We are back in Geneva. We are sitting in an absolutely delightful Airbnb. Once again we arrived early. I had purposefully planned the last few days of riding to be a little bit shorter. That way we’d have some flexibility in case something was going wrong and we needed to make up days or miles. But everything went well, and so we ended up at our final destination several hours before the official check in time. Gratefully our Airbnb host allowed us to show up at 1 PM.
Today’s ride was mostly on roads with shoulders marked for bikes. We miss the dedicated EuroVelo routes, but this was still a good ride. We hugged the northern shore of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). We rode past apple orchards and grape vineyards. The drivers generally gave us room. We loved the occasional views of the beautiful lake. And for pretty much the entire ride, we had an amazing tailwind, which we decided was Switzerland’s parting gift to us.
After arriving in Geneva we left our bike on our Airbnb host’s porch and our luggage in her house, as she hadn’t yet had a chance to clean the apartment after her guest who just left today. We took the train to the airport and were able to purchase to bike boxes. That had been the biggest remaining challenge – and I had spent months thinking (worrying) about what I would do if we couldn’t get boxes. We would’ve spent all day tomorrow calling bike shops to see if we could find one that happened to have two boxes they hadn’t yet thrown away. I had also thought about what we would do if we couldn’t find bike boxes. Would we leave our bike in Geneva with somebody? If so, who? Luckily, all my worrying was for naught. The process at the airport was semi-efficient, we were able to navigate the trains with the big empty boxes, and we were back to our Airbnb.
We walked down to the beach and watched the windsurfers and kite surfers play in the windy waters of Lac Léman. Eventually we made our way to a small grocery store and bakery to grab some supplies for dinner. Today is a holiday in Switzerland, so we don’t have many options.
After dinner, I began the process of packing the bike. I was a little faster taking it apart than putting it together. It took a little over an hour to get it mostly ready to be boxed. Around this time our Airbnb host came and talked to us, and she tried to help us arrange for a taxi on Wednesday morning at 4 AM. There were none available that early. She then offered to drive us in her van. We found a way to arrange the empty boxes in her van.
It is so nice of her to be willing to drive us as 4 AM on a night she won’t get home until midnight.
