Day 53: A lazy day at the foot of Mont Cenis

We slept in for a bit and went down for breakfast around 8.30am. It was a lot better than yesterday, we even got a boiled egg 🥚. Too bad some older man kinda ruined Suuz her breakfast experience by making gross eating sounds (she’s pretty sensitive to that). After breakfast we went outside to clean 🧼the bikes. It was already hot so for sure a sweaty business. But they are all nice and shiny again, at least Mas her bike is. Suuz’s is mostly functionally clean with the gearing system all shiny and oiled again. And we put new brakes on Suuz her bike since going up a mountain also means going down a mountain and you do want to have perfect brakes for that. Mas her brakes are used less so they still look fine and need no replacement yet.

After the bikes it was time for the helmets. They’re pretty gross as well due to all the sweating of the past week so they got a nice bath 🛁. From then on, chill time. Mas her watch even told her to get up and move twice! Also, Mas read an article about Thursday’s Tour the France 🇫🇷 stage and recognized some mountains 🏔 in the area. She had a look at the route and found out we planned to cycle the exact same route as the Tour de France on the exact same days. Oopsie. Okay we do like 1/3rd of what they are doing, but it’s still on the same roads. And mountains are closed down for a day when Le Tour passes. So we are kind of fucked. At least we were, but we solved it. We now know why everything is so insanely expensive around here for the coming few days and almost everything is fully booked. Well we booked a youth hostel, shared room and everything, oh the joy, and we’ll stay there for two nights. Suuz is totally fine with that, but Mas has her reservations… But the campgrounds ⛺️ we found are not answering the phone and we are not taking the risk of cycling over this huge ass mountain and finding no place to sleep. Sleeping in the €600 p/night room that’s still left is also not an option. Maybe if I get a raise and paid holiday leave?? 

Well after we all figured out a plan and decided to take an extra day in Lanslevillard, watch Le Tour cyclists pass on Friday and cycle the Col d’Iseran on Saturday. It took us about two hours to figure this out. Mas FaceTimed with Rosalie and Elise for a while and afterwards we walked all the way up, like six hair pin turns, to a little store and bar for lunch and a coffee. We were sweating like crazy once we were all the way up and Suuz got scared a little by seeing Mont Cenis for the first time all the way up in the clouds ☁️. So we were at the bakery and the lady had already bagged our cakes when Suuz realized she did not bring her wallet, grrrrrr. Thank computer science 🧪🧫🧬 for Apple 🍏 Pay. It turns out it’s pretty convenient to pay for stuff with your iPhone. Unfortunately we could not repeat this trick at the bar next door, so we skipped coffee and had some blueberry pie 🥧 for lunch. Back in the hotel 🏨we were dripping of sweat so all that was on the menu for the rest of the afternoon was a cold shower and not moving till we had to go out for dinner.

So for dinner we had to walk up again to this Agriturismo where we had made a reservation. This was the only place to eat in this little village so we were happy we were welcome there. It was a bit of a walk and it was still very hot and humid but once we were there it was all good. The lady of the place did everything by herself. And we must say, she did a pretty good job! Dinner was really nice with all these homegrown products. They even make their own wine, which was pretty decent. We had a fun and delicious evening and took a very adventurous road back to the hotel. Since it was already dark and we walked down this grassy path it was kind of a challenge not to misstep. It was really cool to see all the lights of Susa down in the Valley. Back in the hotel it was still freaking hot so another sweaty night was waiting for us.

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