May 23: Day 26, Lunéville-Zweibrücken
Had a late departure from Lunéville. Despite getting an early night it was a slow start, then I gave the bike an extra careful check, tightened up the rack, and messed around with the back brakes - they're better now. Then replenished my snacks and picked up some Lucozade at the nearby supermarket. So it was about 10 when I actually got going.
The route hit a canalpath pretty quickly, which I approve of. But to be honest, canalpaths tend to look the same ... so I rolled along, and the scenery didn't really change. But it was flat, and the surface was good, so I tried to keep my speed up.
From left to right: helmetful of shopping. The first section; more interesting than a canalpath. The canalpath - it looked like this for six hours. A special boat for scooping detritus out of the canal. More of the canalpath, and me.
After a few hours, canalpaths do get a little dull. The canal was away from towns and villages, so there wasn't much to break the monotony. The big event for the day was lunch: I found a boulangerie in a town that was a few kilometers down a branch away from my route. They didn't have sandwiches, but did have some meat in pastry - I can't call it a pie, it's far more stylish than that.
After that I needed to get to the other side of the canal, over a somewhat Spartan bridge. It had metal grill stairs, and a narrow groove to push the bike up. But it was steep ... should I take the panniers off? I gave it a try, it was possible, but if the bike rolled loose it could be a trip-ender. So I gingerly pushed the bike up to the top, but without incident. Getting it down involved keeping the brakes on, and tilting it enough so the panniers didn't hit the railing or the stairs. Fiddly. But still faster than unloading and reloading the panniers...
After that it was another few hours of canalpaths. The most interesting thing was dried mango pieces which were so good I had to ration them to one per hour.
From left to right: this lock was so high, it’s more like an elevator. The stairs over the canal. More canalpath. The route was closed; I was looking for another way when a gent on a racing bike went past with the gesture “just go through”. Canal bridge over … another canal!
Sometime today I also found out that the sturdy shopping bag I picked up on the first day in Portugal has a hole big enough for Lucozade to fall out. So it's going to have to be replaced, unfortunately...
The wind picked up, and I had thoughts about putting on the jersey. Unfortunately it got drenched yesterday, I hadn't noticed so it didn't get hung up to dry, and it was still very wet. Will need to fix that tonight.
The route peeled away from the canal with about two hours to go. There was a 140m climb, but I couldn't change into the low gear - quite likely a side effect of yesterday's deluge... But the lowest available gear was good enough.
After the climb the road went steeply back down (sigh) but it did get onto a rail trail, so I forgave everything. The German border was getting close: would there be a sign to mark the border? Sadly, no. On the cyclepath there wasn't anything, the signs just quietly changed from French to German. I was keen to get a commemorative selfie so I went over to a road which also crossed the border: all that was there was info about French speed limits, nothing when going into Germany. In the distance, on the border I could see a French, EU and German flag - good enough, I went over there and got the selfie.
From left to right: rail trail! Abandoned station. The French-German border photo, after all that work.
Tonight's hotel was looking dubious. There weren't many options in the area, this one was cheap but the reviews said clean and well run. So I'd tried to book it on the hotel website last night; it'd taken my details and sent me an email: we have your details, when staff have reviewed your booking we'll send you confirmation. I hadn't seen a confirmation email yet. Either they’re sloppy or closed. So I was half-expecting that it wasn't open - and indeed it wasn't: the hotel entrance door was locked, the restaurant was closed.
I'd been keeping my eyes open for other options along the way, but hadn't seen anything. Google Maps showed nothing nearby; the nearest option was five kilometers away and somewhat more than I like to pay... but it was past 6pm, the wind was getting up, so I took it. I got in about 7, had to carry the bike up three half-flights of stairs to get to the room. It was quite a nice hotel so I double-checked that I wasn’t leaving any tracks on the floor.
A bit of a late finish to go with the late start. And I think I've had enough of canalpaths for now.
What I’m listening to: Operation Dinner Out, by Harry Gregson-Williams, from the sountrack to the movie “Spy Game”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWdyqgGJXyc
