk

The next day we started out early again, knowing we had a full day of riding, and three big climbs to do before we arrived in Eglisau via Basel.  It was a gorgeous, warm and sunny day, but a storm was supposed to hit the Schaffhausen area that evening.  The road started going up almost immediately, but the views were so beautiful we didn’t seem to mind.  We found a great place for a coffee in Lucille, where the road briefly crosses the French border, where we met another cyclist stopping for a break.  He was from the Basel area, and spoke German and Italian, and although he said he didn’t speak French, he did well enough that it was our common language.  He advised us against going up and over the third pass into Basel, and wrote out the towns to follow to cut out the busy city so we could get directly to national bike route 3  heading toward Schaffhausen.  The next thing we knew, we were being escorted by our new friend all the way to through the southern outskirts of Basel.  After a quick exchange of emails, were headed in the right direction, saving us a least an hour of time.  Thank you Werner!

View from the top of the Jura Mountains

We arrived in Eglisau after exactly 102 miles, and I was so excited to show Doug the area where my great-grandfather lived.  It was just as beautiful as I’d remembered, and Gabrielle Odermatt just as welcoming as ever at her charming and beautifully decorated chamber d’hôte.  The large Jacuzzi bathtub and “muscle relaxant” bath salts were just what our legs needed after our long ride.  Her breakfasts are served on beautiful thick blue ceramic plates, with hearty brown breads and braids, cheeses and meat that you see in the German areas of Switzerland. 

Open-aired sitting area at Odermatt B&B

View of the Rhine from our room at the Odermatt

Typical red-timbered houses in Rudlingen

Rudlingen vineyards

Our stay ended with a visit to the Rhinefalls and to the town of Schaffhausen, where we were surprised to be riding into the town with hundreds of other cyclists during their annual “Slow Up Schaffhausen.”  People of all ages and modes of wheeled transport where careening down the cobblestone streets of Schaffhausen –it was a sight to behold! 

Rhine Falls

Slow-up Schaffhausen activities - stack the milk cans!

Lovely, the Swiss Milk logo, trying her hand at rock climbing

La Douce Folie (de Paris)

A surprise trip to Paris for my birthday sounds exotic, and it is…but it’s so close to Lausanne that it would have been a shame to miss Paris this year.  We stayed in a wonderful Air B&B apartment on Rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques in the 5^th arrondisment, just a block away from the Panthéon.  This little block had a bakery, three terrific restaurants, and a tree-lined triangular park – all loaded with charm.

Anthony Bosson Bakery - some of the best croissants in Paris

We arrived in the late afternoon in the pouring rain, got settled in, toured the Panthéon (saw Volaire, or at least his crypt) and tried out one of the neighborhood restaurants, Café de la Nouvelle Marie, for a delicious meal from locally sourced ingredients.  There’s nothing better than just walking across the street after dinner to go home, especially in the rain.

The next morning, Doug, still full of surprises, led me to the Right Bank, stopping at Atelier Des Chefs, a cooking school on rue de Penthièvre in the 8^th arrondisement, where he had signed me up for a class in French called La Tradition – Menu du Marché.  In the three-hour class we learned how to make tarte tatin aux tomates cerises et rouget au basilic, risotto artichauts en tempura safrané et chips de jambon cru, and a rhubarb and raspberries dessert with a basil syrup with tuiles dentelles caramélisées à la noisette.  I was in heaven!

Les tuiles dentelles

That afternoon, to continue the day of maximum sensory delights, we went to a Chagall exhibit at the Jardin du Luxomberg, followed by dinner at Les 110 de Taillevent Brasserie. 

The sun came out for the next two days and we decided to see Paris by bike.  We used the Velib bike rental system, easy to do now that they let you sign up online to get a 1-day ticket for 1.70 euro.  The first 30 minutes are free, so if you swap out your bike every 30 minutes you won’t have any additional charges.  We downloaded the Velib app with a map of the city and all the bike rental locations, as well as a map of the Paris bike routes and off we went to the Bois de Bologne, sometimes sharing the bike lane with buses, sometimes with our own lane and a curb dividing us from the cars. 

By 2:00 in the afternoon we needed some lunch, so we wandered off the bike path in search of a café and found Il Russo, an Italian trattoria in the heart of a beautiful neighborhood of grand 5-story Haussmann-style apartments.  We had the friendliest Irish waitress, who put together an antipasto plate for us since it was too late for lunch.  We found out later that they filmed a scene with Leonardo Di Caprio in the film Inception at the same restaurant.

Sunday morning we walked around the corner to the Marché Place Monge to buy ingredients dinner that night.  On the way to Place Monge we stopped at the outdoor market at Rue Mouffetard, in one of the oldest streets of Paris (still in its original form before the Paris reconstruction), and where some scenes of the Le Fabuleux d’Amile Poulin fim was filmed.

That afternoon we decided to splurge and take a bike tour of the city.  We found Paris à Velo c'est Sympa!, a company that had bike rentals for 12 euros for the afternoon, or 3-hour tours for 34 euros.  The tours were sold out, so we were going to buy the guide with 3 different city tours and navigate on our own for the afternoon.  Luckily, as we arrived, a group was just starting a tour, so we were invited to join a private tour with employees of L’Acoss (described to us as the bank of the social security system of France).  The group was super-sympa, and we spent a pleasant afternoon touring some neighborhoods in Paris we would have never seen (in the 5^th, 11^th and 13 arrondisements). 

