- Total 1,036km
- Today 51km
- Mulhouse to Neuf Brisach
- Mostly sunny, high 27c
Today, as we veered off the EuroVelo 6 and cut across to join the EuroVelo 15 that runs along the Rhine, we achieved the 1,000km mark for our 2023 Tour de Europe.
No champagne for the road gods, no costumes, just snap a picture and carry on. We still had 40km to ride today. Still an exciting moment.
We had a much easier time today than we did in this section in 2014, when we had strong headwinds blowing unabated across the open farm country. Today we had just a light breeze on our nose, it was much more enjoyable.
It was fortunate that Chris had picked up our lunch sandwiches before we left Mulhouse. We were able to stop for lunch at a nice picnic stop along the trail.
Otherwise there was little open in the towns that we passed through. We had quickly gotten used to businesses being closed Sunday and Monday, but this is Wednesday. We don’t remember it being this difficult to get the things we need in France last tour. Has something changed in the past 9 years, or were our expectations lower? We are finding that we have to be careful or we could find ourselves with nothing to eat. We’re not in the wilderness here, but sometimes it feels like we may as well be miles from civilization.
We had been told that there is a movement of people to the larger centers. Perhaps the small towns are slowly turning into ghost towns.
We are camped once again near Neuf Brisach, another one of the fortifications built by Vauban. It would have been nice to have gone a bit farther today, but there isn’t much for camping on the EuroVelo between here and Strasbourg.
Leave a Reply