DIJON TO FREIBURG - AUG 20-23

After a shaky start to the week (see previous blog), we left Bordeaux on a long, hot, and very crowded train ride to Dijon. France was in the midst of a summer heat wave and we arrived in the city to 40 degree heat. We went straight to the first air conditioned hotel we could find and pretty much laid low that evening (we had hoped it would cool off but it never did so after a brief, very brief, jaunt in town, we decided to hide out in our room).

The next morning we set out very early once again to make our way to Besancon, heading there largely because it was a large enough town to have hotels with air conditioning while the other direction did not! Seriously, we made our decision based on a/c (it was that hot). The bike route was lovely and it rejuvenated our cycling-spirit about meandering through the countryside and taking our time to absorb the sites around us. Lovely rolling hills, forested areas (shade) and very little traffic. We planned out a route that was about 10km too long given that the heat of the day struck at 1pm and it was a killer (another 40 degree day). We limped our way in to the city and headed straight for our air conditioned hotel (do you recognize a theme here?!)...

Besancon itself is a beautiful old city with a citadel sitting high atop it. We ended up staying there for a second night because of some very heavy rainfall, which gave us a chance to check out our newest favorite designer store (Desigual) - Alice now has a skirt and dress, and Peter a shirt from this super hip store. The next day we headed to the Vosges Massif on a 110km ride that brought us to Luxeuil les Bains. Yes, another theme of our trip seems to have been "les Bains" - those super relaxing thermal pools. They did not disappoint and we were truly jello (again) afterward. We took in another animated film en francais - this time Tim Burton's Number 9 which was very compelling.

Some random pictures from Besancon - a lovely city nestled in between the Jura and Vosges mountain ranges:

the citadel

Interesting architecture and decor

The next day was a "climbing day" through the Vosges foothills and our morning consisted of 500m up and 500m down - awesome. Definitely some of our favorite terrain. But stopping for lunch in Remiremont revealed Peter's wonky back wheel with two broken spokes and some strange noises. Essentially this ended our Vosges adventure (sadly) as on Sundays and Mondays shops (e.g. bike repair shops) are closed in France and we were not wanting to hang around waiting for someone to open (with the potential of not even having the right wheel replacement). So we hopped on the train (love this public transport system!) and made our way back to Freiburg (some 150km away), ending the western portion of our European bike trip!

Sights from the road...

One interesting person we briefly met was another cyclist. We approached after seeing his bicycle outside a tourist information centre in Besancon, mostly because there was an ironing board and iron on his pannier. Apparently there is a website that is sponsoring his trip. The website - www.extremeironing.com. Cool!

All in all we have to grade this "technically" and "meteorologically" an F (given the day of rain in Besancon, 40 degree heat, and mechanical difficulties). But the terrain and gorgeous views (and proximity to Freiburg) means that we will be back and we will grade this section at that time!

Looking forward to smoother days ahead!

Love Peter & Alice