No Noah and No Animals!

Vallon-Pont-D’Arc, L’Ardeche.

Our night was disturbed a little as we heard noises around the van, I got up and opened the door, saw nothing and got back into bed.  We heard noises again and this time I opened the door in my boxer shorts and walked around the van.  Saw nothing again and we blamed the cat we had seen prowling around earlier in the evening.

In the morning I opened the blinds to find.....

It was only when we went outside we noticed two of our hub caps were missing....grrr.  I don’t suppose we can blame the cat for that.  I shouldn’t have made a ‘catist’ presumption, I know they have feelings and I shouldn’t stereotype cat behaviour in a negative way....I apologise unreservedly.  However, I think we may have been picked out for nasty treatment because we are British....maybe I should report it as a ‘hate crime’, I wonder what the French Police would say if we reported it as such?  Go forth and multiply, would probably be the response.

We were so upset that we had to console ourselves with a purchase from the wine cave we visited yesterday.  A couple of boxes of wine, one Rose and one Red from the area of a village called Vernon (we may visit it tomorrow).

Onward to our accommodation for tonight at Vallon-Pont-d’Arc.  We had been told that there were parking spaces for camping cars outside the Tourist Information and found a large area set aside for motorhomes.  It is one that you have to pay for, with barriers BUT the exit barrier was up and we could get in without taking a ticket.  Hey up, we thought, we don’t have to pay to enter or to exit.  We parked up and went to look for the Ark and the animals (2 by 2).  We couldn’t find any animals and neither could we find Noah....what a swizz, we have been enticed here under false pretences.  The town was pretty none discript although it seemed that it was probably a very busy place in high season.

We got on the bikes for a wider look and found......

Aha, that’s the Arc, and what a beauty.  We had contemplated doing a cycle ride tomorrow through the gorge but since it was so nice this afternoon and we were at the start of the ride, we went for it.  We cycled about half way along and did more hill climbing in the first hour than we had done during the whole of the Rhine trip.  It was worth it.....

Noah must have missed these goats.  The ride was a good challenge for our legs.  The road was quiet but I can imagine it is busy in the summer and therefore it might not be such an enjoyable ride.  Probably a perfect day to ride it. 

Then back again to the Arc.

We had expected a dull and rainy day today but it turned out great again, what a good day (never mind the hub caps).

Squashed Tomatoes and Stew!

Sunday.    Coux, L’Ardeche.       Monday & Tuesday.   Vogüé (pronounced Vog..you).

Having been to sleep at Cremieu without having had a look at the town we woke and got on our bikes to have a tour of the medieval town. Having been cycling on the flat for many days. we set off up the first hill we came to to get to the ruined 12th Century Chateau at the top.  Not surprisingly, at 9.30am on a Sunday, it wasn’t open but we did enjoy making the effort of the climb up narrow cobbled streets.

The town was very old and stone built...very different from the Alsace towns...the walls were still in place and there was a very old covered market with an art  market taking place.  I was more impressed by the building and the wooden rafters and tiled roof than I was in the art work on display.  The town had a ruined chateau on each of the three hills surrounding it.  I didn’t drag Janice up the other hills we still had to move on further south.

We started to track the Rhône river southwards (makes a change from the Rhine), we passed Vienne and crossed to Tournon-sur-Rhône for a walk around.  

The Chateau was quite imposing and the river was just as majestic as the Rhine...we wouldn’t have known the difference.  There were plenty of cyclists around, which made me think that maybe we should cycle down this river next year?  It would be a warm climate even in the spring or autumn.

I know our plans change from day to day but we are aiming to spend a few days in L’Ardeche region.  That is to the west of the Rhône and it is a large National Park area of hills, forests, gorges and rivers.  I think it will be stunning and the cycling should be good (hilly) too.  We wildcamped by a football pitch near the town of Coux, near a town called Privas.  It doesn’t sound very rural but it is off the road, down a cul-de-sac track and over a very narrow bridge.  There really is no-one around and the football pitch doesn’t look as if it’s been getting any use this season.  The temperature has got up to 21 degrees, so coming south seems to be ticking the right boxes, although it is still pretty cloudy.  Still, it’s just right to sit out with a bottle of beer.

We enjoyed our teatime meal, till Janice accidentally slid a pot of Greek yoghurt to me and it went a little bit on me and the rest on the van floor (fortunately mainly on the lino floor, not on the fabric).  I am changing my name by deed poll to Zorba!

