Day 49: Chagny to Verdun sur le Doubs, France: Green or Blue, our way is beautiful (except for Chalons - sort of) - Grampies on the Go - Again! Summer 2012 - CycleBlaze
Day 49: Chagny to Verdun sur le Doubs, France: Green or Blue, our way is beautiful (except for Chalons - sort of)
We rolled out of the campsite and into downtown Chagny. Since Camping is often just on the outskirts of a town, it is possible to come from the countryside into a campsite and not realize how close "civilization" is.
As we head out on the road, we again see a mixture of farm fields and the scenes of the serene canal. We especially see fields of almost ripe mustard, which no doubt will be turned into Dijon mustard, for which the region is famous.
Barry Duff's yellow mustard has turned to seed and seems ready to harvest.
The idyllic field and canal pedal came to a crashing halt as the EV6 dumped us unceremoniously onto streets at the edge of Chalon. We puzzled for a bit, talked to a lady with a nice white Samoyed, and had sort of formed a plan when around the corner came another touring cyclist. This was Jo Aumont, who had left his house south of Nantes sixteen days ago, and was headed for Basel and later Donaueschingen. We immediately joined forces to puzzle out the way through Chalon. Since Jo is French, he of course had the ability to engage passers by in extended discussions about how to go. Still it was not easy, and we found ourselves touring quite a few urban streets (some twice!).
We did of course make it downtown, and popped in to the Tourist Information long enough to be misinformed that the EV6 maps are only available as a set (and a twice the printed on them price).
The museum had sections about the invention and development of photography, plus some expositions by several photographers. Unfortunately, as usual, we did not really have time to absorb much. There were also scads of books in the boutique that looked like they could be not only interesting but hard to find anywhere else.
There is a concentration of campsites shown on our maps around Verdun, but the first ones we came to (including The intriguing Pirate Camping) did not seem up to standard. We settled at the true Verdun Camoing Municipal, which is called Camping La Plage. It is next to a pool and has a beach on the river. The main thing though, is a tent shelter with power and wifi (3 Euros for the year!) and a table and chair. TABLE AND CHAIR!!
There was also a poster advertising a garage sale and an antique tractor show. We know that antique tractors are a favourite of Ken Graham, of "A River Route through Europe searching for a good cup of coffee" fame on Crazyguy.
Verdun features both the Saone and the Doubs rivers. We entered the area from the top of the photo and stuck at the Camping. We will not see the actual town until we leave in the morning.
