In the morning we said good by to John Paul, a BMW rider, who on this trip had brought his push bike from Switzerland on the train all the way to Paris and was about to embark on his second ride to Camino de Santiago (Way of St James). As he cycled away Vince noticed a sea shell tied to his pannier, the symbol of the pilgrim on the way to St James. We packed up the tent and were on the road by 10.00am. It was a 5 hour ride down the A6 motorway that took us to Annecy. There were various toll boths (totalling around 35 Euro)…although I still find them stressful and frustrating at least I didn’t get my head almost flattened this time.
At one refusing stop we met a middle aged gentleman,and anesthetist, Jeff Grayn, who was very interested to hear about our adventure and is contemplating one of his own….maybe to South Africa. I encouraged him to set a date and tell someone about it…..then life can be breathed into the dream turning it into a reality.
Th Ace Hotel is a new property, only opening last Dec, but Alex, the Manager and his staff made us very welcome. It is quite cheap for France at 55 Euro for the room and breakfast is 6.50 Euro each…..so not too bad….as we have to watch our penny’s! It’s costing us much more than we anticipated just for the basics!
