We awoke in the spa town this morning hoping the weather had improved. Our legs felt very tired from all the climbs of the previous day. Incredibly, we'd only made 25 miles in getting to the spa town from Epinal. However, If you'd seen the conditions you may have felt that this distance was actually impressive.
My iPhone (lifeline!) got damp yesterday. Even though it was in a pocket of my (expensive) Gortex. It wouldn't charge. Kept turning itself on and off. I was worried. There was visible condensation in the camera lens. I held it under a hand drier for ages. But to no avail.
Overnight my iPhone has dried out, on a radiator, and seemed to be working properly again. Yay! This is a relief as one's very isolated without it. During the night, and whilst it was 'recovering', it kept speaking out - saying things like - "I can't connect to the Internet" and "Warning!". Prompted by Jackie, I got up to mute it and found that by morning it was ok and fully charged (it would not take a charge yesterday). One plus point!
Looking out of the window at dawn the wind appeared to have died down. Was it going to rain? How cold?
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The day turned out well.
Breakfast was strange. The patients, mostly German, came into the dining room carrying a clear plastic bag containing a towelling robe and some rubber sandals. (They dunk their bread in their coffee!) They had all been allotted specific times to go into the spa and 'take the waters'. Us two we're the only ones without one of these bags. Everybody there, bar us was ill in some way, mostly cancer I was told and were giving the waters a go. Very sad.
We headed off at 8:30. Incredibly the first 12 miles were downhill (which explains some of what happened yesterday: all the climbing and the cold). At the bottom of this lovely long decent, Jackie put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the hotel room key!
"Oops!" Says she. "We'll have to cycle all the way back up to that spa town"
That was not going to happen. I went into the town hall in the first town and got them to call the hotel and arrange for the key to be picked up. Sorted! We carried on.
The weather kept fair. Dry. 16C. Headwind. Not too bad. We cycled to Besancon, via Vesoul, arriving at around 5pm.
I've long wanted to come here. It's a lovely old town in the crook of Doubs river. The old city is virtually an island.
It's close to Switzerland. It was important in Roman times and featured strongly in the Renaissance and in WW2.
I notice a signpost on the way in to Lausanne. Now that sounds interesting...
Besancon is the capital and principal city of the Franche-Comté region in eastern France. It had a population of about 250K. It is the capital of the department of Doubs (we've now left Vosges).
One of the most common surnames around here is Schmidt (inc. its various spellings).
Today's picture shows the release of 400 balloons to promote the opening of LaFayette's department store, right in front of where we had our post ride beer.
I think we're about half way. Still a long way to go, as evidenced by the way people still laugh when we tell them our destination. I think we lost too much time yesterday to divert to Mont Ventoux next week. Hey ho, can't do it all.
I've put up some more photos. I hope you enjoyed the son illuminare YouTube link.
Today's ride was a little short of 80 miles. We dedicate today's stage to our smashing dad, Terry, whose birthday it is today. Hope you all enjoy the curry.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!