van der merwes blog site

Today we were treated to a relaxing day exploring Bern with Esther. We had a relaxing late start and breakfast and then walked into the city from Esther’s flat. This is the view as you cross the bridge into the city.

We had a look at the Saturday morning markets and the Parliament buildings. Then we climbed to the top of the Bern Minster (Cathedral) tower for a magic panoramic view of the city.

         

 

      

Bern has a beautiful location, with the bright green-blue river Aare snaking around it. It is ringed by mountains, including some snow covered Alps in the distance. We could see people playing Saturday morning football, and a number of groups on rubber rafts, going down the river.

There is some quirky art in the city. This modern sculpture.

And this “child eater” fountain from the 16th century.

 

           

Next we went to the Bern “home mountain” – Gurten. This involved first catching a tram, and then a cable car. There is a park, with a fun children’s playground, miniature railway and lots of families having picnics on top of the mountain.

    

We walked around and enjoyed the view. We also climbed to the top of an observation tower to enjoy views of the entire surrounding countryside. We could see the Alps 30km away and look far in each direction and it felt like we were observing a fantasy world.

      

That evening Esther treated us to a meal in the city centre, at one of many restaurants with outdoor seating. We enjoyed a beautiful French meal, with wine, while watching the world go by.

Today Esther joined us for our ride out to Lake Neuchatel. We left Bern around 9.30am after another excellent breakfast prepared by Esther. It was great having a local guide to take us out of town and onto the cycle route 9. The route went mostly through farmland and we admired the steep pitched roofs of the farmhouses typical of the area. The wheat fields are getting ripe and are now a yellow colour. There was also corn, and lots of vegetables near the lake. Esther explained that the small village of Rosshausen means “horse house” – however there were no horses in sight.

      

The first village of notable size was Laupen – after a good little downhill run. We stopped for water from the central village fountain. Most of the village fountains in Switzerland have water that is good enough to drink.

27km into our ride we stopped to celebrate our 3000’th kilometre of the trip so far.

We had another fantastic downhill run and huge view coming into Murten, complete with lake and castle.

         

We passed along the east side of the Murtensee and then a little way along a highway. Esther suggested a left turn, which took us onto quieter roads and across a little bridge over a river. There were many people out on the river on boats. We rode alongside this river for a while, on the flats between the two lakes.

The Marin-Epagnier campground where we stayed is only about six kilometres from the Neuchatel town. We stopped to check it out and decided that we would stay there for the night, so we set the tent up.

There was a beach on the lake by the campground, full of families and children paddling in the shallow water. It was very beautiful – the lake is large and surrounded by mountains in the far distance. The water is very clear. Neuchatel is the largest Swiss lake that is entirely surrounded by Switzerland (The Bodensee is much bigger, but is partly in Germany).

We ate some nectarines and also had a paddle in the lake, the water was warm and refreshing. Then we cycled into Neuchatel to find the station, as Esther had to return to Bern by train. We did some shopping at a small supermarket near the station. Most shops are closed on Sunday’s in Switzerland, except some near petrol stations or train stations. There was a nice looking cafe nearby, with outdoor seating so we had some beers and a rice dish.

After seeing Esther off, Kris and I returned to the camp-ground to do our washing. We had our late on a bench by the lake, complete with some red wine.

Today we did a big ascent over the mountains to get back into France, after much debate about which route we should take. But first breakfast at the lake….

Here is the route in detail as described by navigator Kris:

We cycled from Neuenburg / Neuchatel and started the ascent on Montagne du Droit using the existing road infrastructure with the intention to join the velo route at Boudevilliers. It was a steady steep climb with the cycling road markings on the side of the road appearing and disappearing. From time to time we had good views of the Alps.

Valangin is a cute village with a castle and the cycling infrastructure improved from there on.

At Boudevilliers we followed the main road and the cycling arrows, and we soon found ourselves en route to Cernier. I assumed that I was still on the main velo ascent route. It gradually became clear that the velo route numbers can change course and sometimes even circle back. Anyway it seemed like a good route as it was taking us to the north of Chaux-de-Fonds.

