Last month, I told you about biking halfway to Mexico. Yesterday, I had
the pleasure of biking halfway to France. I borrowed a bike from
Lausanne's free bike rental program and headed along the lake to Vevey,
about 10-12 miles away. It looks like if I had continued around the
circumference of the lake, another 10-12 miles would have put me in
France. I suppose biking all the way around the lake would make a good
vacation, but since all I had was a free day after four days of
conferences, this trip was a nice diversion.

For a more detailed analysis of my route, you can check out my
Everytrail post. Here's what I had to say about the ride there:I should
have taken the Metro to the Ouchy station near the lakefront, but I let
the guy talk me into riding my bike. Of course, I couldn't understand
his directions in broken English and ended up riding all over the place
before getting out of town.

Once I got out of town, however, the ride was great. There is a main
road near the lake, which has bike lanes most of the way, but
occasionally there were detours. At one point, I rode through a
medieval town center, and at another point, the route rose through the
terraced vineyards that hug the coast. I could have reached out and
grabbed the grapes. (I didn't.)

When I got to Vevey, I visited the tourist information center, ditched
the bike, and headed out. The woman in the information center claimed
that there was nowhere to lock my bike, but that I didn't need to. She
also sent me to a mall when I asked about souvenirs, so I'm not sure of
the quality of her advice. I locked the bike to a sign, which seemed to
work. I had lunch at a Thai restaurant, bought some postcards and
visited Charlie Chaplin's grave. All in all, a successful visit.

On the ride back, I tried to minimize my detours, not entirely
successfully. I had an idea of leaving my bike at Ouchy, then returning
for it via Metro after rush hour was over. I really wish I had done
that; I meandered all over town trying to find a good route back to
Roule Lausanne. Eventually, I did and left tired after my longest bike
ride yet.

I should note that both the tourist information center and Chaplin's
graves are waymarks, which allowed me to find them more easily. I now
have the "grave of a famous person" category. While that doesn't help
me with waymarking bingo, it does bring me up to 251 waymarks.

Also, the Lavaux vineyard terraces are a World Heritage Site, which
makes them the 46th that I have visited, and the 2nd for 2009.

Finally, here is a link to a Picasa album I made up with some selected
pictures from my trip. Now it's off to change my remaining Swiss Francs
into British Pounds and find the gate for my plane...

Switzerland

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Posted By Jon to Android's Dungeon at 9/12/2009 06:08:00 AM