Lac du Bourget is the largest natural lake in France, a long, deep lake in Savoie between the Jura and the Alps, and the poet Alphonse de Lamartine made it famous with his poem Le Lac, written after a love affair that began on its shores. The Baie de Grésine, near Brison-Saint-Innocent on the eastern shore, is one of the prehistoric pile-dwelling sites of the lake, part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps listed by UNESCO in 2011. As with other such sites, the remains lie underwater, but the bay and its surroundings are a beautiful place to stop.
The eastern shore is dominated by the spa town of Aix-les-Bains, popular since Roman times for its hot springs and a fashionable resort in the nineteenth century, with grand hotels, a casino and a lakeside promenade. Across the lake, on the western shore, the Abbaye de Hautecombe, a Cistercian abbey on the water, holds the tombs of many members of the House of Savoy, the dynasty that once ruled this region and later became the royal family of Italy.
For riders, the area offers superb roads. Above the western shore, the Dent du Chat road and the Col du Chat climb steeply over the mountain ridge, with tight bends and views over the lake. The road along the western shore is narrow and winding, with tunnels and cliffs. To the east, the road from Aix-les-Bains up to Mont Revard climbs through forests to a plateau with a spectacular view over the lake and, on a clear day, Mont Blanc. Further afield, the Bauges massif offers quiet, twisty roads through limestone mountains and pastures, and the Chartreuse massif, to the south, has famous passes and gorges.
Traffic around Aix-les-Bains and Chambéry can be heavy, especially in summer, and the roads around the lake are busy on weekends. The weather is generally mild, but storms can build up quickly over the mountains in summer.
Aix-les-Bains, a town of over twenty-five thousand people about five kilometres away, has fuel, shops and restaurants of every kind; Brison-Saint-Innocent and Grésy-sur-Aix have more limited facilities. Try lavaret, a white fish from the lake, served with butter and lemon, or a plate of diots, Savoyard sausages cooked in white wine, with crozets, small square pasta made from buckwheat. And sit by the lake at dusk, as Lamartine did, and watch the light fade over the water.