A lazy day in Bonneville and a couple of Hikes

I finished a couple more books!  Iain M Banks is not great but a good vacation read, and Maeve Binchy I read on the train to/from Zurich.

I have a few more books with me, but I also now have installed "Libby" (thanks Janet), which allows me to take out library books and read them on my phone.  (Not the greatest reading experience but much more convenient than carrying around a lot of books.)  We're going to try to figure out how to connect Libby to Sonya's Kindle ...

After our lazy beach day the weather cooled off and we've just completed a couple of hikes, the first to Lac Benit.

A lot of the hikes here are along roads and many go through farming country.  This hike passed by a large herd (?) of cows - they were pretty docile but kept a close eye on us.

Spot the two faces in the rock face below.

At the Lac!

After our hike we decided to scout some locations to watch the Tour de France.  We drove through Taninges (pic below) and Mieussy - the Tour passed through both towns on Saturday and Taninges on Sunday.  (It goes straight through Bonneville on Sunday but we've been advised to try to watch on a hill if we can.)  There is a steep climb between Mieussy and Taninges on Saturday so that's our current thought ...  We just have to figure out all the road closures and narrow narrow narrow French roads ...

For our next hike we decided to drive to Megève (close to Chamonix, and also on Sundays Tour route).  Megève is a beautiful town (see photo below) - as are most French towns - but the price of coffee and a croissant is directly proportional to a town's beauty (so for your wallet's sake add a few ugly French towns to your itinerary).

Here is our hike (thanks to my hand model Sonya pointing at our parking lot).

Today's hike included some guest horses.  They kept wandering into the shot as we were trying to take scenic photos.

A horse-free scenic photo.

We found a picnic table with a few (unfortunately we had already eaten our lunch a bit earlier in the hike).

Here is our Tour viewing plan (if you're watching on TV you can keep an eye out for us).  The purple box is Mieussy - we're going to park there Saturday and walk towards the big climb (the "1" on the map).  Not sure exactly where we'll wind up watching.  Sunday we'll probably stay in Bonneville (red box) and watch for the 20 seconds it takes them to speed through town.

Today (Friday) is France National Day, so we're looking forward to whatever festivities are on!  Last night there were fireworks (we watched from the deck of our house - I took a few videos but nothing turned out unfortunately as we were a bit far away) and after the official fireworks were done people around town were setting off their own fireworks until all hours.