Saturday 22 May 2010 St Jean de Losne to Chalezeule

Saturday 22 May 2010  St Jean de Losne to Chalezeule 98km

Historical towns visited - two
Churches with mosaic tiled roofs - three
Snake on path - one
Cycle tourist wearing ski goggles while on bike - one
Walking in on naked man in showers - one (this ones Sandy's)


In St Jean as we were buying our daily bread we bumped into this English chap and got chatting.  Turns out he is retired and rebuilt a 93ft barge as a home and has lived on it with his wife since 2001 just cruising the European canals.

This is their boat

After been humilated by these two old guys on roadies we saw them again a couple of hours later on their way back.  They must have done about 100km!!!!



Dole was absolutely stunning.  We arrived and just couldn't believe how beautiful it was.  We went into the Centré Ville and up these alleys past apartments in very old buildings.

One could imagine a very bohemian existence here.  I could grow my hair long and play in bands......I guess that would be Plan 36B on our list of cunning plans we have come up with since this trip started.  Next we saw a market and walked around in awe of the food that is available in the country.  It was almost lunch time so we bought some tapenade, bread, cheese and some cooked chicken and sat outside and ate .

At that time we heard a brass band and a small parade appeared.  There were people everywhere and such a happy atmosphere.  Turns out that it was some festival.   Very tempting to stay the night here and spend the afternoon just hanging out but we both felt we should get some miles under our tyres so we left.

We pulled into Orchamps (a little village by the canal) and there was a bar/cafe that looked inviting and we felt like a Coke to give us a lift.  It was perfect, the bar was pretty good too :)

As Besancon was a bit too far we thought we'd stop at the next closest campground but when we got there we felt pretty good and it was only another 28km to Besancon so we kept going.

The canal going through a tunnel

And through a curtain of water out the other side

As we got closer to Besancon we noticed the countryside changing, there were now hills surrounding the river.  We had been on pretty flat ground all the way from Roscoff but now we noticed a real change.  We assume it is a taste of what's to come.

In Basancon the trail led us through the canal tunnel, it was probably 200m long.  All very exciting.

Once in the campground we were pretty pleased with ourselves.  We smashed out 98km and felt pretty damn good.  Not only did we get to Bescancon we had to ride an extra 7km to get to the campground.

Well earnt beers

As for the naked guy..... in France for the most part the abultions blocks are mix ie while you make your way to the loo you pass the urinals on the way, this includes showers.  Chalezeule campground, we're staying, the ablutions (showers, toilets, dish washing sinks) are sort of segregated but not really for instance to get to the dish washing sinks you go through the male showers.  It just so happened when we went to wash our pots so too was a guy getting dressed outside of his shower cubicle.