Day 106: L'Isle sur les Doubs to Vesoul

June 1, 2023

Across the French countryside

“What a difference a day makes in road and landscape,” Rachel says. We start out with a steep climb from the river and then continuing to climb for 10km through forest on a “white” road through the countryside. White roads refer to the color of the roads on the old Michelin maps, white are the smallest, yellow the bigger and red the major roads. Red is to be avoided.

A long downhill until we reach the junction to a yellow road, this road is a little more busy, a tiny shoulder but the traffic respectful. We reach a town where there is a café open and we order coffee. There is nothing else on the menu except lunch and dinner items. What is it with the French in the countryside? The small villages we go through do not have anything in the way of businesses, particularly cafes.

Off the busy yellow road, finally a cafe. One cafe! and we stop for coffee.

Then we see ahead of us, 4 steep rolling hills. The first one because we have lots of momentum goes easy, by the 4th we are hoping as we look from the crest that the bike path we are hoping to connect too is at the bottom of this one hill. There’s another hill ahead. Look closely on the profile of the map between 30 and 35km.

And it is, the Chemin Vert Trail. We could have picked it up earlier if we had been further to south and west. This looks like an old railroad bed turned into a trail and is fantastic.

Our WS host is off the trail just to the right, but we continue on to town for shopping at a Lidl.

Our Warmshowers host for tonight lives just off this trail in Quincy just before the main town. We decide to continue on to the Lidl and shop first. We pick up lunch supplies and we eat at a bench on the trail before going to the house. Then next few days we will be camping in small villages and expect not to find shops so we are stocking up on supplies.

Catherine welcomes us to her house and garden. Since it is early we can do our laundry, catch up on our journal and relax. In the evening she serves us a very nice meat, mushroom and apricot potpie with garden salad. The French then eat cheeses and bread before something sweet. A very tasty melon is for dessert.

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Today's ride: 47 km (29 miles)
Total: 4,263 km (2,647 miles)

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