Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Day Twelve

Chalons-en-Champagne to Brienne-le-Chateau


Wet streets and a huge wind. Most of the time a headwind.

Our day started of late. Breakfast and Blog. 11:00 start has us finishing late.

Today was flat but windy. Dry for most of the day with a wet finish.

After the first mile or so we picked up a cannal trail. Smooth going, we both hoped that it would never end.



The trail turned to white clay and was imposable to ride in a straight lins ,so we hopped off and got on the pavement.



As it turned out, staying with the cannal threw us all off course and on to a real adventure. We came across a great restraunt and stoped.



Coffee Roaster


We had a fantastic lunch and headed off around 1:30. Beautiful buildings, There has been a real change in scenery.




The construction of the walls is done by building the post and beam frame, then placing small stick between the frame members to hold the clay.


Moving on down the road, lost, we came across this cathedral that we had to stop at.




We are not sure how old the church was but is seemed as if it was from the 1200's and not been changed around much. Beautiful little spot with all the details very well kept up.




The bell in the church struck three and we realized that with 40 km's left in the ride to the hotelm we needed to get going. That was as the crow flys and the straight line was a narrow, high speed auto road with "Freight train traffic."
Huge trucks, non stop. It took us about 5 minuets to cross it on foot.

The rain started and the wind picked up. Stopping to put on saftey gearm the rain really started coming down.

There has been a major change in the countryside in the past day. Its
has started to become wooded in spots wich was nice for wind breaks. The traffic on the back roads was litem but we figured that the zig zag route had us riding 5 km's for every 1 km closer to the hotel.

Still at times, beautiful French and breath taking scenery.



The off road because of the past 2 days of rain was almost impossable to ride. The clay surface was slip and slide and with the rain and wind had us walking on anything up hill.



The last 20K was on the road our hotel is on. Head down. rain and head wind wind, Rolling but mostly flat, standing while coasting to rest when we could. What we call a "Butt Stretch"
Huge Cabbage patches along the side of the road.

Still beautiful views and a sky of clouds that seemed to be breaking up.


We got to the hotel, wet and beat. I sat on the edge of the bed for about 5 minuets not moving before showering.

As it turned out, we did about 59 miles. Not much by Southern New England standards. but not knowing where your goingm in the rainm and headwindm not bad.

Stopping and composing shots for this blog takes time too.

The hotel is nice. Country style and classic french. The town is where Napolion went to milatary school. Maybe a little more on that tomorrow,

Its now time to ride.

5 comments:

  1. good stuff scott and barb!
    the type of construction you're seeing is called wattle and daub, here's a definition;
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wattle_and_daub

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  2. Thanks Davem Barb and I love your commentsm Please keep them coming!

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  3. how is it that you're transporting your gear, i don't see any panniers on the bike?

    your blog has me thinking about a tandem.
    hi to barb!!

    bon jounrney mon ami

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  4. We have huge bagsm too large, The taxi picks them up at ten. We transport what we need for the day. Today we took on another passenger Want to guess who?

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  5. mmmmmmm................ a slug? pepe le pew???? a duck??? i'm stumped!

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