I sat on a window ledge for a while until it had almost died out then set off for some food, I was quite hungry. By the time I got there, 800 m, it was raining again. I bought a pizza slice, yummy, and a local pastry (An egg of the land). The pastry had a doughy base with a very thin yellow custard layer that was covered in small berries, very tasty. I ate that standing under the eaves of the shop, by the time I'd finished, 10.20 am, it was only raining lightly and with in a K or so it had actually stopped! For the day!!!
It's such a relief when it stops raining. I followed the bike path to its conclusion in Remiremont. The path had been very nice winding its way down the valley, often right next to the Moselle. I gave brief thought to just stopping here but my shoes and gloves are finally starting to dry out properly so I thought I should ride on. Riding is the quickest way to dry shoes (aside from a hair drier). Also at 18 K's it did seem a bit short even for me :)
So I set off again, around 11.30 am. I have a minor map problem. The map I am on now stops about 20 K's before the next one starts. There is a major freeway on the other side of the Moselle, so it stands to reason that as long as I stay on the opposite side of it I should be right?
So I set off on a white route, D42 which follows the Moselle. The first town was Eloyes and it was a very pleasant ride to there. It is actually shown as a green route on my map and I agree. It was a quiet country road rolling along the side of the Moselle. The rolling of course is mainly up and down as is the way of river roads. When I got to the town it was just on midday so I rushed into a Patisserie, which had very little left, and bought a quick snack. The sun came out and so I sat on a chair by the town hall and ate my eclair and drank my coke. Very pleasant.
The good news was that the route I am on now, D42, continues on to Epinal, the only major town between here and Chatel-sur-Mosel where I am planning to go. This was another lovely road and it stayed dry albeit rather windy. I pushed a bit harder here as it seemed that the clouds I'd outrun this morning were starting to catch up with me again :)
About a K out of Epinal a bike path started, again along the river, so I got onto that. When I got to the main part of the town I seriously considered stopping for the night, very seriously, but thought that 48K's wasn't quite enough, also my shoes weren't quite dry and besides I don't really like really large towns. Also a hotel is bound to be very expensive here!
So I followed the bike path on out of the town. According to the second map I have the route I need to get onto is D157 and as it happened the bike path connected to route D157! So I was set. I followed the road, also very pleasant for a few K's when it joined up with a canal that flows along the side of the Moselle, for boat traffic, and on the canal there was a really nice bike path, which I used for the rest of the day. I think in the end I spent abut 50 K's on bike paths today.
I took a photo after a while and then stopped to watch a barge in the docks being raised to a new level. I never did get to see that happen in the Netherlands. The water level actually goes up very quickly. Then it was back to the path which alternated between cross winds, head winds and tails winds. All quite strong.
Eventually I got to Chatel-sur-Moselle and I thought I better go to the train station first. Oops, what train station? It doesn't have one. Hmmm. Rather than risk just getting on and paying tomorrow, and possibly not being able to connect in Nancy I decided it was better to ride on, sigh, to a town with a station, another 10 K's. Oh well.
The ride was actually pretty pleasant and I used the bike path for half of the distance. When I arrived, a 76 Km day, there was no problem with the ticket, and it was only 33 Euro, so I have saved 32 Euro by riding over the Vosges! (Of course not if you include food and hotel costs.)
I crossed back over the Moselle to look for a hotel. There was a Logis de France so I went and had a look, 45 Euro, which was Ok. However, even though the sign said it was open there was no one there. There was a sign on the door, Sonnette Hotel, pointing to the left, but I really don't know if that is the name of a hotel or the state of the current one? I gave up and went to another one on the other side of the main square. It was open and they had rooms, cheaper too. There was only one problem at the moment... the had no electricity. Oh no the Tour! The owner rang the only other place in town but it didn't have a room so I just took one here anyway.
After unpacking and a quick shower I set off in search of a bar with the Tour. Sigh none. One had horse racing on and all the others had some music show on. I went back to the hotel and... the power was back on :) Phew. I raced upstairs and checked that the TV was all ok. I watched a couple of minutes, there was still 12 K's to go. I was starving so I rushed out to a patisserie and bought some food then rushed back. 10 K's to go. Phew. It was actually a pretty good finish to the stage. Contador is in yellow now. There seems a good chance Lance will be on the podium and Cadel may not even make top 10 :(
I went for a nice walk down to the Moselle. There is a boat mooring area which is also next to a camper van parking area. Boats are 7 Euro per day and camper vans are 6 Euro per day, pretty good really. There were a couple of big old barges there, one even has rooms to rent. There were also over 50 camper vans. I keep accidentally typing camper cans rather than vans and I think that about sums it up for me. Albeit that some are huge and sumptuous.
I then strolled back to the hotel for... dinner!
I had already checked out the two main restaurants in town and decided that the hotel was the best value. I picked the local speciality menu which was a mere three courses. The entree was a plate of green salad, potato with Munster cheese and raw ham. Quite tasty. The main was a Tajine of Duck with vegetables. A tajine is a base plate with a tall conical dish on top, that's the blue bit in the photo at the back. The duck was very tender, naturally, and it was nice to have so many vegies, it came with couscous as well. Dessert was a raspberry sorbet.
After dinner I watched my final Midsomer Murders on my netbook.
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