Topographically speaking, today was a bit of a break and we took advantage. While not quite bats out of hell leaving the department of Côte d'Or [21] we made good time to Châlons-sur-Saône, [Saône-et-Loire,71] past the truck plant, then following the road-side cycle path, through the town, almost down to the river. Picking the right route on the other side of the Saône was a bit tricky but once we found our way, we were off again at better than average. We even had a short period of cloud cover and following the river, picked up lunch supplies at Cuisery and stopped to eat after 80km. at Pont-de-Vaux in yet another department, Ain[01].

We sat on a stone wall at a corner of the town square, idly watching trucks from all over France negotiate the tight bend and narrow street nearby. Looking at the map now it's still not obvious why Pont-de-Vaux, served only by yellow departmental roads should see so much heavy goods traffic. Truck drivers avoiding motorway tolls perhaps. Fortunately this procession was in an east-west direction, our south-easterly route was quiet. We were now moving away from the Saône, along the now slightly hillier D26. The afternoon was warmer now as the sun began to disperse the cloud and we were soon out of drinking water. There were no shops or bars open in the small villages we were passing through. I spotted a house with an outside tap and stopped to knock on the door. There was no-one at home so we filled our bottles from the tap. We continued into the tangle of white roads which picturesquely criss-cross the Bresse region. The farming country we were in was neat and evidently prosperous. However, signposts were occasionally absent and often confusing. We stopped in the village of St. Martin-le-Châtel for fruit and water and stretched our limbs. Two or three kilometres further on we found ourselves on the busy D975, another red road. We turned off as soon as we could, only to struggle to extricate ourselves from newly built suburbs of Bourg-en-Bresse. In the town at last, we followed the road sign for the Tourist Office, which took us round in an almost full circle. Chris found us a characterful old hotel on the edge of the town centre, which we were obliged to enter, because of the bikes, by a large, locked wrought iron gate at the rear of the premises.

We ate an undistinguished dinner in a restaurant close to the hotel. I had chicken and that's all I'm saying. Afterwards a stroll through the town centre and beer in a brasserie saw us of to bed. Tomorrow we encounter the first mountains.

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