The night was wonderfully quiet. So quiet that you could almost forget that you were traveling and hadn’t landed somewhere in a brochure for “relaxed living with a view”. The apartment was pleasantly quiet, the view was beautiful, so it was actually the best conditions for a perfect start to the day.

However, the morning started with a bit of a question mark. The hostess had said the previous evening that she would be there at nine when I left. At nine o’clock, however, all the blinds were still down, there was no sound in the house and everything made a very deserted impression. As it was a private host and not a traditional accommodation provider, I simply left the keys on the table, wrote a note and left. Kind of strange, but good – you don’t want to wait forever in front of closed blinds for your grand entrance.

The plan for the morning was actually simple: head to a bakery, organize a coffee, maybe a croissant, and then roll off relaxed. The reality was different. The supposed bakery turned out to be a normal store with nothing that my inner road trip monk really needed in the morning. So I opened Google Maps, searched for bakeries – and then the next aha moment: everything was closed. Really everything. On a Monday. I still don’t know why. But the result was clear: I was on the road without coffee and without a croissant. For me, it was roughly the same state of emergency as a Frenchman being banned from eating a baguette. 😄

Fortunately, the landscape had more compassion than the local bakery infrastructure. After the first few kilometers, a really beautiful Jura backdrop opened up: mountainous, green, with striking rocks, everywhere this impression that spring is just about to kiss the whole area awake. It became more colorful, fresher, livelier. And although I was slightly offended by the lack of coffee at first, even I couldn’t ignore the fact that this landscape really can do something.

The Creux du Van area was particularly impressive later on. This rocky basin is one of the most striking places in the Swiss Jura, with rock faces almost 200 meters high – and that’s exactly how it looked: huge, calm, impressive. There I had another one of those classic motorcycle traveler experiences: The sat nav wanted to happily send me straight ahead, but there was no road that I could simply continue on. In the end, the problem wasn’t with the sat nav, but with an incorrectly placed waypoint that had obviously ended up in a hiking area. That’s exactly the disadvantage of planning at home on the screen and not knowing the area: on the map, some things look wonderfully rideable, but in reality it’s more suitable for hiking boots than motorcycle tires. So you skip the waypoint, turn around, re-sort and carry on.

In Les Rasses, it finally became clear that I wasn’t just riding through greenery today, but that I was also taking on a lot of altitude. There were actually still several patches of snow there. Not much, most of it had already melted away, but enough to briefly remind me that the Jura had not yet fully given way to spring in April. It was wonderfully quiet up there, almost so quiet that you could forget about the missing croissant for a moment.

At some point, I actually made it to a larger town: Yverdon-les-Bains, right on Lake Neuchâtel. After all the morning hustle and bustle, it was time for a break. And that was necessary. Yverdon is such a nice contrast to the quiet Jura before it: suddenly the city, the lake, people, movement – and above all, finally the chance to eat something. The lake itself is the largest lake located entirely in Switzerland, and the location of Yverdon at its south-western end is quite something.

We then continued on, and by the time we reached Le Chenit it was clear that the day was far from over. The route led through the Vallée de Joux, the high valley in the Vaud Jura, which is known for its vastness, tranquillity and, of course, its lakes. Lac de Joux and the smaller Lac Brenet are located there, and it is precisely this mixture of water, forest, altitude and curves that makes the area so special. I passed several large and small lakes, and this route had exactly the kind of character that makes a tour like this worthwhile: nice and winding, nice and quiet, nowhere hectic, and there were always remnants of snow at the edge. The weather did what it likes to do in the mountains: sometimes bright blue skies, sometimes clouds. But never too warm, never too cold – just right.

One of the big highlights was the section over the Col du Marchairuz. The pass lies at around 1447 meters in the Jura vaudois and connects the Vallée de Joux with the side towards Lake Geneva. Up there, the atmosphere was completely different again: more space, more views, more of that feeling that the landscape was suddenly pulling back the curtain. And that’s exactly what it did. After the pass, the view opened up towards Lake Geneva and on to the snow-covered Alps. That was great cinema. Of course, as the motorcycle god apparently likes it, without a decent stopping place exactly when the view is at its best. I tried to take a few photos, but once again the really powerful images remain in my head. Sometimes that’s just the way it is: The best moments don’t want to be photographed, they want to be ridden.

My plan had actually been to stay in Switzerland today. But I changed my mind during the course of the day. The reason was not very romantic, but very practical: the prices. There didn’t seem to be a hotel in Switzerland for less than 130 euros. And as beautiful as the view, the Alps and the Jura are, my enthusiasm for the scenery stops somewhere when the place to sleep suddenly starts charging prices for which it feels like you can rent half a village in France. So I changed my plans, drove further into France and finally ended up in Morez, where I found accommodation for a really penny. Even if I have to drive back a bit tomorrow: It’s worth saving around 80 euros.

In the end, it was a day full of small contradictions, and that’s exactly why it was good. No coffee and no croissant in the morning, but confusion at the accommodation. Then remnants of snow in the Jura, the wrong waypoint in the hiking area, fantastic rocky landscapes, lakes, bends, peace and quiet, a pass road, a view of the Alps and, in the end, a cheap bed in France. It is precisely these days, which are not neat and tidy, but a little chaotic, a little improvised and that is precisely why they remain in our memories.

Conclusion: the Jura can apparently do both: let you down in the morning with its culinary delights and completely reconcile you with the scenery a few hours later. 😊