July 12, 2012
Day 54: Mulhouse, France to Augst, Switzerland: Hey, where's the cheese and chocolate?
Heavy rain came again in the night and early morning and continued to threaten. So we dragged our wet fly, and cooking gear under shelter in the sanitary block. When they woke up, Jo and Marc joined us, creating an authentic Everest base camp appearance:
The day also started with a humorous sign. Would I use the shower with or without the women? Anyway, I'm glad the "reception"" forecasted this issue!
Jo and Marc were staying an extra day at Mulhouse to check out the automotive and train museums. So it meant goodbye. "No tears" said Jo ((in English). Yes, it's just "au revoir" said we. And maybe our paths will cross again. We sure loved those guys.
Just as we were about to leave the campground (jumping off from "base camp"), Nikos Zacharopoulou happened by. He was intrigued by our bikes, and we explained about them and about where we were going. He in turn pointed out his camper, a really nice Fiat model, and we went over to have a look and say hi to his wife. Nikos and Laurance live in Athens, though Laurance is from near Amboise. We enjoyed talking to them about Greece, and Canada, and Fiat campers. Significantly, after not so long in France, we no longer noticed much that the conversation was in French.
We did eventually leave, and our general path can be seen on the map below. It's Mulhouse to Basel along the Rhone to Rhine canal, and then Basel to Lake Konstanz, following the Rhine up river.
The simple concept of the route is much easier said than done. The reason is that the Eurovelo signage, quite excellent along the Loire, totally fell to pieces at Mulhouse. We only saw a few sporadic and misleading signs, and found ourselves wandering around the outskirts of Mulhouse for far too long, looking for the canal route. Even when we did find it, there we no signs to confirm what from our map we knew had to be thew right way.
Not to complain, but the scenery also was ho hum
Except for this unusually coloured (for us) ladybug:
For about 25 km we followed the canal, just getting lost occasionally as the route crossed or recrossed the canal with ambiguous signage.
However, as we got closer to Basel, it became more important to know where we were going. Unfortunately, the six map Eurovelo set ends abruptly at Basel, and a city blowup section that is provided does not match up with where the mainb map leaves off. That is, there is a blackout area, then a bit of detail, then the map books off forever. With no signs around either, we were flying a bit blind.
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The tourist office directed up to a passarelle, or pedestrian bridge, that would take us across to the German side.
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The passarelle landed us in Germany, but just North of the Swiss border on the north side of the Rhine. We had been advised to circle a building called the Rhine Centre to find the tourist information on that side, but we did not spot the office. Instead we passed through a cluttered, under construction, messy area with cars slowly passing some sort of casual checkpoint. I figured it was the parking exit for the Rhine Centre, but in fact it was the Swiss border!
There was certainly no "Welcome to Switzerland - have a sample size Toblerone" about this. Instead there was construction, industrial buildings and debris, and noise.
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The north (snd south) of Basel is heavily industrialized, with chemical industries seeming to make up the majority of activity. Even what seemed to be downtown, seen from across the river, was just barely scenic.
Fortunately, we ran in to Anton. He was just the guide we needed, giving us a clear explanation of where we were and where we had to go. His instructions were dead on, and basically saved the day for us. They carried us until we ran in to good and consistent route signage oncve we passed back into Germany.
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We carried on following the German route signage, and noting the locations of some famous chemical companies:
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A few times we stopped people to ask about camping, and were please to find that all spoke English, most more precisely than we.
It turned out that the opnly camping within reasonable reach was across the river, back in Switzerland. So over we went, reversing our earlier escape. (Hey look, I'm sure Switzerland is great. It just did not put it's best foor forward for us!)
We found the camping easily enough, in Augst. Augst is apparently famous for Roman ruins, but for then all we wanted was place for our tent, and oh yes, something to eat.
To say that the camping was less organized than the places in France would be generous. The man in the "restaurant" directed us casually as to where to place our tent, making no comment about the cost, the location of the facilities, or anything else, though he spoke good English. We hurredly put up our tent because we were really hungry and too tired to cook.
We returned to the restaurant, and we contemplating the prospect of a 10 Euro hamburger when we were told that all that was available was spaghetti. Ok fine by us. Cost: 25 Euros (each!)
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However, the man did have some chewy jelly type candies. At just 1.20 euros, this "dessert" was a "steal".
FLASH I'm writing this the next morning. I was slightly ranting about the 25 euro spaghetti and Dodie pointed out it was two for 25 euros. Fine then, Switzerland is only half as bad as I made it out to be! Actually, when you consider that the standard price of fish and chips in an English pub was also about 12.50 (in euros), what am I grousing about?
Tomorrow, clearly, we will have another go at escaping Switzerland. And now that we can see out route clearly, the good times should roll.
Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 2,322 km (1,442 miles)
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