Monday was Janice’s birthday....so for a treat I took her shopping to Lidl.  We then drove along a very windy steep road and whilst going round the bend the tomatoes we bought at Lidl jumped off the shelf and splattered on the floor...whoops. We arrived at Vogüé, a town of character according to the tourist blurb.  The bridge over the river at Vogüé was closed so it was in fact a cul-de-sac and nice and quiet.  

We found a place to park outside the town and walked in for a celebration ‘menu de jour’ for Janice’s birthday.  It was lovely and it reminded us how good small restaurants are in France at a sensible price (at least the ‘menu de jour’ at lunchtime).  We walked back to the van and took our chairs to the riverside down a little footpath and we sat out in the sun for the rest of the afternoon.  At one point I popped back to the van to get a bottle of Rosè fizz and I think I disturbed a weaselly looking motorbiker who was about to break into the van, although I can’t really be 100% sure.  He was standing next to the van facing the road and I approached him from behind unseen.  He turned towards the van and then saw me...he looked sheepish and then stepped away.  He claimed not to speak English but I told him to “bog off Froggie”, he pretended to make a phone call and drove away on his motorbike.  I must have got back to the van at the right time...thankfully.

It didn’t spoil our lovely afternoon on the banks of L’Ardeche...

We had a simple bread, cheese and tomato supper.  The tomatoes were the ones we squashed on the journey and we sung the alternative words to the Happy Birthday song, although we didn’t have any stew tonight....maybe tomorrow coz we have got some Toulouse Sausages that will be good in a stew.

I have a new scheme whilst writing the blog.  I put earphones in my ears (where else would I put them.......don’t answer that!) and whilst I am not actually listening to anything, Janice thinks I am, so she stays quiet....what a good tactic!

Tuesday .

We went to the Tourist Info to report our incident with the Weasley motorcyclist and it turned out that the husband of a lady in there was a policeman and she took all the details and reported it.  Old habits die hard,  I couldn’t have forgotten about the incident.  We have moved the van to a car park in the village centre, probably a bit safer.

We went on a bike ride down the valley on a lovely new cycle track.  We went to Balazac....very pretty.

...and Roums and Grospierre.  All very pretty places and on the way back we couldn’t resist having a tasting at a wine cave.

As you can tell the weather has been great.  We got back to Vogue (if I stay any longer I might come back into fashion) and sat out by the river again....you’ve got to take advantage of days like this.

Time for a Treat.

Eguisheim, Near Colmar.

You probably thought we had fallen off the the edge of Europe.  We were, of course, having a well earned rest.  Wednesday and Thursday nights were spent at a motorhome site in Freiberg where we met my brother David and his wife Wendy.  They are touring in their motorhome and came across to see us.  It was great to see them both.  David and I are like big children when we get together...

Here we are taking the ‘fresh air’ after one or two drinks!  Just putting the world to rights.....and watering the grass!

We had a great sunny day in Freiberg on Thursday.  It was a public holiday in Germany to celebrate Unification.  We walked into the city, it was pretty quiet with only cafes and restaurants open.  So, we had a leisurely day seeing the lovely buildings of the old town.  David and I took our chance to stuff out faces with Frankfurters in a bun and...more importantly.....a schwartzwaldtorte.  That’s a Black Forest Gateau to you and me and it was probably the best I have every had....good portion too.

The forecast again isn’t too great around here.  We have made a strategic decision to go south to look for warmer weather.  David and Wendy set off for Vichy as a stopping off point but we still wanted to see the Colmar area before we go south.  Colmar is back over the Rhein in France and we have heard of its beauty for many years.   First of all we revisited the Vauban fortified town of Neuf-Brisach where we stopped for lunch one day on the cycle ride.  This time we walked around the walls and the town centre.  It is quite a grand construction now so it certainly would have been when it was first built at the beginning of the 1800’s.

We then took the van to a Vinery at Eguisheim, a village just south of Colmar.  There is space for 4 vans with no price to pay, other than the hope that we would buy some wine.  In the afternoon we cycled to Colmar and were impressed by the pretty old city centre.  It is the home town of a man called Auguste Bartholdi who was the French Sculptor who designed the Statue of Liberty, which was presented to the USA as a gift from France.  We took loads of photos, here’s a small selection.....