The route had beautiful views over the valley of St Limier with the Alps as a backdrop. Unfortunately we were losing height at times and I suspected the velo route may take us to the Bieler See. So we took an ascent route around St-Martin. It was a quiet road with long up-hills, shaded by a tall pine forest.

           

When we reached the top we had a bit of downhill and it became clear we will be negotiating a number of ridges. The countryside was beautiful with crisp clear colours and farming infrastructures clearly adopted for mountainous terrain. We saw a number of old farm walls built from rock.

We also saw saw two foxes along the way. From here onwards, interaction with locals was with few French words and hand waving.

At this stage we were cycling along roads that were not on my tourist map. We went down a ridge and began our ascent on the next ridge through a narrow road carved through mountain rock. After we reached the top of the hill, it became clear that we were opposite Renan (Renan was on the tourist map). Renan was at the bottom of the main plateau, along the French border and we were separated from it by a valley. We started making our way down the valley and there were lots of interesting small roads that included a big bear statue and cattle crossings. The roads to Renan was getting worse, so we went sideways to Sonvillier. From here we had a gentle ascent to St-Imier where we bought pastry from the local supermarket bakery to keep our energy up. We thought we had a short ascent to the plateau from here. We followed the main road up the mountain that was sign-posted to Saignelegier.

This turned into a long and boring ascent with road traffic that eventually delivered us between Le Breuleux and Tramelan (we peaked at 1227 meters above sea level).

From here we went up and down hills until we landed in Saignelegier. We started the descent to the French border with a refreshing 6km downhill run. From time to time we had beautiful glimpses of the border town Goumois at the bottom of the valley.

French border at Goumois:

View from climb on the other side:

From the sleepy village we began our trip to find the usual reasonably-priced French accommodation. After a 7km uphill ride we found accommodation in a Gite in Fessevillers at around 4pm. It was amazingly cheap (cheaper than camping) and we stayed. We would have rode on if our legs were still willing, as it had no Wifi or access to wine or beer. The accommodation turned out to be very peaceful and spacious.

So the lack of proper maps and improvisation made the route interesting. We did 76km, and a lot of those kilometres were ascents, it was also a long and physically challenging day.

The first part of our journey from FesseVillers was wonderfully easy, with long downhill runs. In particular we had a run of around 8km snaking through the mountains down to Saint-Hippolyte.

We found this Roman Amphitheatre on our way into Montbeliard, just outside Mathay.

We had visited Montbeliard before, on our 2012 bike tour – heading in a different direction that time. This time our experience was not good, as the tourist info was unhelpful. They had no information on bike routes to the north, only on the Eurovelo 6 west-east path. We bought a detailed map from a book shop. We continued onto Belfort, the next town to the north. Despite the lack of advise from the tourist info, there was an excellent bike path going north along the canal.

Not long after we left town, we started having problems with my bike. The front bearings started giving in. We made it to Belfort, and to their tourist information. It was very hot at this stage. The contrast with our last tourist info experience was startling. They were incredibly helpful in Belfort. Luckily there was a Decathlon (the store we bought our bikes from) about 5km out of town. We were given detailed instructions on how to get there and they even phoned the store. We also got information on accommodation near the store and on bike routes.

Decathlon replaced the front wheel and then the back wheel started making a clacking noise, not related to the bearings. The Decathlon mechanic partially fixed the clacking noise by adjusting the back cassette sprocket, but we were not convinced that this was a permanent fix. Kris’s bike has a rear wheel that is somewhat buckled from an incident when he went through a hole in the road – so we are not sure how much longer the two bikes will last.

We found accommodation in the town near the store. This is a private room in an old farmhouse. It sounded romantic but turned out crummy with a slightly mad landlady who kept on asking questions we couldn’t understand in French. We should have gone to the hotel this time (usually we prefer the private rooms).

It was already hot when we set off this morning at around 9.30am – a sign of things to come.

We started out returning to Belfort to have a look at the citadel, which we missed yesterday. It was well worth it, the battlements are huge and there are panoramic views of the town and countryside from up on high.

