Sunday July 7th - Warm to hot and sunny all day, 19°C to 29ºC
One more look at the storks
We can see there's a baby stork
We're in Strasbourg
Strasbourg cathedral. Too tall to fit
Flowers on the Strasbourg bridges
Strasbourg Canal with old buildings
Boatloads of tourists on canal
Flowers everywhere
Towers over the canal
Rhine to Rhone canal built 1834
And we're on cycle path beside it
Lunch stop and the Samsung's out
Large fish in the canal
Afternoon cup of tea stop
Colmar - centre of Riesling wine
Picturesque building ready for TdF
Our home for the night
Riesling from Alsace with dinner
Steak to feed 4 people for 2 nights
Another long day- 97k - and fairly easy - it's all flat. There's 20k of farm roads from Diershiem to Strasbourg, 2k around Strasbourg, 60k down the Rhine to Rhone Canal, then 15k along the Colmar Canal into Colmar. It's warm to hot for most of the day, but the canal tow path is partly shaded by trees and the air off teh canal is cool. Strasbourg and Colmar are two of the prettiest towns in France and we get to see both in the one day.
We're awake early to the smell of coffee and we're packed showered and down to breakfast by 7am. We don't know exactly how far it is today, as we only have a vague route picked out between Strasbourg and Colmar that could be anywhere from 80k to 110k. Ian has picked a cycle route on his Samsung that seems to run in straight lines, and my map shows it could be canals. We study the map over breakfast of eggs, meats cheese, bacon, fruits etc - a lavish buffet. The dog trots over for tidbits.
By 8.30am we're cycling past the stork, and it appears it has at least 1 baby that occasionally pops it's head up out of the nest. It's a quiet Sunday morning as we cycle around the small villages on our way to Strasbourg. The last 10 is on a very easy cycle path and soon we're in the very old centre of the city. There's thousands of tourists in the Cathedral Square and sightseeing on the boats in the canal that runs through the city. We have a coffee by the canal before leaving Strasbourg on a canal cycle path and we immediately see signs to Graff and then to Colmar, and we know for sure we will be following the Rhine to Rhone canal the whole way. It was built in 1834 and much of it is still navigable- just amazing engineering back then.
We're out of food - we ate it all last night except for one tomato and one capsicum. And the canals do not appear to go through too many towns, and besides, it's Sunday and there's nothing much open. Just out of Strasbourg, there's a turn off to a little village where there's a boulangerie open and Ian buys a jambon (ham) roll to go with the tomato and capsicum as well as slice of rhubarb tart .
The canal path is so nice after the gravel of the Rhine levee banks. There's boats and barges on the canal, and thousands of cyclists on the canal path as it's Sunday. The wind is still at our backs so we're moving along at 22kph average without too much effort and there's no need to stop and look at the map as there's signs to various villages and turnoffs every few kilometres. We've now done the sums and have worked out it will be 97k into Colmar, but it should be easy and it is.
We have lunch 1t 1.30pm in the shade of a large tree. It's very peaceful. Ian checks his Samsung GPS tracker regularly and it's following the canal path exactly. My IGN map shows the canal but not the tow path cycle track - strange, and Ian's Open Street Maps shows the cycle route but no canal. So between the two of us we know where we're going. It's so peaceful there's time to just look around and Ian spies a few large fish in the canal under a shady tree. We don't know what they were but they're 60cm long, as thick as a man's leg and probably weighed about 5kg. There's lots of people fishing along the way but we never saw any one catch anything.
We're travelling so quickly we've even got time for a cup of tea stop at the Colmar Canal turn off. There's so many families out this Sunday paddling on the canals. The last 16k on the Colma Canal Ian picks up speed to 27kph and I sit behind. If we're fast enough we might get to see the finish of the Tour de France mountain stage today - Donna and Milton are in situ on the mountain. We might even see them. We race into town and arrive at 4.20 pm, and our Hotel St Martin in Colmar is easy to find, it's in the town square opposite St Martin's church. I check us in, find out where to park the bikes, order two beers and ask if they have a TV with the tour de France please. We're just in time to see the Apres Le Tour. It had finished one hour earlier today. Oh well, watching the presentations with a cold beer is still good.
Upstairs, Ian searches the TV channels for the Wimbledon finals and finds it almost immediately. So we at least got to see the last two sets of Andy Murray defeating Djokovic in 3 straight sets to be the first Englishman in 77 years to win Wimbledon. Time to head downtown for dinner.
The receptionist at the hotel suggests 2 restaurants which have typical Alsatian meals - the first is dark and dingy and the second one we can't find after wandering around town. Not a wasted effort because the town is beautiful and is renowned for its well preserved buildings with a cosy village feel (though a bit touristy). We return to the centre of town and pick a restaurant with al fresco. It's quite warm tonight and it's nice to eat outside. We order steak chips and salad - the steak is enough to feed 4 people for 2 nights - but we've been aware of this and just order the one between us together with a bottle of Riesling.