Into Switzerland

After a pain au chocolat from the campsite's boulangerie van, I set off in the already quite intense sun to Strasbourg. Shortly after leaving, I was caught up by a road cyclist who asked me where I was headed and when he found out I was going to Strasbourg, told me to follow him to the canal, where the best path into the city was. After about 10 miles of towpath, I arrived in Strasbourg at the EU Parliament building, just beside the canal. I meandered through the city for an hour or so in the general direction of Kehl then I crossed the Rhine back into Germany, stopping to have a coffee on the river bank before following the cycle path south along the river.

After swapping back to the road due to the deterioration of the cycling track, which my thin road tyres couldn't manage, I cycled parallel to the river for another 40 or so miles, ending up in Breisach. I found a TI and set off towards a campsite just outside the town but I stopped at an ice-cream cafe on my way as it was hot and still quite early in the afternoon. I had just ordered a couple of scoops of mango ice cream when a middle aged couple came and sat next to me. They noticed my bike, fully loaded up with all my stuff, then the woman asked me where I was headed - I replied with the standard explanation of what I was doing and where I was going which they both found really interesting. We chatted for about an hour about traveling (they had done some together when they were younger), politics (I mentioned than I had just come through Strasbourg) and various other topics and then she said that they only lived 20 minutes away by train and would I like to come for tea and sleep for the night. Unfortunately, it was 20 minutes in the direction I had just come from and I had also just been to a corner shop and bought some cheese and meat for tea, so I declined my first invitation to a bed for the night due to it costing me more in train tickets than if I were to sleep in a B&B and headed off to the campsite. 

I arrived, paid and got given directions for my pitch, which happened to be right beside another cycle tourer on one side and a 2cver on the other. They were both German, the tourer was a 60 year old man who was cycling from Munich to Paris and the 2cver was in his early thirties and had just been to a local meeting (although he lived 500 miles away from it) and was heading home. We sat around the tree by the tourer's tent having our tea and had a nice evening talking about bikes and 2cvs, whilst bathed in the evening sunshine.

Up early the next morning, due to the 25°C at 9.30, I waved goodbye to the tourer who was having a day off, had an apple strudel from the Bakery in the village and set off towards Basel and the mountains. Unsurprisingly, it was a slow and small day, only 47 miles covered, due to the unbelievable heat. Still following the Rhine all the way into Basel, I wandered around the city until I eventually found the TI, after getting shouted out in German by an old man who wasn't very happy that I was on my bike! (I have no idea why it was such a bad thing, there were other people cycling around in the same direction I was...?) I did a page of my blog and my emails in an internet cafe, where a Scottish man bought me a drink and paid for my internet usage after he asked me why I was riding my bike in this heat (I must've looked a tad warm when I walked into the cafe). I thanked him for paying for me, to which he replied: "Not all Scots are cheapskate bastards"!

I stayed in a campsite in Reinach, 15 minutes or so bike/tram ride out of the city, and for the second night in a row, I was camped next to another cycle tourer. Filippo, the Italian living in Fribourg, was on his third day of a tour very similar to mine but going anti-clockwise round Europe instead of my clockwise route. Filippo and I spent the whole evening talking and eating (I was blessed with the luxury of olive oil in my pasta) so, after swapping emails, I got to bed much later than planned so I decided to have another rest day, giving me the opportunity to explore Basel and kill some more time so I didn't arrive too early in Morzine.

I woke to the sounds of Filippo packing his tent so I got up, said goodbye to him and went to the toilet/shower block where I found a small bookshelf that had some English books in. I grabbed a couple of books for something to do in the evenings, packed a few things into my bar bag and jumped on the tram into the city. I spent the day wandering about - I went back to the cafe with the computer to buy the Scottish man a drink (I had some Swiss Franks by this point) but unfortunately he wasn't there so instead I sat on a cafe terrace right by the river, had lunch, a coffee and a beer whilst reading my book for a couple of hours in the sun. Back at the campsite, I had a nice tea with bits and pieces I bought from the market, I finished the first book so I didn't have to carry it around then I went to sleep earlier in preparation for riding into the mountains in the morning.