      

     

We also rode around them a little with our bicycles, before exiting through the old town.

From here we made our way back onto the bike path alongside the Montbelliard river until Sevenanas, where we turned off onto a different bike route that went through Bourogne, to rejoin Eurovelo 6 along the canal.

We rediscovered the spot where we first found the Eurovelo 6 in 2012.

However we didn’t follow the Eurovelo 6 route, instead we enjoyed passing through the small towns of Brebotte, Grosne, Vellescot, Suarce, Lepuix-Neuf. Then we joined the D463, which is marked on our map as a green (scenic) route, all the way to Basel. There were quite a few trees, which was a relief as it became hotter and hotter. We stopped at a water trough in a small town and threw water over each other. The countryside also became flatter and we had some nice long (cooling) downhill runs around 15km out from the city.

I was feeling quite ill from the heat when we reached the Swiss border, just after St Louis (around 3pm). It was at least 38 degrees Celsius (from outdoor thermometer). We decided to head back to Germany to find accommodation. We reached the Rhine, and there was a place where several people were swimming – so we also stopped and jumped in – to the bemusement of nearby swans. It was a relief from the heat. It didn’t take long for our clothes to dry again.

From here we crossed the river and the border into Germany and made our way to the satellite town of Weil and the tourist office. They helped us find our accommodation and also provided information on cycle routes north along the Rhine.

Our accommodation was good, and included a fridge so we could chill our wine! It only began to cool down after 10 pm.

The heatwave continued today, but we took precautions by planning a shorter day. In the end we only did 59km from Weil to Breisach, arriving at around 1pm. We ditched our idea of going to Freiburg, as that would involve cycling away from the (cooler) river.

The first part of our trip was through some pretty small towns, until we found the path along the river. The path was unsealed but easy to ride along, and most importantly shaded for a lot of the way. We could only catch glimpses of the Rhine every now and then.

      

We met a German couple from Stuttgart who had been touring for two weeks. They were cutting their tour short and taking a train home because of the heat. We also met a group of four from Ecuador on their first cycling trip.

Breisach is an attractive town, with a cathedral on the hill above the Rhine.

We waited until about 9pm for it to cool down before we left our hotel to go out for a beer – the temperature had cooled down to 31 degrees at that time. We found a bar with a fan! There were a couple of locals in the bar that talked a lot of nonsense with Kris (in German). When we left at 10.30 pm the temperature had only cooled to 28 degrees.

We reached Strasbourg after 90km on flat terrain along the Rhine. We had quite a bit of shade alongside the river for the first part of the ride. Unfortunately a bit in the sun later on. The river is very wide and slow flowing here. We still see a lot of swans – and enjoy seeing them putting their heads down and bottoms up as they explore the river floor.

The heat was slightly reduced from previous days but still in the high 30’s. We managed our ride by starting early, drinking lots of water and regularly stopping to wet our clothing – including in the river and in village water fountains.

The back wheel of my bike began to clack again, particularly as we rode into the outskirts of Strasbourg. We went to Decathlon in the late afternoon and they replaced the back wheel under warranty without much discussion! So now I have a new back and front wheel, practically a new bike – it looks like it should last for the rest of the trip. Not so sure about Kris’s bike though.

The accommodation we found is cheap and small, but has fridge and stove. So we spent it up buying steak and vegetables to cook in the frypan. We also bought some Pastis, a great drink in the heat – that must be served cold.

Today we had a relaxing morning exploring Strasbourg, until around 2 pm, when it became too unpleasant to be outside any more. The heatwave continues and we stopped several times to cool down – at a fountain near the cathedral, a children’s water park and this water sprinkler.

The Ill river circles around the city, with tourist boats cruising up and down and bike paths alongside.

The Cathedral is a definite highlight.

         

         

The Petite-France area is very pretty.

        

        

The European Parliament is in the city, and is huge.

We got up very early, determined to beat the heat – our earliest start of the tour at 7.15am.

