Sue slept very badly last night because of me. It happens often, but this time I gently rolled over and the bed on my side partially collapsed, making quite a racket on the wooden floor
I was not ready to wake at all, so quickly became accustomed to my new position, and drifted back to sleep .
Unfortunately Sue now worried that her side would also collapse, so she could not longer go back to sleep.
In the morning we removed the mattress to inspect the damage. Unbelievably the metal longitudinal support had been fixed with a wood screw through the visible plate!! It surely must have happened before! Not a good review on Booking.com!
Luckily it was a beautiful day, so we soon forgot about our troubled night and returned to the canal heading eastwards.
A local french cyclist, called Gilbert, cycled with us and talked us through the history of his area, and pointed out when we’d entered Alsace. He works for La Poste, and spent 2 weeks in Rugby learning how the Royal Mail deal with postal issues.
With him we started a long descent down many locks, towards Mulhouse.
This time a heron was guarding the lock. The long flight of locks in the distance behind him. Our first sight of Germany, the Black Forest mountainsGerman language starting to appear. Mirror image, almost. As we passed this hidden bar, some Australians called out to us. Seeing their beers we quickly joined them and had a good chat over a pint. It was so good to drink a pint with a descent handle instead of out of a large wine glass, as the French bars seem to use. Another sign we’re getting close to Germany.
We suggested to them that our new friend Gilbert, the postie, had said that we ought to visit the train museum at Mulhouse. Sure enough they took his advice and we met them there as well. The power of word of mouth!
As we had a relatively short day on the bike, this is what we did, and weren’t disappointed. A fabulous selection of trains from steam to the TGV who made the world speed record in 1990 of 515 km/hr!! (320 mph)
Our bikes were kept secure for us by the friendly staff, whilst we enjoyed the exhibitsI loved this early steam powered vehicle. It needed the connection to a horse; just in case!! Such a huge steam locomotive. The wheels were taller than me. Sue’s favourite railway carriage!It amazed me how plush the first class carriages were, 173 years ago. They even had hot water bottles to put your feet on!!We had to do the Petit Train tour; although comfort is definitely less important nowadays!
The museum was really well laid out and so interesting, such as seeing how they built a railway to Chamonix, so people could go skiing which then opened up the Alps to tourism.
It was a 10 km ride to our accommodation, across the town at rush hour. Sue is getting much better at dealing with towns but it’s still quite intense on a laden bike.
Hopefully we’ll be crossing the Rhine tomorrow, so will have to speak another language. However, I understand that the words beer and wine sound the same in English, so we should be fine🥴😁
Euro Vélo Route 6 