To Crémieu

May 9, 2022

Top to bottom, a completely wonderful day. We’ll, not exactly top to bottom - the top could have been improved with a more inspired breakfast (coffee, OJ, croissant, bread, yogurt and apple sauce) presented by a more inspired hostess, who never roused herself from the couch where she was lying watching television the entire time we were downstairs.

But after that, it really was truly wonderful. We left the hotel just after ten, with an easy ride ahead of us and a check-in at five at the other - seven hours to cover 44 generally flat miles and most of them on the Via Rhona, a route that just keeps surprising and impressing us more each time we come to a new section of it. We stopped in a park for our picnic lunch at midday and again earlier in the ride for an extended chat with an elderly Swiss couple on a giant two month tour of their own, but other than that we mostly just rode - slowly, because there was so much to savor.

We don’t make it in to our lodging in Cremieu until quarter to five. We are greeted by an engaging, appealing hostess who is surprised to see two of us - we apparently registered our booking for a single person somehow. No matter - she shows us to a wonderful, spacious room, orients us to the accommodations, and then let’s us know that she’ll call back the one restaurant in town open for the night to update the reservation she made at our request to add a second person to the table.

We settle in, shower, and then step out to look around Cremieu, a town we’d never heard of until we started looking for a reasonable route between Annecy and Lyon. We allowed ourselves an hour to explore the place before our dinner reservation, but it’s not nearly enough because amazing Cremieu is such an unexpectedly wonderful place to wander through.

Over an excellent meal (Caesar salad, salmon, pear and myrtille tatrts) sitting outdoors on a warm, summery evening, we do a bit of research to see if we can cancel or bump the next night’s booking so we can stay here a second night and possibly double up the next two shortish rides; but it’s not an option so we vow to make it back here again someday for a slower visit.

It’s still warm and light out after we finish our meal so we put in another hour walking around town, walking up above it for views down on the town and at the fortifications crowning the opposite ridge, and fall further in love with the exceptional place. We don’t make it back to our room until just past sundown (right about nine now), and before much longer the lights go out on one of the best days of the tour.

It starts out spectacularly with about a mile and a half on the highway, the road and river channeling through a narrow throat with cliffs soaring up on both sides. Just a bit scary, though the traffic is respectful and gives us plenty of room.

Image not found :( — Leaving Yenne, we stop to admire the bridge over the Rhone that we crossed on arrival yesterday,

The cliffs on our side of the river are even more dramatic, soaring vertically straight up from the river. The first few miles are a remarkable ride, starting with this narrow, thankfully short tunnel. For about a mile and a half we’re on this lightly traveled but shoulderless highway, and we time our dash through the tunnel to have it for ourselves.

Looking across the river at the cliffs again, we see the restored tomb of Pierre Boisson, a pilgramage site,

The traffic’s not bad, but it’s a relief when we leave it for the Via Rhona. We’re on it for the next 25 miles, until Morestel. They’re wonderful.

Video sound track: Once in a Lifetime, by Jacqui Naylor

On the Via Rhona, looking back at the gap we’ve just come through. I think that must be the Grand Columbier that we’re seeing out the other side of the gap.

Along the Via Rhona. Such fantastic cliffs! A huge reward for so little work.

Why didn’t we ask this lovely couple their names? We chatted for about fifteen minutes, comparing lives and tours. From Lucerne, they’re on a giant two month loop - down the Via Rhona to Arles, west along the Mediterranean Coast to the Pyrenees, up the French side to the Atlantic, back east along the Loire. A nice break to have an extended conversation in a language we understand.

La Bruyere, I think. Rachael wanted me to take note and see if there’s lodging around here for next time. Doesn’t look like it though.

Along the Via Rhona. Here we’re crossing the river atop the dam at Bregnier-Cordon.

We heard loud croaking right beside us so we looked down. Amazing. There were four or five of these guys crawling around in the reeds of a small stream, seemingly unaware of us directly above them.

And then, suddenly they all froze and went silent. We though we must have been noticed finally, but it wasn’t us. A large water snake slithered beneath the water, threading between them. Nature sighting of the month.

At Morestel we finally leave the Via Rhona and pick up the new greenway up to Cremieu. Really, I’d never have considered Cremieu if I hadn’t seen this new bike path on the map. We’d probably have stayed in Morestel instead, and had a significantly longer ride to Lyon following another long bend in the river.

It’s an unpaved eleven mile trail, a packed dirt-rock surface that isn’t bad at all. We avoid unpaved surfaces, and so if we were fine with eleven miles of it you know it wasn’t bad at all. Quiet, pastoral, relaxed, and with incredible Cremieu waiting at the other end. Really, if you’re following the Via Rhona south you should come this way too.

On the greenway between Morestel and Cremieu.

We’ll look at Cremieu later. First, let’s check out this bug that flew in our open window tonight and Rachael needed rescuing from. For some reason she doesn’t think it would make a good pet, like that black headed cardinal beetle she was smitten with last week.

Video sound track: Maria La O, by Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban

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Ride stats today: 44 miles, 1,200’; for the tour: 1,616 miles, 81,600’

Today's ride: 44 miles (71 km)
Total: 1,616 miles (2,601 km)

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Tricia GrahamThe wonderful part of the Via Rhona Ithink is from the Rhône Glacier to Geneva. All in all a spectacular route with so much variation
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2 years ago

Keith AdamsI can feel the glow of your happiness all the way over here!
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Tricia GrahamWe biked the top of this, from Grimsel Pass to Brig, over 30 years ago. I’d love to see it again, and continue downriver to Geneva. Unfortunately, you have to get up there first. I’m not sure we could make it over Grimsel any more.
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2 years ago

Tricia GrahamTo Scott AndersonWe got the train to the top! Then rode the Via Rhona. Fantastic
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2 years ago