We cycled back and had a look around Eguisheim itself.  It is so old and original.  It is in a circular shape so that you can circle the village by walking on the same street.  It is very much a wine growing area and the harvesting and pressing is in full swing.  You can smell the wine as you walk around.  Back at our Vinery we had a tasting....very nice too.  The owner was very busy with the pressing machine but came in to talk to us.  We couldn’t resist buying a few bottles.

We have definitely been treating ourselves with cake and drinks.  It will have to get back to normal though.  It’s funny that our legs are aching from the slow strolling around the towns we have visited.   We much prefer to cycle 50km + instead.

Blogging will continue but not necessarily on a daily basis.

Home Sweet Van.

Bamlach, near Bad Bellingen, Germany.       stripper.sways.applauds. 

Distance.          25km

Total.              1300km.     Nice round number!

Our bikes were still outside the Railway Station in the morning.  We checked them at 7.30am and went into the station to buy tickets. The forecast had changed a little so we caught a French train to Saint Louis (French town next to Basel) and cycled across the Rhin into Germany and up to the caravan site to greet the van.

We had only had one day rest from the cycling so we felt very fresh to ride again.  We chatted about our journey and how much we had enjoyed all its features and we rode casually along the river banks.  We compared it to the final ride into Paris on the Tour de France, no rush and drinking champagne on the way, except we didn’t have any champagne and there was no Arc de Triomphe!

The only proper hill we had seen for about 500km was up to the site.  Quite a tough one too but we enjoyed getting back to the van.

We brought the van out of storage and onto a pitch and started the washing and cleaning of......clothes, van and bikes.  

What a fab time we’ve had.  I’m not sure whether the rest of our trip can match up.....probably not but it doesn’t mean to say we won’t enjoy ourselves in a different way.  I don’t think I am a contender for a replacement for Michael Portillo travelling on trains but I will stick to my cycling.  I am serious about cycling around France for the Rugby World Cup 2023.  We haven’t seen much of the Rugby World Cup so far, neither have we had much Brexit coverage...thankfully. 

The New Michael Portillo

Travelling by train....

I certainly feel like I qualify to take over the reigns from Michael Portillo if the BBC needs someone to take over the Rail Journey Programmes.  Hopefully, I don’t need to wear colourful jackets and trousers, but instead display knobbly knees and cycle jacket.

Our route today involves several changes....The Hague to Eindhoven, to Venlo, to Düsseldorf, to Offenberg and finally to Strasbourg.  We have realised since we booked the tickets that we could have booked from Offenberg, to Freiburg to Bad Bellingen without the need to stay at Strasbourg overnight.

The train did fill up but it never got rammed with people as we had expected on a Monday morning.

This is our 20th Day of Cycle travel.    We have completed the journey significantly faster than I thought we would and we only got soaked once.  We have done 18 days of cycling on the trot and by tomorrow we will have done 1300km.  The weather has been generally kind although the last few days have been a bit showery but typical of what we would expect in Autumn in Northern Europe.

What can I say of the trip as a whole.....

Well, first and foremost, Janice has done fantastically well with the cycling, with the living out of panniers, with a different bed each night, with eating on the hoof and mostly with putting up with me and watching my backside on my bike (perhaps it’s an improvement on my front).  So, I owe a big thank you to her (I mustn’t forget it’s her birthday a week today)!

We have enjoyed the adventure together and probably had our highlights in the southern parts of the Rhine and Lake Constance.  Landau and Meersburg are totally stunning, Konstanz is a lovely large city. 

 Bad Säckingen was the surprise small town favourite with its wooden bridge over the Rhine.

Strasbourg was our favourite large city and it was even more memorable because of the visit to the EU Parliament in session.  The Petite France section of the city is beautiful too.

The Rhine Gorge section is possibly the best natural landscape of the route and Rüdesheim was very pretty as were some of the other small towns nearby.  After that stop we cycled to Koblenz and thought that it was the perfect place to tour the whole area of the gorge and the Rhine and Mosel Rivers....

.....and Deutches Eck is a dramatic and grand structure.

We were a little disappointed with Köln other than the Cathedral, maybe it was a bit big and too much of a bustling city for us.  I must remind you that we only really get a small snapshot of the places we visit and we will have missed so much.  We only had one hotel stay that was dodgy...the one at Erstein, room 21....don’t take it!

There were places that we would either like to go back to or wish we had extra time.  Those included Wörms, Utrecht and The Hague but really Lake Constance is hard to beat.

