We woke up to a fog free day, with a clear view of Lake Geneva (aka Leman). We prepared ourselves to walk down to the lake via a signposted path to the village of Meillerie. We left the Chalet at 8am and walked the kilometre to Lajoux, where the sign said one hour 35 minutes to Meillerie. We descended from 1000 meters to 800 meters along a narrow steep track through Reboux and onto a gravel road with a sign showing Road Blocked in French. We thought this might only apply to cars as no one had warned us this track was closed. Ten minutes later we came to a landslide and a fence with ominous warnings.
We turned around after taking a photo of the view and resigned ourselves to returning home.
When we got back to where the track joined this road, we realised that the track continued on the other side of the road, so we followed it down and found that it came out just below the end of the landslide. Nevertheless there were a couple of big rocks on the track so we continued on without delay. The track was in better condition as we got near the lake and took us through an impressive forest. We emerged from the forest onto a bitumen road which took us to a stone commemorating Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who lived in Geneva and described this stone in his book La Nouvelle Heloise. He seems to be the local favourite son and of course he is mentioned frequently (along with Voltaire) in Les Miserables.
The road into the town followed a little stream with a cobbled base and the water emptied into the lake next to the wharf where people were fishing. There was a big timetable for the ferries there but no ferries were scheduled to stop there, so you could only wave to them as they went past. The altitude at the lake was 380 metres, so we faced an uphill return walk of 620 meters. The only shop on the main street was boarded up but we walked along the waterfront to the port where we saw something which was the answer to our thirsty fantasies - the Restaurant du Port. Lyn ordered a cappuccino and a tiramisu (raspberry), while Malcolm ordered a coca cola and a lemon sorbet.
We watched a fisherman checking his traps nearby.
The ambience was even more fairy tale when a pair of swans swam past with seven ugly ducklings.
Even the cafe toilettes were awarded ten out of ten. As we walked back to the trackhead we saw evidence for slack rego inspections here.
It was even worse on the other side. This village had many old houses and narrow streets. Lyn saw one dating from 1737.
Napoleon 1 built a road through here in 1801, presumably to take his troops through the Alps further on. The cliffs were vertical into the lake in places but now this is a major highway.
The estimated time back to Thollon was two hours 35 minutes and we managed to equal that. Walking uphill was heavier work but we were in the shade and the danger of slipping was less, so we felt comfortable. At Reboux we met a man renovating the Joseph de Reboux buildings and we decided to take the longer track, which turned out to be muddy in patches but we skirted around the creek crossings. After we passed through Maravant we could see the scar on the hill made by the access road we came down on Wednesday from Les Memises..
This was a great walk and we felt a good sense of achievement as we relaxed on our lounge, playing scrabble and watching never ending game shows on BBC. Too tired and stiff to venture out again today.
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