It’s a long way to fairyland

Today we have a bold plan. Today we will ride 100km!

It’s been done before, but not on this trip, and it isn’t the greatest way to spend a day, but sometimes you just need to hustle along to get from one place to another. Master navigator for this trip, Neil, who sits up late at night looking at maps and towns and drilling right down to see what restaurants there are in towns (because food is so important) has determined that our best course of action would be to ride straight through to Dole.

Normally we try to stick to around 60km in a day. That’s enough to keep us moving, allows time in the day to dawdle and say, “Oh, look at the lovely castle,” and arrive at the destination in time to chill, have a beer and a look around. 100km is just a bit of a stretch on loaded bikes.

But we set out with 100km in front of us (it’s actually a little less but by the time we mess around, stop for drinks or food and allow for short navigational, “Ooops I missed that turn” challenges it will be that far) with full bellies from a lovely hotel breakfast and positive attitudes that it will be a good day.

(For anyone who is concerned about my health – much better today, thanks.)

The way out of Chalon is a bit weird and unintuitive as I am expecting to be alongside our new river, La Saône, who we visited and paid homage to last night. Instead we go away from the river and through suburbs I would imagine are often not seen by the average tourist.

We are part of a trickle of cycle tourists heading out of Chalon today, and all of us are wearing red shirts!

After what seems a very long time, but which is about 10km – 10% of today’s distance – we finally come alongside La Saône and we ride along her banks for another 20km or so until we cross a bridge over what is the obvious confluence of two waterways. It is Le Doubs meeting with La Saône. Le Doubs is a river we will become familiar with over the coming days as it is the river we will follow much of the way until we hit the Rhine and roll into Switzerland.

I like Le Doubs a lot – much easier to pronounce!

But we are not yet done with La Saône!

We stop for a quick drink in Verdun-sur-les-Doubs where there is a small burst of activity going on. There is a very small band (a drum and a couple of other instruments) and somebody is holding a wreath. The small group marches off before I’ve really had time to take it in.

We sit down with a cold drink and then, as has happened before, Sally and Jeremy – the Kiwis we met way back on day 2 – roll in, with different friends to the ones we met a few days ago. I was sure that they must be well ahead of us (they’re riding e-bikes). We have a catch up on where we’ve been and where we’re going. It looks like we’ll all be arriving in Basel at around the same time. Maybe we’ll get the chance to have a beer with them then?

The little of a parade returns, without wreath, and Jeremy’s friend tells us (he googled it) that June 18, 1940, is the date that General Charles de Gaulle (later to become President) made a radio speech calling for French people to join a movement of French resistance against the occupying forces (Gestapo) and collaborationists within France.

As we ride on today we see other signs of commemoration on this day.

We weave through the countryside, away from Le Doubs and back toward La Saône as we cover the distance toward Dole. At about the halfway point we cross a bridge over the Canal du Rhone au Rhin, one of the important watershed canals of the French waterways, connecting the Rhine to the Saône and the Rhône and thereby the North Sea and the Mediterranean. These waterways are just amazing. Much of this canal has now been closed/abandoned, but this part accompanies us on at least some of our journey today as we weave away from La Saône and (finally!) into Dole.

We’re both pretty tired and hungry when we arrive, but a shower and a very welcome end-of-day beer go some way to fixing that. We have a huge apartment on the second-storey of a faded mansion on the edge of the town which gives us plenty of space to spread out for a two-night stay.

Dole is a wonderful little town. The historic area, mostly car-free is a maze of twisty-turns streets, wonky old buildings and below-ground walkways that lead to a smallish canal/waterway that runs through part of the town.

It’s also a very quiet town on a Sunday night. After 100km we are, as you might imagine, extremely hungry and we start hunting for open restaurants. An Italian place seems a likely option and we walk the very quiet streets to find it. As we approach the very quiet looking front entrance a worker comes out for a smoke an beckons us downstairs. We walk through what could only be described as a restaurant in a cave and we’re ushered out to a table beside a small canal and it feels like we’ve landed in fairyland; it just does not seem real!

What kind of place have we landed in?

A very yummy place! I have the most amazing entrée. I don’t usually love pastry but this is an awesome puff pastry with a mushroom ragout on it. My main is mushroomy as well – a pasta dish with other mushrooms and morels. I’m not sure I’ve ever had morels before, but I want more! Europe sure has some great produce!

Stats for today:

• Distance: 99.2km (I’m calling it 100!)
• Climb: 167m
• Average speed: 17.4km/h
• Average temperature: 26C
• Moving time: 5:42:16
• See our ride on Strava

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at the first bar/restaurant we could find as we stumbled into town after a long day on the bikes. The beer came with a water atomiser that I could use to spray and cool my undoubtedly red face.

Along the way today: