We woke up to a steady rain, 50 degrees, and after a contemplative breakfast we decided to load up the bikes and drive to Annecy, scrapping the planned itinerary (including Cormet de Roselend). A down day seemed right and we didn’t complain. As good fortune would have it, we arrived in Annecy at noon, just before the street market closed, so we stashed our gear at the hotel and strolled over to Old Annecy for a lunch of fresh bread, cheese, strawberries, rotisserie chicken and pastry, all from local farmer/producers. Ah, the best of France!
The rain had stopped. There was no reason to not get on our bikes so 6 of us (3 DNS’s—Did Not Start) headed out around Lake Annecy for a climb called Crete du Chatillon. As we approached the start of the climb, 3 decided to go straight on the flat bike path around the lake, accepting a DNF (Did Not Finish) for the day. If you’re counting, that left 3 of us—young Nick, Rick and I—still on our bikes going up. It was a 4 – 8%, 25 km climb, 1200 m vertical, reasonable by our current standards.
Rain shrouded the mountain as we started and we quickly donned rain jackets. 1-1/2 hours later, we arrived at the top in dense fog.
The mountain is also called “Le Semnoz,” which translates into something like “Signal Mountain.” During WW II, there was a small but dedicated French Resistance in Annecy, despite Nazi control of the town. The Resistance received air drops of weapons, supplies and information on top of the mountain. At some point, an informer tipped off the Nazis, who staked out the air drop site and were waiting for the Resistance fighters. They killed all of them, according to local history, severely curtailing the Resistance in the area. I looked around for a memorial of some sort on the top but there was nothing to be found in the fog.
After a few minutes, we descended back into Annecy feeling good about getting in a strenuous 35 miles despite the weather.
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