Annecy day out · Port

270 km from Annecy

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Why this ride

A 270 km round trip from Annecy - roughly 4 h 39 in the saddle. The stops in between: Littoral de Tresserve, Immeuble Clarté, Bellerive I and Port. The highest point is about 1,000 m. It crosses from France into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.

Roadbook

1. Annecy start

   Annecy sits at the northern tip of its lake, with the mountains stacked behind it, and on a clear morning it is one of the prettiest towns in the French Alps. The old centre is a knot of canals, arcaded streets and pastel houses, with a small medieval prison built on an island in the middle of the stream, and the lake beyond is so clean that you can see the bottom a long way out. With around 49,000 people it has everything: fuel, food, repair shops and plenty of places to sleep.

   The riding starts at the lake itself. The road around its shore runs through Talloires and Menthon-Saint-Bernard, past old châteaux and stone villages, and then climbs gently through woods before dropping again to the water. It is lovely, and very busy in July and August, when cars and cyclists fill every lay-by. In the shoulder seasons it is a different place altogether, quiet and cool, with clear light on the Dents de Lanfon and the snow just visible on the Tournette. East of the lake the roads climb toward the Col de la Forclaz de Montmin, a modest pass of about 1,150 metres with a good view over the water.

   The town's history has been shaped by its position, between Geneva, Savoie and the passes to Italy. For centuries it belonged to the counts of Geneva, and later to the dukes of Savoy, and the little château that rises above the old town was theirs. Today it is a place where paragliders gather on the hills and where the lakeside promenade fills each evening with people eating ice cream and watching the light fade.

   As a start and finish, Annecy works very well. Early in the morning the town is calm, with delivery vans in the lanes and the smell of bread in the air, and you can be on the mountain roads within twenty minutes. At night the lights of the old town reflect in the canal, and the cafés along the quay stay open late. Book a bed ahead in summer.

2. Littoral de Tresserve sight

   The Lac du Bourget is the largest natural lake entirely in France, a long blue trough in the Savoie Prealps, and the shore at Tresserve, just south of Aix-les-Bains, is one of the quiet places to see it. Beneath the water here lie the remains of prehistoric lake dwellings, villages of timber houses built on piles along the shore thousands of years ago. The site is part of the UNESCO-listed Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, a series of more than a hundred settlements in six countries. There is nothing to see above the surface, but knowing it is there changes the way you look at the reeds and shallows.

   The lake has a literary fame too. Alphonse de Lamartine met his great love, Julie Charles, in Aix-les-Bains in 1816, and after her death he wrote Le Lac, one of the most famous poems in the French language, about the lake that saw their happiness. Across the water, on the steep western shore, the Abbey of Hautecombe sits by the water at the foot of the Mont du Chat, burial place of the princes of the House of Savoy.

   Aix-les-Bains is an old spa town, with Belle Époque hotels, a casino and thermal baths, and it makes an excellent base. The riding around the lake is superb. The road along the western shore, below the Dent du Chat, is narrow and winding, with the cliffs on one side and the water on the other. Above it, the climb to the Mont du Chat is steep and tight, with long drops on the outside of the hairpins and no room for daydreaming. On the eastern side, the road up to Mont Revard climbs in long bends to a plateau with views over the lake and, on clear days, Mont Blanc.

   The lake is a place to swim in summer, with beaches and lidos around the shore; the water is clear and warms up well by July. Mornings are often hazy; afternoons can bring thunderstorms that roll in over the mountains.

   Aix-les-Bains has fuel, garages and every kind of food, from lakeside cafés to restaurants serving lake fish such as lavaret, a whitefish found in the Alpine lakes. Tresserve, the residential village above the shore, is quiet and green. Park by the water, take off your helmet, and listen to the lake.

3. Immeuble Clarté sight

   In 1932, while most of Geneva was building in stone, Le Corbusier put up an apartment block made almost entirely of steel and glass. The Immeuble Clarté, in the Eaux-Vives district on the east side of the city, was revolutionary for its time: a prefabricated steel frame, huge windows that flood the apartments with light, duplex flats with double-height living rooms and a structure that allowed flexible layouts. The name means clarity, and the building lives up to it. Since 2016 it has been part of the UNESCO listing of the architectural work of Le Corbusier, alongside the Villa Savoye, the Unité d'Habitation and other buildings on several continents.

   The building is still lived in, so admire it from the street. Look at the rhythm of the windows, the balconies and the stairwells with their glass block floors, designed to bring light down through the building. It was restored in recent years, and its clean, modern look still surprises in a neighbourhood of nineteenth-century houses.

