Hike-a-Bike III
Bike: Val-de-Travers to Vallorbe, 33 miles, 3400 feet of climb
Accommodation: Hotel de la Concorde (Airbnb); hosts Catherine and Francesco. “La Viaduc,” double room 1, wifi, no washer, breakfast at restaurant across the river included.
Lunch and snack: farm-food picnics
Dinner: Cafe de la Placette; burger with gruyere, salad, and fries; perch with salad and fries.
Actually, I only hiked about a mile and a half, but we did a lot of climbing again. Even Ken is starting to feel it.
It was an incredibly beautiful day, both weatherwise and scenerywise. Our first long climb up the mountain wound past a gravel pit on a narrow highway with way too much truck and fast-car traffic. Once we were at the top, we spent an hour or so rolling through small farming communities and fields full of cows on one-lane agricultural roads. We stopped at a fromagerie to buy cheeses, jam, and yogurt, which we ate on a bench near two farms a little way down the road. While we ate, hikers and bikers stopped and chatted.
A little farther down the road, we found caramels at another self-serve farm stand. A little farther yet, we parked the bikes, hiked to the ruin of an artillery bunker in the side of a hill, and had another snack in the sun. The weather has cooled down to the 70s and 80s; the sun is still hot, but there has been a nice cool breeze the last couple of days.
Just as we came into Vallorbe, we hit a detour around a bridge construction, which added a mile and a few feet of climb to our route.
Our hotel is next to the main bridge across the River l’Orbe, right in the center of town. We found a great restaurant just on the other side of the bridge, had a big dinner, and went to bed early.
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| This area of the Jura Mountains is sparsely populated. |
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| Self-serve farm stands provided our lunch and snacks for the day. |
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| Red benches offered rest stops for hikers and bikers. While we ate our lunch here, a pair of hikers stopped to talk. They were on their way from the farm of one friend to the farm of another friend for a holiday visit. |
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| View from just outside the door of our small hotel in Vallorbe. |
