A couple of nice towns along the partially-finished EV-17 route from Lyon to Geneva. Next, a bit of a climb, then Geneva!

Les Avenières

In Les Avenières, I stayed at a delightful little hotel/restaurant. The town itself is nice enough, but there's not a ton to see. That's especially true since I arrived on Sunday, and on Monday most places were closed because it's Monday, or because it's August. It's near an amusement park called “Walibi.”

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Cæsar had some Gaul

Augustus, in this case: He founded the city of Aoste (originally, Vicus Augustus). This being his month and all, to not have visited would not have been awe-inspiring, majestic, noble or venerable.

Aoste was a center of trade and ceramics at the junction of two main roads up until the fall of the empire, when it fell back to being a minor village. I visited the Gallo-Roman museum there. I also went to the really big Gallo-Roman museum in Lyon (Lugdunum) a few days back. Apparently, Caligula advocated (probably successfully) for the granting of Roman citizenship to the free people in Gaul.

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No Queen

Back in Les Avenières, I picked up a publication about a local agricultural fair. It has a cute story about how the fair doesn't have a queen with princesses, because the girls didn't want to compete against their friends. Instead, they declared themselves ambassadors.

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Les Avnières to Seyssel

The next bit of riding was up to Seyssel, which is just short of a bit of a climb up to Geneva. Along the way, I ran into several of the dreaded “Canadian barriers” (see the captions on the first few pictures).

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Seyssel

Seyssel is a nice, kind of working-class town. The train goes through here, but it doesn't stop (except for a token two trains a day). The town is divided in half by the river, which puts half if it in the Ain département (département number 1; they're assigned alphabetically), whereas the other half is in Haute Savoie. They have two post offices, and I think two mayors.

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Seyssel to Geneva

This features a bit of a climb: 300 meters, it looks like, which is about 1000 feet. I don't think it's that big of a deal, but I did arrange for the main climbing part to be at the beginning of the day, after a day of rest, so my legs would be fresh. Of course, this is a bit anti-climatic, since I don't have Wifi here, so I won't be posting this until I get to Geneva!

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It was a bit of a climb, but no big deal. Actually, I got into Geneva a couple of hours early, a bit before 3!