It was pleasant riding at that time and we picked up Eurovelo 5 alongside the la Marne au Rhin canal. This was a beautiful ride. There were quite a few people out enjoying the canal in the morning – cycling, walking dogs and fishing.

      

We had completed 50km before 11am and passed through Saverne – an interesting looking town with a boat harbour and some massive historical buildings.

After Saverne we saw more tourist boats on the canal as we passed through a number of locks. The canal was climbing steadily through a saddle between the hills. The town of Lutzelbeurg was very picturesque, with the houses and church directly on the canal. The heat was building at this point, so we wanted to keep moving. We stopped at one of the locks and asked if we could get some water (there was a garden hose). The lock keeper kindly went and got water inside as he said it was cooler, then he also got some ice for us.

Suddenly the canal path we were on came to a stop – the boats also couldn’t continue at this point. We went onto the road to try to find the way to Phalsbourg, the next big town near where we had booked some accommodation. We ended up doing an unnecessary hill climb (in the heat) to the town of St Louis.

We backtracked to Lutzelbeurg and got the correct turn-off to Phalsbourg. We did a gradual climb to Phalsbourg, a plain town where the shops were closed.

The last 7km to Metting were hard as it was incredibly hot on the road, with no shade and waves of heat coming up at you from the tar. There were also a few unexpected steep up and down hills. We were dripping with sweat when we arrived.

I had made a booking at a bed and breakfast through bookings.com, as finding accommodation can be tricky on Sundays. However when we got there, there was no one at home. We were worried that they may not have received the booking. Kris wanted to ride on, but I felt that I couldn’t go any further in the heat. It was past 1 pm.

I suggested that we go to the church, as we had seen a crowd of people there having a church lunch when we rode past. We were in luck, as Josephine was there. The people were very sweet and sent out a young man who could speak English and in a few minutes Josephine. She came to open the house up for us and also brought us some cake from the church lunch and gave us each a cold beer.

Later on she came back from the church with her 87 year old friend (still sharp as a tack) and another elderly lodger. They can all speak a simple German dialect, as well as French, but no English – so Kris could communicate with them. They are close to the German border and speak German, but do not speak fondly of the Germans. The younger people in the area can no longer speak German and all learn English at school.

We had a blissful nap in the afternoon. Josephine was a very attentive hostess and kindly made us some French pizza later on – we had enough snacks with us, but it was good to get some hot food.

We had another early start, at around 8.15 am. The first part of our journey was not on any official bike path, but just making our way between the small towns – Shalbach, Veckersviller, Weyer, Wolfskirchen, Diedendorf. The countryside was gently undulating and it was a very pleasant ride. At one point we took a short cut along a farm road between Veckersviller and Weyer. Jenny thought maybe we should turn back but Kris thought they would connect, and he was right.

     

We also saw an interesting ruined 16^th century castle at Diedendorf, all abandoned.

     

From there we reconnected to the Eurovelo 5 alongside the Canal des Houilleres de la Sarre. This canal was a bit more muddy looking and slow flowing than yesterday’s canal. The bike route was very good and easy, being sealed for most of the way and we made good progress.

We also saw a few tourist boats and passed a number of locks, but not as many as yesterday. The first big town was Sarreguemines. It was after midday so we stopped to buy some ice cream and orange juice at the supermarket. It was hot, but not nearly as unpleasant as on previous days so we felt we could carry on. The temperature must have been in the low 30’s.

Our final destination, Saarbrucken was only about 18km away.

Here is some street art on the canal on the ride into the town:

     

The Saarbrucken tourist information were efficient and helpful in finding accommodation in a cheap hotel. We had time to ride around and look at the town, which is quite large with a wonderful wide pedestrian walkway at the centre.

         

We found a pub where we could sit outside and drink a beer (Weise Heffe on tap, our favourite).

We also ate some food from the street stalls for our supper.

Unfortunately the hotel room turned out to be very hot, with the late afternoon sun shining directly into our room. The wifi signal in the room was also weak so we ended up sitting in the (cooler) stairwell to access the internet. I also had some technical problems with my computer connecting to the internet which Kris fixed, so the day was not without its frustrations.