   Riding in Geneva is city riding: busy traffic, trams, many traffic lights, cyclists and strict speed limits enforced by cameras. Parking for motorcycles is generally available in designated areas. Once you leave the city, the riding gets much better. The Salève, just across the French border, has a winding road to the top with views over the city and the lake, and the Jura and the Alps are within easy reach, with the roads around the Col de la Faucille and the Chablais offering superb curves.

   Fuel, food and coffee are everywhere, though prices in Geneva are high, and fuel is often cheaper just across the border in France. The lakefront, with the Jet d'eau shooting water high into the air, is a short walk from the Clarté building, and the old town, with its cathedral and narrow lanes, is close by.

   Local food includes perch fillets from the lake, cheese fondue, longeole, a Geneva pork sausage flavoured with fennel, and chocolate in every form. Spring and early autumn bring mild days and clear light. Summer can be hot, winter grey and cold, with the bise, a cold north-east wind, sweeping across the lake. Nearly a century on, it still looks like the future that Geneva politely declined to build around it.

4. Bellerive I sight

   Lake Geneva has a gentle northern shore and a steep one, and Bellerive lies on the quiet side. Collonge-Bellerive is a village on the Geneva side of the lake, a few kilometres from the city, with lawns running down to the water, old villas and a small harbour where sailing boats bob. Some five thousand years ago, people built houses on piles in the shallows here, and what remains of that settlement lies below the surface, protected as part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011. There is nothing to see from the shore except the lake and the Alps, so the visit is about the setting.

   The setting is good. On a clear day the Mont Blanc massif shows in the far south-east, white and enormous, and in the evening the light on the lake turns copper. Bellevue and Corsier, the neighbouring villages, are small, wealthy places with cafes and walks, and Geneva itself, with its famous fountain and old town, is only fifteen minutes away.

   The ride list pairs this with Lavaux, the terraced vineyard slope between Lausanne and Vevey, which UNESCO listed in 2007. Monks began the terraces in the twelfth century, and today about eight hundred hectares of stone-walled vineyards climb from the lake to the hills, producing Chasselas, a delicate white wine. The road through the villages, such as Cully, Epesses and Chexbres, is narrow, winding and lined with walls, and it is best taken slowly, on a quiet weekday, with stops for a glass of wine in a cellar.

   Between the two, the lakeside road runs west to east along the water, with plenty of traffic around Lausanne and Geneva, so leave early and avoid rush hours. Fuel is easy everywhere, though Swiss prices are high, and you need a vignette for the motorway. Spring and autumn are lovely, with autumn the best, when the vines turn gold and the grape harvest fills the villages with festivals. Summer is warm and crowded, with swimmers on every landing stage, and winter brings the cold bise wind from the north-east.

5. Port turn

   Lake Geneva, which the locals call the Leman, is the largest lake in western Europe, and its southern shore, curving between Geneva and the French border, is where the river Rhone leaves the water. The little places of Corsier-Port and Anieres lie on the left bank, among villas, vineyards and gardens that slope down to the water, and they are among the most elegant addresses in the canton. The French shore across the lake rises into the mountains of Chablais, and on a clear day the whole range of the Mont Blanc can be seen to the south-east, a white line above the water.

   The prehistoric pile dwellings that give this stretch its place on the UNESCO list lie in the shallow water near the shore, and they date back to the Bronze Age, about three thousand years ago. As elsewhere, they are only seen underwater or in museum displays. On land, the interest is in the villages, with their old stone houses, little harbours and lakeside promenades. The Mouettes Genevoises, small yellow ferries, cross the harbour in the city, and the lake steamers of the Compagnie Generale de Navigation are a pleasure on a sunny day.

   The ride along the shore road is easy and pleasant. It runs from the city past Cologny and Corsier to Hermance, close to the French border, with views of the lake through gaps in the hedges. It is a quiet road, but with a speed limit, many cyclists and plenty of cameras, so slow riding is the rule. Beyond the villages, the road climbs into the hills of the Genevan countryside, where vineyards and fields run toward the Jura, and the quiet lanes are a pleasure. The wind known as the bise, a cold north-east wind, can blow strongly in winter, while the vent, a warm south-west wind, brings rain.

   Versoix and Geneva have fuel at several stations, and there are cafes in the villages. Switzerland is expensive, so a coffee on a terrace is a small luxury, but the lake and the light make it worthwhile. A Swiss motorway vignette applies for the autoroutes, and crossing into France for fuel is a common way of saving money.

6. back through Bellerive I stop

   back through Bellerive I comes up 169 km in.

7. back through Immeuble Clarté stop
8. back through Littoral de Tresserve stop

   back through Littoral de Tresserve, late in the day.

9. Annecy finish

   The route ends here after 270 km.

Where this sits

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