September 25, 2015
Day 66: Dole to Seurre
Our room in Dole was basic, but good. We still see the high standard of bathroom fixtures that is common in Germany, but the building materials, overall size, and sturdiness of French hotels is nothing like what you see on the other side of the Rhine. The photo from our window is similarly not so exciting:
What was exciting, in its quiet way, was our return to the Rhone-Rhine canal and its paved tow path. We have been having a run of good weather, and the water was again serene, the temperature good for cycling, and the wind nil. To enhance our feeling that all was well with the world, there was again a goodly number of French fishermen, just sitting by the canal with their special long rods, catching nothing. These fishermen must be the local equivalent of Buddhist monks, for they sit quietly for hours uncomplainingly.
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A few boats were also in evidence. Mostly these are from the rental company Le Boat, and the occupants are touring France's extensive canal system. They all wave to us, for we must seem as unique to them as they are to us. In this stretch of the canal there are no locks, but with the good cycling conditions we are easily able to outrun the boat tourists, a source of some pride!
There have been a few changes in the Euovelo 6 route since our maps were printed or gpx track made. The changes are well signed, and in one section, near Damparis, even sport fancy new yellow, green, and blue colours.
Damparis, actually, was not formerly on the route, which swung south instead, by Tavaux. Maybe Damparis applied a little arm twisting to change the route. If so, it paid off, because the Grampies appeared at their bakery just in time for second breakfast! Following the tradition established the other day, I was initially intent on an eclair. But the bakery, through a variety of signs, had declared this to be Millefeuille Month!
Now a millefeuille is a sandwich like affair with flaky but firm rectangles filled with some sort of lemon cream filling. The top rectangle has a white icing crust and usually a drizzle of chocolate. That's not a great description, but seems to be the best I can dream up. But, now that it is millefeuille month, we also have the offer of raspberry, nut, apricot, and caramel varieties! So I went for raspberry, and Dodie took nut. The bakery lady took a look at my beard and also supplied napkins. That is a good thing, because for anyone, when you bite a millefeuille the firm rectangles squish out the filling over your face!
From Damparis we passed on a low traffic road through a very pleasant forest. There were a few trees with leaves turning yellow, reminding us that Fall must be ramping up back in Montreal. Our return to the canal then produced some pleasant scenes of boats moored in calm waters. So to repeat, pleasant was the watchword for the morning.
The canal empties into the Saone River, as does the Doubs. So when we passed the point where the canal ends, the Saone was really quite broad. This made it too no less calm and pleasant, and the path continued good.
Under these conditions it was no time until we drew up to Losnes, on our side of the river, with a bridge over to St Jean de Losnes. It was here that we had arranged to meet Keith Klein. Keith is an avid cyclist that lives 30 km north in Dijon. He has nine journals here on Crazyguy. Keith had met our friend Michel Fleurance (from St Luce -near Nantes) at a Semaine Federale, which is a massive annual cycling convention with rides held in a different town each year. Michel alerted Keith that we would be passing through his territory, so Keith arranged to meet up with us. So it goes in the cycling community, and we are slowly building up a set of treasured friends in Europe this way.
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We got together with Keith at a restaurant/hotel just by the bridge, and just in time for lunch. Starting with reading "A Year in Provence" years ago, we were aware of the French fixed menu lunch option, and how good it can be. On our travels we had of course seen these on offer in various places, but strangely did not have a lot of experience with it. According to Keith the practice began with an obligation of employers to provide lunch to workers. They could do this by having a cafeteria, or they could arrange with a local restaurant to provide a fixed price offering.
I somehow failed to record the actual text of the menu, but I can report that the first thing that came to me was a leek quiche and a green salad. It was extremely good, and I assumed that this was the meal. But Dodie and Keith put me straight, and the next to arrive was a kind of turkey stew, with ratatouille, and rice. Each component was excellent. My dessert choice was tiramisu. Here the waiter threw me by warning that the tiramisu was fruit based. That is something I have never heard of before, and Keith had to explain what the man was saying.
The tiramisu turned out to be excellent as well, although what it had in common with standard tiramisu was maybe only layers of creamy cheese and chocolate powder on top. The fruit part was raspberry. It was an innovative interpretation, and together with my "American" coffee I was very happy.
We were also very happy to be able to chat with Keith, who moved from the US to here with his also American wife fourteen years ago. Needless to say our talk covered many aspects of cycling and touring, life and living in France, where we and he had cycled and plan to cycle, and so forth. Slowly we learned of Keith's many accomplishments, including having taught advanced topics in Biology in both France and Germany (in both French and German), having done bike racing, and having been a tour leader. We found all this very absorbing, and hopefully Keith also enjoyed some of our stories.
So we sat there for quite a while. Most of the other clients left, but the waitress brought no bill and left us completely alone. Keith pointed out that by custom we would have to ask to pay. The staff would not think of rushing us. when we did pay, I used the famous HSBC card for our part, and was of course very interested to see if it would work without problem. Dodie explained to the cashier why I was concerned, and a discussion ensued about the whole matter. I was impressed that the cashier would take the time to think about the topic, but I also noticed that our young waiter was avidly absorbing the conversation. In general I felt very at home - in a small town kind of way. On the other hand, the interest could also have been due to our novelty factor - three old people, two dressed in fluorescent yellow, one in lycra, all with foreign accents.
You also can be the judge, for here are the images of these old timers:
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We said goodbye to Keith, happy to have met yet another great cyclist friend in Europe. We had planned it to be just a moderate jaunt to Seurre, and we arrived in the town before five. Five is the time we had given to the man at the Hotel Negociant. We made our way through the town toward the hotel, following the GPS. The town falls into my category of crumbly, grey/white, small French town, though its description is much more flowery in the cycling guide book for this section of EV6 that Keith kindly gave us.
The hotel is on the main street, which has about two blocks of small shops. I am glad to report that this includes three bakeries! The door to the hotel was locked, but the man soon came along. Quite unlike what happened in Basel, he invited us to lead the bikes into a dining room, and leave them there. Then he said he had to leave, gave us a key to the room and front door, and left us - basically in charge of the hotel!
Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 3,088 km (1,918 miles)
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