Driving Along in My Automobile

More Photos here

Our journey from Paris to Genève was truly wonderful. Lucky for us we had an air conditioned car at times b/c it did get hot and that might be why it used diesel gas. The countryside is made of rolling hills and such a lush green similar to PA or parts of Virginia in the summer. There are fields of wheat, sunflowers, vineyards and fields of white cows. A chateau often sits on the hilltops off in the distance. We stopped off at Chablis and admired the wine chateaus. We traveled through the Valley of Ouchy and then decided to stop off at Bourg en Bress, a famous region known for their chicken with white sauce. Just a little trivia fact that J’s knows. This town’s brown roadside historical marker had a picture of a chicken on it. It seems all the towns we passed had their own claim to fame they advertised on these historical brown signs. So we got of the auto route and picked the first restaurant we came to as J. was running late for a meeting in Genève. J. noticed a little sign for an auberge, Auberge des Rippes, across the street from the sunflower field. He has an eye for these things. As we walked in you could tell they were not used to travelers actually stopping in. At first we were nervous about getting the menu de jour expecting that the cost might be more cash than we had on hand. But it was so much cheaper than Paris we thought there must have been a mistake! The chicken was so tasty I think they must have marinated it but they say that’s just the chicken. The table had blue table clothes that sat in a lodge like room decorated with puzzles of local landscapes like Mt Blanc, or some castle I can’t remember the name of now. On our adventures home we also made time to stop off and sample some bubbly and Veuve Abul! We visited the floor and saw where they bottled the wines, riddled the wines. I had not realized they fast freeze the top to collect all the sediment and push it out. It was very reasonably priced and is not currently sold in the US.

The rest stops which are called Aire, were very nice as well and very frequent. Some of the Aires had hotels as could drive for hours and have no place to exit the auto route. All of them had clean bathrooms and among your toilet choices was a room with just a hole in the ground and squat. The majority of the stalls were all little individual rooms with toilettes. Most of the stalls in France are little rooms all their own but often the sink area is unisex which can be a little disconcerting at times. When I visited Paris in 1993 you had to pay for the privilege to use the toilets but this custom seems to be a distant memory for everyone. As you exit there is large red line through the Aire sign.

In a French town called, Flies, we circled around J’s old 1700 farmhouse where he used to live while working in Switzerland. It looked exactly like he had described so many times. Despite the fact that it did not have heat in the winter and he used a sickle to mow the lawn he has very fond memories of the place.

After the day's journey we landed at a hotel called The Bois Joly, the beautiful forest, nestled in an itty bitty alpine village at base of the Jura Mountains overlooking the valley and the Alps. It was more than I could have dreamed as our room had a stunning view of the Alps, overlooking the city lights of Geneva and it just so happened to be a full moon rising over the landscape that evening. I took a long moon bath and watched the twinkle of the city and the twinkle of the stars as I peacefully dozed off.