sommer i Danmark

I have fled north only to find Denmark wrapped in the same killer heat wave. Fortunately, being by the sea and a few degrees further north things aren't nearly as bad here. My grandmother is having a bad time of it though, so I hope it cools off soon. I haven't done much here so far, other than talk with my grandmother, catching up on the criminal underbelly of the family.

I spent not a bad day in Paris, I finally found the Latin quarter, and the beaches that they construct along the banks of the Seine during the summer (which I didn't find too appealing what with the extreme heat stroke, crowds and crummy/expensive swimming opportunities). The night in the airport was better than I thought because there were so few other over-nighters, so I had the pick of the spots, a quiet long bench, and I actually slept a fair bit. Its going to be good to sleep in a real bed for once! I haven't since that first rain shower in Champagne.

Beaune

In the end I decided to go for a trip to Beaune, not too far from Dijon. Beaune turned out to be a nice place, full to the brims with wine and, for some unknown reason, Dutch tourists. I stopped at a chateau, and had a beef burgundy, which they claimed was medium, but by Canadian standards as most definetely rare. This afternoon I'm back in Dijon, bumming around, going to sell my bike, might go to a movie, have to book tickets back to Paris. Continuing in my tradition, the flight leaves at 7AM, so I'll probably just sleep at the airport again. Yeah. Looking forward to that.

Hot

The heat has settled in big time. We're getting about 36 degrees during the days, and no lower than 20 at night, so the temperature is slowly building up. Its not even cool in the mornings any more. Then there's all sorts of depressing reports about people dying of "hyperthermia", so all things considered, I'm pretty much at the end of the biking portion of this trip. I'm in Dijon, as I have been since yesterday, after a gruelling trip from Besançon. I stopped for most of the day in a nice country town, spending much time touring the church and visiting the nicely chilled grocery store. Today I again plan on visiting as many churches as possible, the malls, and possibly the movie theatre. I'm not exactly sure what I will do for the next couple of days, it depends on whether the heat gets worse, stays the same or gets better. I might take some day trips from here, or just stay here and enjoy the city, or head back to Paris in preparation for my flight to DK on Wednesday.

Besançon was nice, very nice setting, lots of services, and as the local press was lamenting, not that many tourist.

De retour à l'hexagone

Getting out of Switzerland was a lot harder than getting in. I rode along the lakes to Neutchatel, which was beatiful, thankfully, because it proved murderous getting out of their little Valley. I knew it would be hard, but the switchbacks after switchbacks were utterly exhausting. It probably took me four hours to get over the mountain at the lakeedge, and that was just the first one!!! Fortunately I found a gorgeous alpine meadow at the top, that I stayed in and ate swiss chocolate for a good long time. The cows all had huge cow bells, and the herder was yodelling (sort of), so it was a just reward. I think this mountain was about 1200 m, so I'm very glad I didn't get into any of the really big beasts. The really depressing thing was reading the next day about the guys on the tour who do several LARGER peaks and 200 km in about 5 hours, and are then considered really crummy if they fall a minute behind. I did about two peaks and maybe 40 km that day in about 12 hours. I guess I put it down to their not having to haul around so much baggage. Yeah, that's it.



So back to France, where it is oppressively hot again. It isn't so bad in the countryside where its nice and cool at night, but its too hot for daytime riding. I covered a lot of territory in the morning and late afternoon though, and I'm now in Besançon. I haven't explored much yet, but it looks like a very nice town to ride out the heat wave. Supposedly we're looking at 38 degrees tomorrow. The temperatures they give are always a bit inflated I find, but I get the drift that it will be hot. I'll probably stay for another day to rest up after several days of mountainous biking.

Holy Swiss balls! Its Switzerland!

I am in Beil in northwestern Switzerland. I went from Colmar across the Rhine which has a long bike path, and eventually made it to Basel. It turns out that Switzerland is a paradise for cyclists and campers because it has an excellent network, very well signalled, and they give out free maps and guides to it all, so I decided to stay a while. I have travelled south through the lower foothills of the Alps, but they are still mountains by my standards. Will now head west and back into France after a couple of days ambling through the lower parts of the Alps. Its funny how the language will change from French to German from town to town here. It also makes me realise how good my French is compared to my German. Also swiss food is a lot crummier than French. If they could just combine the Swiss cycle networks and French bakeries and restaurants, THAT would be a nice place to visit.

Colmar and the Fete nationale

Today's break is in ... Colmar!!! This is southern Alsace now, and by the end of today I should be approaching the Swiss border. I'm going to make a quick trip into the mountainous nation just to prove what a masochist I am. I did my first really hard core mountainous biking yesterday, travelling to the top of the local mountain to see the castle of Haut Koenigsburg. HK was rebuilt in the very early 20th century by Kaiser Wilhelm II when this part of the world was still German. The reconstruction is apparently quite accurat to the state of a 17th century castle, except for a fez megalomaniacal touches on the part of Guillaume, as they call him in France. Other than that I spent the day travelling down the wine route stopping in various picturesque villages, full to the brims with Danes. The campground I was at last night could easily have been in Jutland for all the Danes. (other than the surly receptionist) I was also exceptionally tired after waking at 6.00 and then biking up mountains, but unfortunately it was the fete nationale, and there was a long and vigorous fireworks show followed by a concert. o well.

Pictures

Here's a random assortment of the many pics taken while here. No time to explain.











