The Danube at last

April 16, 2007

Back in the Loire valley, I asked for directions to a camp site. A man mending the loos in a place that wouldn't open until the following afternoon said there were two further sites along the valley. One was very simple but, while the other was better, "C'est que pour les Anglais!"

There were indeed Anglais everywhere, each of them living evidence of a lifetime of clouded skies and the sort of diet you need for walking damp pavements. When I came to pay the cheery young Kiwi receptionist doing a year's stint in "Yairp", one of the Brits came over, pointed at my laden bike and said, "You going far?"

"The Black Sea and maybe Istanbul," I answered.

And without a flicker of hesitation, he said, "For charity, is it?"

I've grown used to this question, If you tell a Frenchman you're riding to Istanbul, he may say "Oufff!" or he may say "Mon dieu!" or he may say "What a fabulous holiday." What he won't ever ask is if you're doing it for charity. Brits nearly always do. I said politely that I was just having a good holiday. I didn't need a reason or a Cause, any more than he sought sponsors for his caravan tour of the Loire. But if I had been doing it for charity, paid in enjoyment, I'd have raised a fortune.

As planned, I rode the Doubs valley, only to find at the top that there was no way other than a busy highway. At the tourist office I was heartened to find that Eurovélo 6 was the subject of an exhibition. But of things to come, not of routes right now, It was either 60km of busy highway or a mountainous cross-country epic to another valley, I chose the mountaineering.

Well, as planned, I met Steph near Mulhouse, pedalling towards me on a canal towpath which showed the Eurovélo 6 signs for the first time. Since then we have crossed in and out of Switzerland and Germany more than a dozen times. I'll tell you more about that later but for now I'll tell you that today we rode round the tips of the Bodensee, or Lac Constance, and said goodbye to the Rhine. Today we rode an 860m pass that is the watershed of the Rhine and the Danube and this afternoon we saw for the first time the river that will be our guide right through Germany, Austria and Hungary and out the other side.

The Eurovélo 6 has finally become a signposted reality of quiet paths, beautifully surfaced minor roads, riverside trails and hauntingly beautiful countryside. Things are good.

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