August 29, 2017
Bescancon: We meet some other KIwis
The man at the hotel last night was really great. He had sent us a message giving us a code to get into the hotel, left us the key to our room and wifi code. He had had a terrible day, his ‘cooker’ had fallen down some stairs in the morning and was in hospital so he had to close the restaurant for the evening but he had arranged for someone to produce a meal for us for us and very nice it was, salad, trout with almonds and a frozen desert. Today as we left he said things were better and the “cooker’ was out of hospital
It is interest riding along the Soane, it is a canalised river which means that part of the time the boats are traveling in the river then they go into a lock to avoid a weir and there is canal for a while. Not that there are many boats moving usually we see only a handful a day. We were surprised last year how few boats there were but this year there are even fewer. I do hope the canals survive. They are such a wonderful resource, the cycle tracks are continually being improved and certainly we are seeing lots of cyclists both touring and day trippers. Perhaps it will be that the cyclists and the walkers will save the canals.
We are now in the Jura and the river was going through country that was steep on both sides, at one point we were in a gorge which just had enough room for us, the railway and the road. We were in a coffee desert, there were some small villages off to the side. We struggled up the hill to one but all there was were new houses, an old church but no services. Pushing on we were stopped by two cyclists going the other way who had seen out shirts. Viv and George are from Christchurch and had started in Budapest and were doing the EV6. They were much younger that us and certainly much much tougher doing about 100km a day and camping.
Besancon when we reached it is a lovely town with spacious pedestrian areas. It is built in a horseshoe bend of the Doub and It is reached on bike via a canal tunnel which is exciting. Above the town is the Citadel a Vauban construction built in the 17th century. It has a museum and somewhat surprisingly a zoo. We didn't walk up there! We were somewhat confused on arrival but found the Tourist Information and hence the directions to our hotel. After our non stop ride it was relaxing to stop in the square for something to eat and to watch the world go by. Then to our comfortable air conditioned hotel to lie on the bed and watch BBC TV
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Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 1,294 km (804 miles)
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