Between the Saone and the Doube at Suerre: We completely escape the orage

August 26, 2011

We struck the jackpot last night, the restaurant was open and what is more it was nearly full and lots of them locals. I had an delicious meal of Warm goats cheese salad and Beef Bourginon (?sp). Ken had a pizza that he gave the thumbs up to and we had a pichet of pinot noir. The whole meal was really reasonably priced - 27Euros for the two of us.

This morning the weather looked fine and sunny and the first around 15km of our trip was on a Voie vert beside the Canal du Centre again. At this early hour the pecheurs were already well set up. We have seen hundreds of them (maybe more than a thousand). With only one exception they have all been male and as it is still school holidays there are a lot of small boys ( apprentices) with what look like their fathers or grandfathers. The set ups are really usually quite elaborate with each fisherman having up to six rods. The rods are secured and they relax back in chairs well supplied with food and drink. Yesterday when it was raining there were large umbrellas to protect them from the elements. And yes they do catch a few small fish to keep them interested. These poor unhappy fish swim round and round in buckets of canal water looking for a way to escape. Now I know why it is important that the French retire early, they need to fish and keep their beautiful immaculate gardens perfect. What a wonderful facility these canals are with the fishermen, the dog walkers, the runners, the training cyclists and of course the cycle tourers like us and that is before you think of those in the canal boats.

Chalon sur Saone where the track led us is in our view a big city and naturally we had our usual 'city' problems. Our map was woefully inadequate but we followed the sketchy signs into the Centre Ville where there was a Tourist information but when we got there it had been moved. There was however a wonderful café and we had extremely good coffee (2.55Euros but worth it) and pain au chocolate. All this with a very amusing and pleasant conversation with some ardent rugby supporters who had spotted Kens cycle shirt - we immediately become Les All Blacks. Perhaps it is best we are visiting France before World Cup ? They gave us lots of very fast conflicting advice on how to make progress but we resorted to the GPS and for once it came up trumps and before long we were speeding along through the rich agriculture of the Burgandy region between the Saone and the Doube. We reached Suerre which had been todays target, it started to rain, thunder etc so we checked into a hotel, had a shower and went to bed to eat chocolate. I texted our friends Rosemary and John who are on their barge, Petronella, at St-Jean-de-Losne only about 35km away. We will reach them easily before lunch time tomorrow and are really looking forward to seeing them.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,101 km (684 miles)

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