Mosaic tiled roof
We started on the Saone river today. From the brochure we got from the tourist office that showed the cycle routes we knew we needed to be on the north side of the river and that was all. Getting out of Chalon took a bit of GPS work and guessing. You see the Eurovelo route 6 is not finished, it's a grand idea and there has been a lot of money put towards it and the other routes through Europe and there is still work going on but it's not finished. What this means to us is that there is intermittent signage especially through the towns. Anyway we found our way to Gergy where the brochure had said there was a completed section of the route and we found our first Eurovelo 6 sign.......we were very excited!. 500M down the track there was a 'Road Closed' (actually it said 'Route Barrée') so naturally we rode around the barricade and moseyed down the track to then be confronted with a landslide that took out a section of the track with no way past. So it was a quick u-turn and back out to the main road a bit sad that we couldnt ride on the route (it's traffic free). 1Km down the road we see a side road that headed toward the river so we took a punt that it would meet up with the Eurovelo on the other side of the landslide and it did. Yah!! Casual cycling where the only thing we had to worry about was the head wind.
The Eurovelo track finished again not too much further on so we guessed we would have a day of finding sections of the track we could ride on. It turned out OK and we thought we might try to get to Dole but the headwind was starting to get us down. For the first time of the trip we broke out the iPods and listened to some music, not very sociable but it took our minds off the wind. We just swapped turns on the front and slogged it out. After having some lunch at Pagny-le-Ville at a beautiful spot by the river we stumbled upon the next section of Eurovelo track. We ate our yummy baguette and then found ourselves on a section of canal that bypassed a portion of the river for reasons unknown to us. We were riding OK although a little tired when we came to St Jean-de-Losne and as we rode from the town we saw on the opposite bank of the river a campground with a restaurant and tables by the water in an idyllic setting so we had a quick chat and decided that that would be a very nice place to hang out for the afternoon out of the wind. So it was back to the town, across the bridge and into the campground. 10 Euro well spent.
After pitching the tent and having showers we rode back into the town and found a perfect brasserie with tables outside under big trees on the banks of the river and surrounded by classic old buildings. We had a couple of beers and life was good. As we approach the end of our French story we are already feeling the pangs of indecision, “should we spend longer in France?” but I'm sure when we get to Switzerland we will love that just as much.
French sausage and fried onion....yummy
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