Arriving in France, camping success and hotel luxury in Strasbourg

 The last few days saw us go through a couple of very interesting German cities - Speyer and Karlsruhe, with lots of villages in between and a mix of pathways and small country roads through  agricultural land and woodland, sometimes by the Rhine banks and at other times well away from the river.  And yesterday we rode into Strasbourg, a most lovely city in the Alsace area of France, which we had previous visited in 2019.

Speyer's Kaiserdom cathedral was the burial place for eight Holy Roman Emperors

Old city gate in Speyer

Country path

Frank fixing the first puncture of the trip on Friday (he got a second one shortly after this)

Schloss Karlsruhe.
The statue is of the man who founded the city, Margrave Karl Wilhelm II

Not a bad little shack

Picnic lunch time ( now in France)

Old traditional boats called punts, used for reed collecting, in a little French village 

Sometimes a bus shelter is the only suitable picnic spot

After we left that retro pension north of Speyer a few days ago, I found a bike shop that was open and got the formal diagnosis on the annoying clicking on my bike with every pedal stroke. So sure enough I have worn-out bearings in my crank. To repair it, the parts would have to be ordered, so for now I just have to soldier on and put up with this incessant loud clicking that only stops if I don't  push with the left pedal. It's a form of Chinese torture, so I will go crazy, but very slowly!

We have two successful campground finds to report on Friday and Saturday, but now we are in a hotel in Strasbourg  where we are having our first rest day since the Hook of Holland.

Saturday's campsite. The campground was actually overflowing but the hosts managed to find another bike camper who was willing to share his site with us. He was a German named Berend and was doing a 4 day ride with 120km per day, and he was suffering from a very sore bum!

Frank got two punctures on Friday while riding on some gravel pathways, and the same day I had some insect get into my shirt and sting me four times between my boobs! I never saw what it was as I was in such a hurry to shake whatever it was out of my clothing.

One of the highlights was riding through an area of woodland and seeing masses of storks in their nests atop broken off tree-tops. Many of them we could tell were feeding young ones. We have been seeing storks fairly often, but never in large numbers like this. The stork is the regional emblem of this Alsace area of France, although tht sighting was further north, still in Germany.

Our next big city will Basel, Switzerland, two days away. And there, we are hoping to meet up with our friends Jenny and Gerald from Calgary, who have been riding across France on EuroVelo 6. Our routes will overlap at Basel, so we have been keeping in touch and looks like we will connect north of Basel. Looking forward to that.

Currently we have clocked up 1200 km, both feeling healthy (with noticeable biker tans), but very glad of a day to be walking tourists in this great city 😊

Our current location at Strasbourg, France is marked. The map shows our route all the way up the Rhine, approx 1200 km for us including a few wild-goose chases


Comments

  1. JirkaMay 30, 2022 at 2:48 PM

    So you're almost halfway there, hooray !!!! And as I read, Canada's coast to coast The Great Trail currently measures 20,700 km. If you drive 50 km a day, it costs 414 days in the saddle. If you drive 60 days a year, it's a program for the next 7 years. However, some sources state a total length of up to 28,000 km. It's like cycling to the moon :-)). Brace yourself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DaphneJune 2, 2022 at 2:34 PM

      You seem very keen that we do this ride Jiri! Not in our plans at all!

      Delete
  2. Des IrwinMay 31, 2022 at 1:06 AM

    An alternative title for that post could have been "Bums, Boobs and Bearings!!"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JirkaMay 31, 2022 at 4:57 AM

      Bearings are being replaced, breasts and buttocks are being trained today, aren't they? :-))

      Delete
    2. DaphneJune 2, 2022 at 2:34 PM

      That's good Des 😄

      Delete
  3. Eva and GeorgeJune 1, 2022 at 7:44 AM

    Go guys go!
    Feeling your pain with your bike clicking.It is a torture!
    Have a fantastic time with your friends in Basel! Memories for us! We spent there our first Christmas in freedom in 1987/88 with our friends!

    ReplyDelete

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