French Leave - 14th September 2013
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| Good Morning ride down the Old Rhine Canal |
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| Into the Forest - and out of the wind |
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| Crossing the border - walking bridge at Huningue over the Rhine |
Another good breakfast, another shower of rain and a return to the Old Rhine Canal. Got a bit adventurous after a while and turned off to take a look at some local villages. Am afraid I went a bit around the houses in the flat farming country. Found my way back on track near Volgelsheim. The place names around here do not exactly trip off the tongue. A fierce headwind from the south made cycling very difficult so had to get my head down. I needed my Patisserie stop! A diversion through a massive forest added distance but gave respite from the wind for a while. My downloaded Eurovelo 5 course headed for Mulhouse but I did not need to go there. I headed off to Basel. I think I was paying the penalty for not researching this area sufficiently. I could see the big Rhine Canal through the trees but it had no cycle path. Anyway, I carried on down the road until I reached an old canal in an area known as the Petite Camargue Alsacienne.
I stopped for a coffee at a Lock-keepers cottage that has been converted into an Information and Learning Centre. The Lady running it was quite chatty and told me there were about 150 different bird types in the reserve. Enjoyed my visit and my coffee and took to the towpath again. I left the canal to get to Huningue where another multi-frontier experience awaited. A walk over the pedestrian bridge and I was in Germany. A right turn and I passed a Customs queue to enter Switzerland. I had to bike over a bridge with embedded Tram Tracks as the cycle path was closed. My careful and deliberate progress was not appreciated by a following driver and he gave me some verbal abuse. Fortunately it was wasted on me but pretty sure he was not saying "welcome to Switzerland". Eurovelo 6, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea follows a similar route to my planned route towards Bodensee so I used their signposts. I had made up my own route from Basle to Laufenberg using Google Maps. It was good in parts but a bit too direct. I probably should have allowed for an extra night stop and followed the Rhine on the German side. Mind you, nowhere looks at its best in the rain! After Basle I was in Switzerland for a short distance before crossing a border back into Germany where I stayed until Rheinfelden.
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| Basel and the Rhine |
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| Basel from the North Bank |
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| Rheinfelden, Switzerland in the rain |
At Rheinfelden I crossed the River into Switzerland. Very smart and pretty place with old buildings. I walked up the cobbled street to the top of the town but then had to take refuge in a Bus Shelter until the rain abated. Not the last time I would find myself hiding from rain in a Bushaltestelle on this trip. Eventually the rainfall slowed and I carried on towards Laufenburg. There was quite a bit of industry on the Swiss side, a number of power stations. Had real problems finding a Hotel in Laufenburg, they were all closed in Switzerland. Bit concerned until someone pointed out I could cross the Rhine into Germany and find somewhere. Big relief when I crossed over and booked myself in to a really nice traditional bike friendly Hotel. It was raining, getting dark and I was starting to tire. Found a very nice German Restaurant up the road and round the corner. The Alte Post was excellent and I had a very good Dinner, a Schnitzel of course, and a couple of beers to round off the day. One of the waitresses had a bit of a disaster. She was putting a glass on a glass shelf behind the bar and the shelf broke, or collapsed. All the glasses plus those on the shelves below crashed to the floor! What a racket!
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| The Rhine from my Hotel |
Very disappointed with Laufenburg, Switzerland. Lovely architecture but seemed to be full of foreigners and not what I expected at all. Very happy on the German side of the Rhine. A big day of cycling from a small town in Alsace to a small German village near the Black Forest. Not sure I chose the best route but hey-ho.
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