CHAPTER 11. FRANCE - PICARDY TO ALSACE CONT.

Leaving Turckheim we drive the Route of 5 Chateaux, park and walk up a dirt path to one Chateau where there is a view of Colmar and the Rhine Valley. We drive south along the wine route for a little more, then leave it to go up the valley of Guebwiller to high forested mountains with patches of snow and ski tows. A cloud on the top leaves us in a dense fog. We stop at the Grand Ballon Hotel for a good lunch and talk to a pleasant British couple at the next table. We go down out of the fog and thru Belfort and by the edge of Montbeliard to the Voyageur's Hotel in Pont-de-Roide, near the Jura mountains.

We continue south via scenic tertiary roads, lined in green on Michelin maps, thru the Jura mountains to St. Hippolyte, then up the valley of the Dessoubre River, seeing many fishermen; there is flat gray rock in horizontal layers in the valley walls. Then we go over the hill to the Doubs River valley at Morteau and thru the defile del Coin de la Roche.

In the Doubs River valley we have a good blue trout dinner at the Relais du Silence near Montbenoit, then go thru a high valley looking down on the Doubs like it’s a small river winding thru a meadow. We stop at Pontarlier, but there is no Herald Tribune and no laundromat so we go on to Malbuisson and the Hotel du Lac on the shore of Lac (Lake) St. Point, where we stay two nights.

It’s bright, sunny, and warm today as we drive via scenic tertiary roads to Champagnole, going thru tall evergreen forests, some granite gorges, then dairy country with green fields and cows grazing. After a good lunch near Champagnole we return to the Hotel du Lac via more traveled roads. The Michelin maps are so detailed, and even the tertiary roads are so well maintained and clearly marked that we mostly avoid the main roads and travel the back roads. Traffic is almost nonexistent so we can drive as slowly as we like, and stop to take photographs or just enjoy the views.

It is the 15th of June and we leave France and the Jura Mountains and cross the border into Switzerland and Lausanne on Lake Leman (or Geneva). We don’t stay long when we see the restaurant and hotel prices; we delay our entrance into Switzerland (#12) by going around the end of the lake and back into France to stay several days at Evian Les Bains, home of Evian bottled water.