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Tour de Haut Jura

From 3rd to 10th June 2006, the Tour de Haut Jura will be based in a gite of three apartments in the village of Thézillieu 900 metres up in the Haut Bugey region of the Ain Départment, on IGN map 44 ‘Lyon Genève’. The group size will be 8-10 people.

This tour is only available combined with the Tour de Haute Savoie.

Travelling to the tour

We recommend travelling to the tour by Eurostar train from Waterloo to Paris, crossing Paris to change onto the TGV train to Lyon and onto the local train to Virieu-le-Grand, then by road to the gite.

You can put your partly dismantled bike in a bag and take it with you on the trains or we can transport your bike by van at your own risk.

There is a cycle ride of 85 kilometres to the Tour de Haute Savoie with your luggage carried by us in a van.

Details of the gite here.

The Bugey forms the southern end of the Jura range of limestone mountains stretching for 250 kilometres northwest from the Rhône river. The Rhône flows from Lake Geneva along the edge of the Bugey and the Ain and turns south to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Bugey is divided from west to east by deep valleys (Cluses) which separate the Haut-Bugey from the Haut-Jura and the Bas-Bugey and provide a way through for road and rail connections.

The Jurassic limestone was formed 200 million years ago when the region was a sea and was pushed up into ridges by the rise of the Alps about 60 million years ago. More recently, the end of an ice age swept through from the Alps carving the cluses and creating lakes in the blocked valleys.

The Alberine and Valromey valleys, and the Hauteville and Brenod plateaux of the Haut-Bugey run north at 800-900 metres between beech and oak forested ridges 1000-1200 metres high. The Valromey was a centre of Resistance in the Second World War. From Virieu-le-Petit in the Valromey valley at 500-600 metres, you climb with gradually enhanced steepness into the fir forest for the 10 kilometres up to the 1531 metre peak of Grand Colombier, the highest point of the Haut-Bugey at the south-east corner, with an extensive panorama of the Massif Central, the Alps and the Jura.

The Bas-Bugey is a wine-producing region, mostly white although there are also some light reds and rosés. Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin was born (appropriately enough) in Belley where in 1825 he wrote ‘the Physiology of Taste (Goût)’ on the philosophy of good food and good living.