Landscape of Lorraine;

strassin'

Now I'm in Strasbourg, and again I think its the best place I've been. Maybe I just have a very short term memory, or maybe I'm always just so happy to get somewhere that I always think where I am is the best place yet. Strasbourg is awesome. Its a real blend of German and French, with interesting results. Good restaurants. I ate lebanese tonight and it was excellent. SOrt of like Turish delight but better presentation, less rice, and more expensive. Plus it came with a half flask of wine so now I'm pretty much happy regardless. I spent my afternoon in the Jewish quarter zith kids in Yammukahs [sp?] running around. I'm pretty good at biking now, I did Metz-Nancy the other day, rest in Nancy, evening out, day between there and here. Now some rest and relaxation. I'm eating tonnes of bread which is ridiculously cheap and good. Other than that, nutella, cheese spread, and then restaurants between whiles. I was in Sarrebourg, for lunch and siesta the other day, a lot nicer than they said in the tourist guide!!!! Too bad about Zizou!! The French media still talk of nothing else. Speculating about the outrages that Matarazzi must have said. ZZ is going to get the legion of honour on Bastille Day. Looking forward to that, except its supposed to be so hot that there can't be any fireworks. Yeah!!!! Will be heading south through ALsace in the next days.

Ich bin ein Lorrainer... oder ein Lothringer?

I'm in Lorraine, specifically Metz, where german culture begins to show itself a bit, that is trenches, pillboxes, and cemetaries. (sorry) That was Verdun anyway, my last stop on the road. The trenches and craters really are still there, but covered in giant fir trees now. Metz I'm enjoying, its probably the city that has impressed me the most, possibly because I didn't know that it even existed until a few weeks ago, and it turns out to be a beatiful, peaceful, cafe lined city in the best European tradition. The cathedral outdoes any I've ever seen. And the campground is right in town, so convenient.

Maybe I'm enjoying it because of the emotional highs that accompany it. On the way here the inevitable finally happened, and I got a total flat tire. My little pump was inadequate to refilling it enough to locate holes, so I was stuck. Fortunately not TOO far from Metz, but still far enough. I had no choice but to walk the rest of the way. I was pretty annoyed because I had been making good time, but since it was Saturday afternoon everything that would fix a bike would inevitably be closed by the time I got there, and everything closes on Sunday. Then I got sort of lost getting into the city because the signage is a lot worse than any other city I've been to. So by then I was pretty hungry and despirited at the prospect of two days till i could continue. Fortunately I happened upon a workaholic car garage, whose owner used to be a bike mechanic and he fixed everything up!!! Such luck, I can hardly believe it. He even tightened everything up and greased it.

Short of that, the weather has improved a lot, I'm headed south to Nancy and the east to Strasbourg. The French papers should really just be rename the Zinedine Zidane express, since that's all they really cover now. I'm now used to speedo wearing Dutchmen wandering around in the morning, and may take up the habit myself if I'm not careful.

Champagne

As is the tradition with these bike trips, the weather is not cooperating fully. Apparently large portions of France, including this part, are under an orange level 2 heat advisory. That hasn't been a huge problem, it just ,means I need to make sure to be near some shady form of civilization around 11.30. Unfortunately there's now an additional advisory for "orages tempestueuses". That's something I really don't want to deal with, so as the wind picked up and the sky turned black, I was forced to stay in a much more upscale hotel than I really wanted to tonight. What little scraps of the budget were left are now blown away in the wind. On the upside, I get to stay in a relatively nice hotel, rather than a field full of snotty nosed kids.

On the topic of weather, the French paper I've taken to reading has very poetic descriptions of the weather, invoking the wrath of the gods, the zodiac, and putting it in rhyming phrases on occasion.

Anyway, I'm in Epernay, heart of Champagne, and I'd say its the nicest town I've been to so far. Not to disparage the other towns, but Epernay pulls everything together. I've been following the Marne through countless little towns, all competing to get more stars on their "flower rating" which is officially posted at the entry to each and every little collection of stone houses. So far the main difficulty is timing travel stages with arrivals for "siesta" and a good lunch in town, then a long rest, and then travel ending at an appropriate camp site.

France is officially soccer crazy now; it dominates the papers, mostly with ecstatic homages to Zinedine Zidane and the rest of the "old men". I'm going to Reims tomorrow {as long as apollo remains calm] so I may take in the game there. Either that or at some random campground.

I'm pretty exhausted, yesterday I stopped during the day in Chateau-Thierry, and I could barely walk. I just sat and ate a huge bowl of spaghetti, went up the ra,parts and collapsed under a tree next to a donkee. That night I ran into a British couple going to visit Disneyland, and they insisted I have some beers, so the night was a lot better. Now I'm off to take a long bath. May as well get my money's worth.

countryside

Nova Scotia isn't the only place zithout Sundqy shopping. So is rurql frqnce. Here I am finqlly, resting in the heqt of the dqy in Meaux. I have a pretty good rooute planned qfter meeting q fellow cyclist on the trqin. I'm going qlong the Marne into southern Champagne. Last night was crazy. I went to the Chqmps Elysees and I don't think i ever saw so many people.

Bike life

SO, I'm now ready to get off my feet. Fortunately I bought my bike to replace foot pain with knee pain. After a week in Paris I'm ready to set off tomorrow morning. I'm heading northest toward Meaux, and Reims. I spent today getting the bike and other last minute bits and pieces. Actually I spent about an hour at the sporting goods store getting food, pumps, ,maps and the like. Tonight France plays Brazil which should be fun, especially if France wins. Last time they didn't stop honking or singing until well into the night. Unfortunately that wqs Spain, and this is Brazil, a whole new ball game.

The past week in Paris went by far too quickly. Corie and I walked a thousand miles. We had a good time, and sampled all the food of Paris, especially the non-French cuisine somehow. Today after she left I had a bike for the first time, so I drove around enough to determine that I'm glad not to be driving in Paris, and I visited the new musée du quay branly, which was cool but not wildly spectacular.