English summary, days one to six

Ennetbaden-Olten, Olten-Erlach, Erlach-Yverdon, Yverdon-Thonons-les-bains, Thonons-Annecy
365 km in total, weather mostly warm and sunny

As there might be some English speaking readers, we will offer them a summary of our first few days. And as it is always the case with teachers, all the mistakes are deliberate. Just to test the readers. Of course.

We took off quite nervously on Tuesday, August 26. The weather in the morning wasn't that promising. It basically rained cats and dogs. The sky started clearing up towards noon but there were still clouds emptying their content onto the earth. But somehow, we had to make our start, otherwise we would have had to hide in our rooms so that nobody would have noticed that we were still around.

So we got on the bike at half past two and shakily did our first few metres. All that lugagge made the bike feel very unstable - a feeling we either have got used to by now or was just a feeling and nothing more.

We followed the National Bicycle Route Nummer 5 to Olten, where we decided to stay for the night. Luckily enough, Didi happens to know the Musical Director of Karl's Kühne Gassenschau, Neil Filby. Karl's Kühne do a huge open-air production, which is something between a play, a musical and a crazy acrobatic spectacle. It was like a perfect start to meet up again with Neil, to see the production and to be able to spend the night between a lot of caravans, trailers, stage machinery, actors, technicians etc. Thanks again, dear Neil, for the wonderful night out.

On the down side, there was that pouring rain during the night. Which resulted in having quite a lot of wet things. Then again, we haven't seen any rain since.

We continued on the same bicycle route which led us along the River Aare and the two lakes, lake Biel and lake Neuchâtel, and we arrived in Yverdon two days later. The landscape on the way was actually quite nice, but a bit boring after all, as it was always flat and the lakes were often out of our sight. To make our way to Lausanne we chose another route, number 22, which made up for the flatness of the first three days. And sometimes it became so steep that we were almost on the verge of nervous breakdown - and physical. And the latter applied to the bike, too.

Having arrived in Lausanne, we first had to fill up with liquids and food.
We crossed Lac Leman by boat to the French side, to Thonons-les-bains, had a nice dinner at the lake front and planned the next day.

And that next day turned out to be much more exhausting than we expected. After a nice number of steep uphills and of course a lot fewer downhills, we finally arrived in Annecy, a lovely town just outside Geneva. With a wonderful scenery. We stay here for two nights, this might bring our legs a short recovery - and this might be more than just necessary, behause we're heading to the French Alps tomorrow. And there, the holiday will be over very soon. Definetely.