Day 61 July 13th

Not a lot happened today as it was a travel day to Lyon on the TGV. I saw a map at the station which said it was 500km and it took us 2 hours so we were travelling at over 250kph. You certainly don't notice it in the train and with that type of service it is no wonder they are always pretty full.

When I got to Lyon and was walking to the metro to get to my hotel, I ran into Russ who had been with us in the Alps but left early to go to the Mega Avalance downhill race which was last weekend. He was in Lyon catching a train to Brussels?? to stay with his brother. The only problem was that he had his bike assembled and with 2 backpacks as well they said he would have to freight his bike the following day. I told him I had got mine on OK as it was packed in my bag and just fitted on the large luggage rack in each carriage, so he was going to take his wheels and other bits off and strap them together and see if he could get on that way. I hope he made it OK. Oh the joys of travelling sometimes.

I didn't even bother putting my bike together today, I just went for a walk around the shopping district and to the tourist office to get some maps and to find out what there was to around the place. There doesn't seem to be a lot apart from shops which all have big sales on, but I will go and explore to see what I can find. I may just have to go for a bigger ride out of town and follow the river so I don't get lost.

DISTANCE TODAY 0km TOTAL DISTANCE 1480km

Day 62 July 14th

Bastille Day - I expected to have parades, fairs and the like but there was nothing. It was worse than Australia Day back home. I must say though that I'm writing this in the early evening and I did see some sound equipment getting set up by the river, so there may be something going on tonight. I'll see!

The day started badly by having breakfast at McDonalds. There is no breakfast at the hotel and for that matter no WiFi and as Macca's is just around the corner and has both, that's the place to be. I also confess to having a big mac last night so I could use the internet and then found out you don't even have to purchase anything, but I'll just get a drink in future.

With hardly anything open, I decided to go for a ride out of Lyon and headed north along the Saone River. Lyon has the Rhone river as well and just south of the town they both join and continue as the Rhone. By our standards the Saone is a big river. It was a pleasant ride but nothing great and about 1:15 I decided to head back. The beauty of theses places is that there are bridges every few k's so there is no problem swapping to the other side to ride back. At a little place called Nueville I crossed then I was looking for a sandwich (read baguette) place to get something to eat but with everything closed I could only find restaurants and I didn't want a big lunch. By 2pm I stopped at a pub and bought a beer and asked if they did sandwiches with a lot gesturing, but they only had croissants so lunch was a beer and 2 croissants.

With the amount of water flowing down these rivers I was a bit surprised that they have locks to control the water, but I guess they are everywhere. Saw a couple of nice chateaus or villas or whatever they are called and one was on a private island in the middle of the river. Everyone seemed to be eating on the riverboats and one boat even had a guy playing sax as the other ate and it seemed like a nice way to while away the afternoon. When I got back to town I continued down to where the 2 rivers join. They are doing a lot of new building there and I guess it will be a bit smarter when finished but at the moment it is more like a rubbish dump.

Bastille Day update. I don't know if there was going to be much, but the weather came in with a big thunderstorm about 7pm and it is now 9:30 and still bucketing down. At least they are getting a free light show and don't have to worry about fireworks.

DISTANCE TODAY 49km TOTAL DISTANCE 1529km

Day 63 July 15th

The weather had fined up so first thing was to find a bike shop as the end cap of my derailleur cable had broken and I wanted to get it fixed before it caused me hassles, especially following the tour next week. I found a Specialized shop and when he saw my bike he instantly recognized it as a Pitch. He thought the colour scheme must have been British but I told him they were Australian (each country has different ones) and the next question was had I ridden the Mega Avalance that I was saying Russ had ridden in. Anyway he fixed my problem and didn't charge me anything which was nice. I tried to find out if there were any trails around the area and he said there were but there are no maps of the actual trails. He gave me a tourist map which describes them but being all in French, I don't know if they will be of any benefit. Also they are are about 20km out of town so it will be a big day if I go there. I actually said how far and he shrugged so I said 20k and he agreed so it could be anything. I'll study the map tonight.

I finally decided to head up to the standout feature of Lyon and that is the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviere which sits on a hill overlooking the town. It was a good workout riding up there as it was humid. The cathedral was quite speccy but not in the same league as the Paris ones but it still had 3 separate chapels and I could only get in the 2 smaller ones. I have been in more churches in the past week than I have in the past 10 years. The views from up there were pretty good too and just down the road were the remains of two old Roman theatres that date back to the first century AD. The actual theatres themselves are in fantastic condition and they still get used today. Proof of that was a huge stage and sound check for a concert that was going to be on tonight. I found a program which had concerts listed almost every night from June until September. I took my photos as much as possible without all the modern stuff in the picture. As good as all the cathedrals and stuff are, these ruins are the highlight of all the old stuff I have seen.

I tried to get closer to what I think is a Roman aqueduct by the river that I had seen from the other side. A landslide had caused a whole lot of retaining blocks to close the road, but it looked as though nothing had been done about them. I climbed over the barriers and got to the bottom of the aqueduct but there was no way of getting close. The map showed it as open space so I went to the end and climbed to the road above it but there were houses between the road and the open space. In the end I gave up and had lunch.

A lazy afternoon going to buy my train ticket for Saturdays trip to Geneva and fining a laundry so I can do some washing on Friday without having to chase it up at the last moment. I went past a hairdressing salon for men and women and there were no customers in there so I asked how much to have my customary number 0 shave. At 15 euro that was going to be nearly $30 so my hair is getting longer at the moment.

DISTANCE TODAY 27km TOTAL DISTANCE 1556km

Day 64 July 16th

After studying the map from the bike shop, I found one common town to the tourist map I had and that was only because of the funny name - Craponne. That was enough to give it a go and see what I could find. I had to up the hill where the cathedral is but a bit south of there and I knew there was a tunnel about where I wanted to go. I found a road but that turned into a one way, but I rode up the footpath anyway and was going reasonably well until it headed back to where I had come from. After a fair bit of frustration I was heading in the general direction but was continually stopping to check the maps to see if I could recognise any other names.

Craponne was still fixed in my mind and I had not seen any signs when suddenly I saw it in the side of a bus shelter. There was a bus route to there so I was sure I was on the right road. Getting to an intersection, I turned left and was watching for bus stops but when I had gone about half a k and hadn't seen any, I turned back. Luckily just as I got back there a no. 73 to Craponne went thru and it turned down the same road so I was right. I was really confident now and just kept going and I finally got there. Heading out the other side it became more rural and I even found a sign to Col de la Luere which is where I wanted to go.

I was looking out for some water at this stage but as it got more rural I was running out of options. A lady was just going into here house so I asked her if I could get some and she took me inside and gave me some cold water out of a bought bottle so I don't know if it was bottled water or not but it was very nice of her. I continued up the col and it was a steady climb but not anything like those in the Alps as ths one was only 715m. I found a track heading off the main road and followed that down. It was pretty similar riding to what we had around Samoens and I was thinking how much fun it was. That soon changed to frustration as after about 2-3km it turned into bitumen and went into a town. There may have been other tracks around but I couldn't find them and I wasn't going to climb back up to the top to try again.

I bought some lunch at the little village and then decided to head back to Lyon. I could see the cathedral off in the distance so just headed back that way. My plan was to get back and go for a ride down the Rhone for a way as I hadn't done that yet. My gears weren't changing properly so I had a look and one strand had unravelled from the derailleur cable which the shop had worked on the other day. Change of plans and over to the shop and the guy put a new inner cable in for me and still wouldn't charge me anything. Very nice of him again.

DISTANCE TODAY 48km TOTAL DISTANCE 1604km