Introduction
In the meantime, I decided to head back to Europe for a trip. I had cycled from Geneva to Nice the previous year and found the French Alps to be a wonderful place to visit. In fact, we buzzed through a small village on one of the last days of the cycling trip and thought it would be a good place to return for a short visit. Now I had the chance.
I was also intrigued with stories from friends who were mostly living in France and their attempts to bring wine back into the U.S. I brought a few bottles back into the U.S. in the mid-80s and was almost thrown in jail… But U.S. customs had changed their tune recently and it was much easier to import wine.
I called some local transfer agents and found one that would actually ship a container (up to 1 cubic meter) of wine back from southern France to a shipping company warehouse not far from my house. And rather inexpensively, as well.
So, the trip was on. I needed to travel to France, purchase and gather the wine and ‘box it up.’ A shipping company in southern France would pick it up and transfer it to Marseilles. From there, it would travel to the east coast of the U.S. by ship, then by truck to the local warehouse. And this had to be done before the weather turned cold as I didn’t want to pay for a temperature-controlled container or truck transport (read: $$$).
I also wanted to visit some friends I hadn’t seen in a few years in Switzerland so I added time to see them. And, since I was bike trip mode, decided to head to Italy for a few days to reconnoiter a cycling trip in northern Italy.
And off I went in October!
Gathering wine
The first week of the trip I stayed with friends in southern France, just outside of Montpelier. They were wine drinkers and had visited a number of wineries over the years so they had mostly mapped out a route for me to follow and gather wine.
And gather we did. In 5 days I purchased 210 bottles of wine. Most was destined for my lovely and me, but I had some friends here in the U.S. who were interested in some wine so I purchased a few bottles to give to them, as well.
Interestingly, I did not take a single photo of that portion of the trip. I mean, did you want to see my well-used credit card?
French Alps 1
Upon leaving all of my wine with friends in Montpelier, I drove to the Alps and stayed in a ‘gîtes’ in Saint-Martin-Vésubie. Gîtes de France is an organization of homes/proprietors in France who open their homes to visitors. Much like bed n breakfasts, but no breakfasts, just a bed. But the homes usually have access to a kitchen where one can prepare meals.
Saint-Martin-Vésubie is one of the small towns through which we flew the previous year on our bike trip. Fortunately, there were a few gîtes from which to choose.
Once I arrived at my gîtes, I had to figure out what to do…. I was planning on staying there for 3 days/4 nights but really had no agenda or concrete plans for my stay. I had some books to read, but staying inside a house reading in the French Alps didn’t seem like a truly fun time.
The next day I wandered into town and found the local Office du Tourisme and found some wonderful books and maps describing single and multi-day hikes in the nearby hills. Excellent!
It turns out hiking is very popular with the locals in this area of France (the Alpes-Maritimes). So much so the trails are nicely marked with waypoints and various destinations (lakes, trailheads, etc.).
Up first – A hike around Madone de Fenestre. The hike includes path around a monastery/refuge. I was surprised at how many people were also hiking that day, including many school groups. Most of the students were wearing flip-flops for shoes, and hiking in the Alps. So much for my expensive hiking shoes….
French Alps 2
I had so much fun hiking around Madone de Fenestre I decided to do another hike the next day!
Another popular day hike is around Le Boréon. This area was slightly built up around a lake, but the hiking trails quickly take one into the hills and away from the commercial district.
Again, I’m amazed at how many people are hiking these trails – and many of the people are school groups.
Switzerland and Italy I
I also wanted to visit a friend in northern Switzerland on this trip. But the drive from Saint-Martin-Vésubie in France to Berg in Switzerland was at least 10 hours – with no traffic.Consequently, I drove from Saint-Martin-Vésubie to Geneva and stayed with Rob and Sandy for an evening – remember them from the trip in 2002? Turns out they were going to be out of town that evening but their son was home so the house was open for the evening.
From Geneva I drove to Berg in northeastern Switzerland to visit an old friend. The drive was somewhat unremarkable as it was overcast and raining most of the time. But fast. Boy do people in Switzerland drive fast…..
After a few days visiting in Switzerland, I drove to Bergamo, Italy to scout routes for a possible bicycle trip. I drove over San Bernadino Pass in Switzerland. There is a tunnel under the mountain, but as I approached the tunnel entrance, I could see the traffic was backed up for miles. Not for me. Besides, I’ve driven over mountain passes before, right?
The weather north of the pass was nice and sunny. The weather on the southern side of the mountain was rainy and overcast.
The next day I drove north of Bergamo to start my route scouting activity. Unfortunately, the traffic and roads in that area of Italy are not conducive to bicycle touring. Oh, well. Here’s an album of my time in Switzerland and the drive to Italy.
The lake pictured below is Obersee Bodensee. I rented a bicycle for day while my friend was working and biked to the lake near Konstanz, Germany.
Giro di Lombardia
While not planned (not much on this trip was planned other than the gathering/shipping wine activity..) I was able to watch a professional bicycle race. The Giro di Lombardia race started in Como and finished in Bergamo. Perfect!
I walked around the old Bergamo city in the morning and lined up to watch the finish of the race in the afternoon.
Trip home
Well, I had my fill of Europe. 3 weeks, lots of driving, lots of pictures, lots of wine. I drove from Bergamo back to Nice and flew home the next day.The wine had been packaged up and was ready to ship. A local shipping company picked up the pallet of wine from my friends’ house and transported it to Marseilles. From there, it was loaded into a container, loaded onto a ship and transported to the U.S.
Once in the U.S., pallet was loaded onto another truck and shipped to a transfer warehouse near my house in MN. I was a bit nervous about this last leg as it was happening in late November and I was worried about the wine freezing.
The pallet of wine arrived in MN in early December. Finally! I had to go to the transfer company to get the paperwork, then to the U.S. Customs office at the Twin Cities airport to pay import taxes and then back to the transfer warehouse to pick up my wine.
This was my first (and only) foray into something like this – purchasing something rather large out of country and then shipping it back. My average cost for the wine was about $8.00/bottle, which included import taxes. Unfortunately, the shipping turned out to be about $5/bottle. By far the most expensive portion of shipping was the short trip from Montpelier to Marseilles. I could do better next time – if there is a next time…
And here it is! Not a single broken bottle and nothing frozen. Whew!
Well, that’s about it. The wine lasted about 2 years – none of it was really destined for the cellar.
Go ahead and read the next blog posts about subsequent bicycle trips to Europe and around the U.S.