On A Grand Tour

In the midst of the whirlwind of moving, apartment searching, and the never-ending bureaucratic nightmare that is living as expats in Switzerland, we managed to make the most of our few weeks of living in France. Kurt gets all of the credit here; I think he got tired of looking at my frazzled face and ordered us to the mountains. Since our little French town of Prévessin-Moëns sits in the shadow of the Jura, exploring these gentle mountains was a natural choice.

First, we headed towards the town of Gex, right at the foot of the mountains. The town itself is pure French gorgeousness, with colorful shuttered buildings housing every type of boutique and restaurant. Such cuteness required a nice wander before we set off for our hike.

We have been enjoying watching as spring slowly but surely emerges in the mountains (though a couple new rounds of snow this last week are reminding us not to get too ahead of ourselves with our excitement). Our beautiful Gex hike gave us views, trees, and of course, waterfalls.

While the nature was all well and good, the highlight of my day came at the end, when we stumbled upon a pizza vending machine (!!!) back in Gex. With a skeptical look on his face, Kurt gave in to my pleading and we ordered a pizza. I almost couldn’t contain my excitement, though we were expecting it to be fairly horrible. But it wasn’t! It was actually quite delicious and was the best post-hike snack!

Day 2 dawned with a more determined air, and while our leisurely Gex hike was wonderful, today we were set on conquering the Jura. This time our starting point was the town of Thoiry, once again right at the foot of the mountains. The Jura remind me a lot of the mountains at home, in that they rise straight up from a very flat valley. Which means that then you arrive at the foot of the mountain, there is only one way to go…up. And up is exactly where we went. Without reprieve, we went from the bottom to 1,330 m (or 4363 ft). “Burn” is an inadequate term to describe what was happening in my quads and calves; I think “inferno” might be more accurate.

We weren’t expecting to hit snow on our hike. In the morning, as we looked up at the mountains, it only looked like there was snow up at the very top. We sort of forgot that the very top was exactly where we were headed.

Luckily, we were heavily rewarded at the top by the most beautiful views. We sat and had a picnic and marveled at the valley, with tiny Geneva, a mini Jet d’Eau, and the glorious French Alps in the distance. We couldn’t have planned better weather for a hike with this kind of view.

Our picnic became even more eventful with a clattering sound to our left and the appearance of not one, not two, but an entire herd of chamois hanging out on the rocks. Described as a goat-antelope (whatever that means), the chamois’s European roots means that we had never seen one before. Which is probably why we took about a hundred too many pictures of them!

With the shadows lengthening, we started our way back down. Tired legs meant that it was easier to slide our way down the snowy trails than walk them.

Back home and clean, we celebrated our French adventures with scrumptious coq au vin. It was fitting and entirely coincidental that the bottle of wine we had on hand was a Côtes du Jura. We toasted to a couple of glorious days, much-needed stress relief, and the knowledge of how lucky we are to be doing what we are doing.