More Cows and Canals: Day 12- Bourbon-Lancy to Montceau-les-Mines

August 19, 2017

We are now seeing other cycle tourers by the handful, not busload. Last night at the very nice campsite at Bourbon-Lancy (claim to existence - a tractor factory) there were three other groups, all looking like retirees. What is really interesting though is that 'unusual bikes' aren't really unusual anymore.

We see at least two or three regular tandems each day (when we did EV15 4 years ago on ours we saw 1 other) so they don't even classify as 'unusual'. Last night there was a combo tandem, with a recumbent seat up front and a regular diamond frame seat in the back for the captain. Just another bike these days! At least it didn't have a battery and electric motor!

As today's title suggests, it was another day of riding canals along perfectly paved paths mixed with extremely quiet rural d-roads that wound through rolling hills and pastures. Very bucolic and very relaxing. The temperature and wind was also perfect, around 20 C with slight tailwinds all day. Bliss.

Not too much to see in the small towns we went through. We are out of the Loire tourist area and into basic rural working France. As such the towns are pretty basic, a few Tabacs, a Church, maybe a patisserie.

The town we stayed in last night was a good example. Although it was nicely maintained, and the campground was good, there was only one restaurant open in the entire place, a Vietnamese buffet. I use the term Vietnamese very grudgingly as it was an insult to what Vn cuisine is like. However, given it was the only place open on a Friday night, it was quite full... and quite awful. There was all-you-can-eat ice cream though so the meal wasn't a total write off. For us, it was another standard hurdle in bike touring. Every trip has it's share of awful road food, even in France.

Tonight in Montceau-les-Mines it was similar ... a French chain restaurant, but the food, and beer was decent. Nothing memorable but we were reasonably satisfied with food ... but not the bill. Excluding wine, we paid about the same for basic road food as we did for an exquisite meal in Angers (Autour d'un Cep ... still thinking about that one!).

Tomorrow we will be riding through one of the most exalted wine regions in the world - the cote d'or of southern Burgandy. Unfortunately we will be riding, and that doesn't mix well with sampling!

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Song of the day :

I'm Not Feeling it Anymore ...by Van Morrison

not about the bike trip, but huge frustration writing this journal and uploading pics on crappy intermittent internet

we are in the northern part of the Charlon district so guess what? These are Charlais cattle

a boat load of Kiwis moving through some locks ... had a chat with them and was surprised to find out it only takes about 5 minutes to move through a set of these

Pretty cool shot, a bikeway and a boatway crossing above a river

More Charlais cattle. There were three calf's lined up looking at me ... nice pic ... until i got my camera ready

more boats moored at Halt Canal. Even with this town name, the canal continued on

Today's ride: 87 km (54 miles)
Total: 903 km (561 miles)

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