French Alps 2026 Day 1: Geneva to Annecy

Made it to Geneva, bike included. The flight was uneventful and I even slept a bit in the wee hours. Rearranging in Amsterdam was pretty straightforward. I had realtime confirmation of the bike making it to Amsterdam, but when the plane finally got to Geneva the official tracking still had its last ping in Amsterdam. Thankfully I spotted the EVOC bag coming off the plane from my window seat, so I was less stressed waiting for it to show up on the oversized baggage carousel.

Then a short walk from the airport to my hotel through 90F Geneva. It was a good feeling to fall into the room.

Before I could rest I did a bit of recon and found a bakery and a convenience store a short walk away, so some half price end of day pastries and beverages for the evening were mine for the taking. It was a good chance to exercise my French too, and it worked. No English fallbacks needed or offered!

Slept two hours, then unpacked and built the bike. All good. Then back to bed after eating what I could.

In the morning, breakfast at the hotel, then I packed up all the gear that would stay behind and delivered it to the front desk. The person working the desk told me, in English, that I did a good job conjugating “will return,” as in “I will return next Thursday” (Je reviendrai jeudi prochain). I’ll take it!

Then I headed out on the bike to make the short trip from the airport to downtown. Harald was on a train that would ultimately be an hour late, so I had plenty of time to explore the lakefront and people watch.

Spent some time on the bench with my bike, gazing out at Lac Léman. Many people call it Lake Geneva, but the locals don’t use that name.

Eventually the hour came, and so did Harald’s train.

Our glorious reunion was pretty late in the day (3:30). We made a quick stop at the bathrooms and then we headed for our first mountain pass. First, though, a bit of urban riding along a nice trail segment out of the city.

The climb was legit, 900m total. Incidentally, right at the base we entered France, where we’ll be for the next week, if plans don’t change.

It was a double summit, with about 7km between the two tops. The first one had no sign, so no pic!

The weather was cool, and as we got near the top we found ourselves in the clouds and a sort of misty rain.

It was cold, particularly on the descents, so for the second one we bundled up in full raincoats and long fingered gloves. By the time we were descending it was pushing 6:30 and we still had some ground to cover to make Annecy. It was largely downhill but quite a bit of traffic and dusk settling in gave us some urgency.

Oh, no pic, but we did blow through a “road closed” sign and ended up doing a brief gravel stretch. So it goes when you’re bike packing!

We stopped on the outskirts of Annecy and hemmed and hawed for 15 minutes finding a hotel room, but find one we did, and we rolled in at around 8:00.

Sort of an odd hotel, in a very happening downtown pedestrian zone with lots of restaurants.

Getting the bikes to the room was impossible (two flights of spiral staircase in addition to a flight or two of normal stairs), so the bikes ended up one story up in a utility area. The room itself was very nice: three beds and good windows with ventilation on both sides.

A quick check told us the local Monoprix was closing in 15 minutes, so we dashed out to acquire some calories. We got ’em. Bread, vegan chocolate pudding, pesto salad, more bread, a big beer and more salads, all part of the combined haul. Then back home for laundry and a feast, and then bed. Briefly overhead someone explaining to their American friends that Monoprix is the French Target. Could it be? The actual tar-jhay??

For me, a total of about 50 miles, but probably 20 of that was exploring mostly flat Geneva. A great start to the trip!

Tomorrow we head towards Chambéry and Grenoble. We’ll probably end up somewhere in between the two.