We have arrived at Strasbourg.  The train journey has taken 12 hours to get this far.  We had to run at Eindhoven to get the Venlo train.  The longest section was from Dusseldorf to Offenberg, about 7 hours on a train.  It was a wide and comfortable train and we had our bikes booked on it....

I think we have done a mini tour of southern Germany.  We’ve been through Köln, Koblenz, Mainz, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Offenberg.  I think we could have done a quicker train but had to come on this one for the cycle availability.  We could do with cycle capacity like this in the UK but maybe we still need more people capacity too!

We got to our hotel opposite Strasbourg Railway Station.  It is a small but nice place but it has nowhere for bikes and the people hanging around the railway station area doesn’t make me feel it is very safe.  We spent about 45 minutes moving the bikes from place to place to find a safe parking place, we were even prepared to pay..  We have eventually left them outside the main entrance to the station which is fairly busy and well lit.  We have fingers crossed that they will be still there in the morning.

‘Mit Slagroom’

The Hague.            cape.fool.tornado

Distance.       5km

Total.            1275km

I know that 5km doesn’t count as a cycling day.  We were definitely dodging the showers......and we were successful.  We got up and headed for the Utrecht train station.  All went smoothly and we arrived in The Hague mid morning.  We headed straight for the Hotel which was in the centre and were pleased that they agreed we could store the bikes and put the panniers into the luggage store.

One of the key reasons we wanted to come was so that Janice could see the ‘Girl with the Pearl Earing’ painting by Vermeer.  It is in the Mauritshuis Museum.

The museum was a gorgeous building and contained all the Dutch Masters, including Reubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Holbein and Steen.  

We had a very good look around and had lunch in the cafe.  We had an Apfel Tart, ‘mit Slagroom’, which means with whipped cream.

We only saw a small part of The Hague but we were impressed by the range of grand traditional and modern buildings.  We walked through the Dutch Parliament buildings, The Binnenhof.

The city is also the home to the UN Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice.  I think that the Court Cases take far too long and the Courts should be moved to a place like Burnley in Lancashire, it would solve the local economy depression and, more importantly, it would be able to decide cases and dish out sentences speedily.  A few chosen thumpings could sort out most of the worlds problems!

Our cycling trip has come to an end, rather a damp end but it has been a great experience.  I will do a little review of the trip tomorrow.  We had a lovely meal out (it makes a change from having a salad in a plastic bowl) and prepared for our multiple train journeys to get to Strasbourg.  We will stay overnight at Strasbourg and still thinking about our options to returning to the motorhome at Bad Bellingen on Tuesday.  We will have to ‘clog’ it down south again.....

We have had the pleasure of watching Strictly Come Dancing Results on BBC One.  It seems the Dutch can get a bit of British TV,  no wonder they speak English so well. It hasn’t been available in Germany or France or Switzerland, so we never turned on any of the TV’s in the rooms we’ve stayed in.  I’m currently watching Antiques Roadshow.....now we are getting rather old, ‘Antiques Roadshow’ might be a good name for our next epic bike ride!!

I’m a wrong ‘un!

Utrecht, Holland.            never.helps.basher

Distance.            64km

Total.                1270km

Today was our last full day of cycling.  We got up nice and early to tackle a fantastic breakfast and get on our way to beat the rain that was forecast later in the day.

Janice found a new form of travel for our next trip, I’m not sure the plant will be any good on the journey.   We also saw a large book that caught our eye....

The answer to the question is..........standing behind the book!  I hope Janice is still talking to me.....probably not after the next photo.....

Just to get her own back, here’s the next photo of the route.

I can’t argue with that and I agree with the sign with my age on it!

We wanted to get to Utrecht early and managed to do the 60km by 11.30am and a well earned coffee.  We were shocked that the ‘coffee shop’ didn’t offer any leaf based confectionery!  The city of Utrecht has been called the best canal city of Europe....I don’t know whether Venice and Birmingham agrees with that comment.  It is however rather better than Birmingham and perhaps slightly less than Venice in the ratings.  Sadly the Dom and the famous Dom Tower were covered in scaffolding and not even worth a photo.   The shops and the narrow streets around the canals were nice and bustling on a Saturday afternoon as we dodged the showers. 

We stayed in an apartment just on the fringe of the city.  We had visited the train station to try to plan our return train journey to Basel on Monday......not as easy as you think!  We have arranged a trip to Strasbourg with 5 changes....it’s complicated because of the need for bike tickets as well as person tickets.  It will fill our day for sure.