Cycling down from the “Porte des Vosges” could have been the most enjoyable ride so far; the long decent through deeply forested hills, opening out onto a plane full of colour, both from the crops in the fields and in the pretty villages with their brightly painted houses and window boxes and finally along a dedicated cycle route along disused railway tracks and an overgrown canal which brought me right into the centre of Strasbourg itself.
Unfortunately it threw it down for all but a few cherished minutes as I started along the canal. I hung around the campsite this morning as long as reason might dictate that a passing shower might stop but this was no passing shower so I plunged head first into the watery cycle that was waiting for me. A field of sunflowers summed up my mood; their heads were hung having given up on their search for the sun in a depressing reflection of the morning’s weather. For breakfast I cowered under an awning outside the boulangerie in Romanswiller.
But the good thing is that I am here in Strasbourg, one of the main stopping off points on the Eurovelo 5 route and a city I have wanted to visit for a long time. Here are the statistics of today’s cycle; Cycling time: 3 hrs 14 mins 28 secs
Distance: 65.02 kms
Average speed: 20.0 kms/hr
Maximum speed: 50.7 kms/hr
Eurovelo 5 distance: 1,116.9 kms
My first job is to find somewhere to stay. More later.