 Our bike tour guide giving us a history lesson of Paris

 Hidden street in Paris - Avenue des Glycines (Wisteria Lane)

Artist colony frequented by Picasso and his friends

 Market ingredients for our Sunday dinner - just as fun as going to a restaurant

To get home the next morning we had a quick ride (we thought) on the RER to the airport, interrupted by (surprise!) a train strike. After a quick change of plans and a shared taxi with another stranded passenger we made it back in time for the short flight back to Lausanne. Quel anniversaire!

Un Printemps Bien Arrosé

A "Well-Watered" Spring

It’s early June, and the statistics are in.  This past spring is officially on record as the coldest and snowiest/rainiest in Switzerland (and probably most of Europe) for the past 25 years.  Luckily we didn’t know how unusual the weather was, so we just kept making plans and trying to get out on our bikes when we could.  It didn’t slow us down too much, but we’re ready for some sun.  The verdict is still not out yet on June…but we’re hopeful for warmer weather sometime soon.

In early May we had a quick 3-day trip to Copenhagen for Doug’s work.  We hit the weather just right for a couple of days of sun and touring around the city on bikes – definitely the best way to see Copenhagen. We had an easy metro ride from the airport to downtown, and a walk over the bridge towards the famous Nyhavn 17^th century waterfront with its colorful buildings.  We stayed at Hotel Phoenix, just a half a block away from the Amailienborg Palace.

While Doug was at his meeting I took advantage of the sunny day and set out on a rented mountain bike to the Frederiksborg Palace 25 miles north of Copenhagen.  It was a lovely ride with Sweden in view across the bay the first half of the ride, and gorgeous forests and country homes the rest of the way.  The castle and grounds were stunning.

The next day we used the hotel bikes to tour the city – it was such a great way to see the sights.  The bikes had a simple locking system, so we were able to stop when we wanted, quickly lock the bikes, look around, and hop back on for the next site.  Copenhagen is a cyclist's paradise, and almost every city street had some kind of a bike lane.  Just some caution – if you’re on a bike, don’t weave in the lanes, expect to be passed so stay to the right, and if you’re on foot, don’t walk into the bike lane without looking.  Also, don’t be fooled by what the cyclists are wearing (eg. women in dresses and high heels), those city cyclists go fast!

 The Little Mermaid

 Just before changing of the guard at the 

Amailienborg Palace

Our most memorable meal was at Manfreds & Vin – a restaurant started by a former chef from Noma’s (recently rated as one of the best restaurants in the world).  The fixed price multi-course meal was served family style – with delicacies like fresh goat cheese and beets, roasted sun chokes, carpaccio of fresh radishes and peas, an incredibly refreshing lemony salad of fresh hand-picked herbs from northern Denmark, celery root with dark olive and thyme sauce, and roasted pork and roasted caramelized onions.  We tried the sampler of three Jura wines (two white and a Gamay, all with that slightly fermented spark typical of Jura wines).  All unbelievably good….

At Manfreds & Vin - in anticipation...

Our weekend also happened to coincide with the Copenhagen Beer Celebration, which brought hundreds of beer connoisseurs from all over the world to Copenhagen.  We went to  Mikkeller & Friends beer pub,  which will be opening a second pub soon in San Francisco, and had to try a beer called  Beer Geek Coffee Weasel, a big dark stout flavored by coffee beans that weasels have eaten (up to you to figure out how they get out of the weasels and into the beer)…

Mikkeller & Friends Brew Pub - coming soon to SF!

Danish pastries are not a cliché – they filled an entire breakfast board along with the traditional Nordic breakfasts fare of cold cuts, cheeses, fruits and vegetables.

 Toby and the Tulips

Just back  to Switzerland from Copenhagen,  Debbie, Toby and I caught the Morge tulips in full bloom.  This park in Morge (10 minutes from Lausanne) has thousands of tulips of all varieties and colors.

Mid-May brought our friends Marie-Odile and André from France 

back for a visit – with trips to Gruyère and a boat ride to Yvoire.

Colza fields as seen on a bike ride on the Vaud Plateau

 Bike ride paused to let the cows go by

Spring training in the cold

Later in May we were invited by a work colleague of Doug’s to a picnic on a farm in the Fribourg canton.  It was another cold day; in fact, it had just snowed at the farm that morning, so we all huddled into the 18^th century granary that her father had moved to the farm.  The small farm has an assortment of horses, two very cute donkeys, cows, and chickens.  At the end of the meal, Doug was given a tour of the schnapps cellar – and of course was encouraged to taste the different homemade varieties - Mirabelle, cherries, pear, and herb…and by the end of the tasting was "bien arrosé" himself.  Luckily, we took the train home…

Fribourg Farm

18th Century granary

Doug and his colleague Natalie

Homemade schnapps tasting

The next day was a bike ride we’d been looking forward to all year, Le Tour de Lac Léman, an organized 180 km (112 mile) ride around Lake Geneva.  We left our house at 6:30 the next morning, and started the ride at 7:00, just in time for a downpour five minutes after we started.  The first 45 miles were in pouring, freezing rain, and I swear as we turned the bend toward France that I was feeling slushy snow on my face!  But we toughed it out, and were rewarded with a sunny finish as we rounded the bend from Geneva to Lausanne.

10th Year Anniversary jerseys