Daphne's Drivel

Euro velo signage. Budapest will have to wait for another trip The town of Clerval, where we had a fine lunch,  the Plat du Jour with 3 courses for €13 A couple of things happened as we approached the city of Mullhouse in the French region of Alsace on Sunday. Summer suddenly arrived, and we started to see an awful lot of storks in the fields! In one hay stubble field I counted six all in a group. So it made a lot of sense later on when we discovered the stork is the emblem of this area and saw souvenir stalls selling loads of little stuffed toy storks. Regarding the weather, we’ve gone from down jackets and seeking out sunny spots to dry our tent in the mornings, to 30C and having to make sure to stay hydrated. No complaints! It just happened very suddenly. We could have pushed on and crossed the border to Switzerland, but as Mullhouse is a good train hub, we decided to take a rest day there and catch the train to Colmar and Strasbourg, two places I'd been hoping to ...

The Doubs River We have a new river friend now - the Doubs. We left the Saone, joined up with the Canal Rhin au Rhone for a while, and now the gentle, slow-moving, scenic Doubs is by our side as we have made our way into "the Jura". This is an area of smaller mountains to the northwest of the Alps in France. We've certainly seen the landscape change from completely flat to a beautiful, gradually narrowing valley with steep, limestone cliffs that are completely covered by dense, lush woods. The architecture has changed a bit too. I've noticed the village churches have different kinds of roofs, and the houses look a little more Tirolian to me. Along the Doubs this afternoon It's now just over three weeks since the start of the ride, and Frank and I are still enjoying every moment. We had every opportunity to put ourselves  and the bikes on a train and fast forward to our destination, but we made a decision to ride the whole way to the Swiss border and ...

Celebrating 1000 km We hit the 1000km mark a few days ago! It happened in a rural area east of Digoin, in the heart of Charolais cattle country. We wanted to celebrate, but being a Sunday, nothing was open in any of the little villages we rode through. Eventually we came upon a little Snack bar by a campground and we had a beer each to celebrate.  We also continued the celebration by staying in a rather nice hotel for the night. Mind you, that was partly because having already clocked up 70km with some hills, we didn't particularly feel like riding another 20km to the next campground. And besides, we deserved it! Yesterday we were in the famous wine area Cote d'Or, camping in a pretty village named Santenay. We wanted to visit the historical town of Beaune, so after a failed attempt to get there by train, we ended up splurging on a taxi. Spent the evening there and had a great dinner with some local wine. Back to Santenay to our tent at bedtime! A delicious lam...

Leaving the town of Decide in the rain The rain was lashing down when we set off from Decize yesterday morning. Thank goodness we have good rain gear. EV6 took us on a ziggy-zaggy route through farmland on quiet rural roads. It kind of reminded me of of Ireland at times. We saw loads of good looking Charolais cattle, a few sheep, fields of peas (or some kind of legumes) and wheat, with some good ol' farm smells and pleasant gently rolling hills. Nothing too, too challenging for the bikes. The terrain was like that all the way to the town of Bourbon-Lancy. The rain stopped and things brightened up mid-morning making for perfect riding conditions.  We found a supermarche in BL and had a fine picnic in the pretty park there, watching the Saturday joggers and families enjoying the sunshine. Add caption Not the best shot, but a fine herd of Charolais cattle Our after-lunch ride took us back to the Canal Lateral and easy cycling into the town of Digoin, with its canal...

Today we finished the 800km of official "Loire a velo" section of EuroVelo 6. However, we haven't left the Loire yet, although we soon will. There is a route you can do follow it to its source further south from here, but we will stay on EV 6 which continues east towards Switzerland. The section we're on now is known as the Loire en Bourgogne. Tonight we're camping in a town called Decize after an 80 km flat ride with very little wind and pleasant temperatures. The new signage for the Burgundy section of EV6 has now replaced the Loire a Velo logo as seen below This also means we have left behind the valley of the kings and their chateaux and are heading into more canal country. Today's trail followed the Canal Lateral a La Loire. I was fascinated watching a huge luxury barge today as it made it's way through a two-stage lock on an aquaduct over a Loire tributary, near Duffy.  Pont Canal du Guetin Today's tranquil path along the cana...