After Geneva I had decided to visit Embrun, somewhere I had visited when Charles de Gaulle was the name of the President of France and not of an airport north of Paris. I had found in my archive the 1:50,000 hiking map I had used any years earlier and decided to re-visit the area. The Tour passes Embrun about once every four of five years and part of the route includes the ascent of the Col de Vars, a “categorie 1” climb to 6916’. Embrun is a delightful small Alpine town of some 6000 residents. It was formerly an archbishopric with an interesting small cathedral which dates from the twelfth century, now downgraded...