Day 48: Palinges to Chagny, France: Real bikes

July 6, 2012

The day started (and ended) well. First off, finally playing it smart, we had ordered our baguette the night before. There is no sense thinking you are going to cycle somewhere and find bread, either for morning or noon eating. For morning, there may not be a bakery that is reachable before you collapse, and if you find a place by noon, it will be closed until 14:00 or 14:30.

So not only did the lady at Camping du Lac in Palinges have our baguette and croissants ready to go, but she had made coffee. Ok, here we go, I went and got my thermos (slow learner)! However the lady filled it right up. She explained that she was used to providing coffee for cyclists. I told her my coffee story and got her photo:

The first person in France who understands a Thermos

Neither we nor our biker friends were particularly fast off the mark, so we got to hang out together for a bit in the morning. I had a look at their bikes - mostly BMW of course, but also an Austrian model, and several Hondas. I asked why no Harleys. "Too slow", they said, "Harleys are just for cruising".

Some of our German friends check out a "real bike". They seems to be giving two thumbs up out of four.

Four km down the road from Palinges, at Genelard, we came across this sign:

Wikipedia We have no idea why the sign popped up just there, but Wikipedia does tell us that Cassin helped to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948.

Other sights along the road included Dodie not picking on a big machine,

Dodie picks her fights - gave this one a wide berth.

and this touching (to us) shot of a grandfather and grandson:

Near St. Vallier, across the canal a grandfather and grandson share fishing fun.

Here is a little more of what the road looked like to us today. Our general strategy has been to shun the EuroVelo selected route and take the more direct, more level, regular roads. In this case, such roads follow the Canal du Centre very closely.

Near Montceau les Mines: Pleasant canal, ok road.

Montceau also had some quite jammed up portions

Occasionally the EuroVelo route would decide to cross our selected way, or run concurrently for a while. On one such occasion we got to see our first EV 6 sign in this region. As you see, the EV6 coordinates with the Tour de Bourgognes. We have no idea what La Route du Patrimoine (Heritage Route) is about, but did note that it deviated from the other two from time to time.

A picture frame created by a bridge near Ecuisse

Near Ecuisses we spotted a place called Musee de la Canal, natural since we were following the canal. The main point of interest in this was what appeared to be some accessible toilets. However the gate specified an entrance fee of 3.30 euros. Three men were standing at the gate, and one seemed to be in charge of admissions. "Did we want to come in", he asked. "Hmmm, we replied, 3.30 Euros too rich for us". "You can have it two for 6.60, he quipped". "Or", one of his companions chipped in "you could just look at half, for half price". We declined that too. Stingy Canadians!

"Well", said the first man, "for completely free you can go up the little hill and look at Chateau Perusson". That sounded right to us, and this is what we saw:

Since the grounds were gated and locked and the place in ruins, we really had no idea of what we were looking at. As we came back down the hill, we asked the man what the Chateau was all about. "The whole story is in the museum (3.30 euros)" he crowed. But we fixed him, because the whole story was also on a placard by the canal.

In a nutshell, in 1863 a tile factory was built near the lock, between the canal and the railroad. The company was named Perusson after the founder. The manager's house became a showplace for all of the company's products, with roof, facades, and interior decoration made from it, between 1870 and 1890. The factory stopped production in 1960 and was torn down, but the Chateau remains, even if boarded up.

We carried on down the road, much wiser, still hanging onto our 6.60, but short one toilet.

St Legere had a lot of restaurants (open) and a closed bakery.

Burgundy (Bourgogne)vineyard hills. Despite advice about how beautiful the fields and villages are up there, we are sticking to the canal!

These signs make us crazy. More often than not in 10 feet there will be a sign indicating a bikeway. What are they trying to tell us? We wish they would "use their words"!

Despite the confusing signs, we made our way to Camping Paquier Fane, the municipal camping in Chagny. (You know, even if we do understand what is being said to us here, we still find their town names a bit weird). The Camping has many of the things we treasure - like free WiFi, but lacks a place to plug in the netbook. We are typing this at a table and chair, probably the greatest luxury of them all, so all is well!

Today's ride: 71 km (44 miles)
Total: 1,902 km (1,181 miles)

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