I left just before 7am after my best sleep since leaving home (which isn’t saying much) ironically above a music venue with noise til late. However, Cissy always tells me that I sleep through heavy rain, noisy cars and alarms, so no surprise to her.
Forgot to mention yesterday, but Strasbourg is a very lively, historic city and hence the contrast when I left was stark.  Would be good to revisit.

After finding the Canal du Rhone au Rhine it was easy to get out of Strasbourg and while nice at first, being dead straight and something that I’d follow for @ 40 miles it soon became boring. Therefore I turned off after 30 miles at Marckolsheim and followed the road parallel until I realised how hot it was out of the shady tree-lined canal and therefore turned back at the first opportunity.

It was very quiet in France, with not many cyclists which makes me think that I overestimated the number of people cycling the Rhine and perhaps they were just doing the scenic UNESCO German section. Sorry for any confusion !
After some miles on country lanes, the route then started to follow an old disused railway line for what must have been another 20 miles, again dead straight and so very boring. To maintain focus and sanity, I made a point of stopping every 5 miles for 5 minutes (against a 10mph pace) for water and rest, breaking a big problem down into smaller chunks. It made me think about how people in the ‘Race across America’ deal with such boredom – that’s one event I won’t be doing.

So 60+ boring miles, without seeing the Rhine, in 31 degree heat, this was certainly the worst day of a fantastic trip to date. And when combined with yesterday’s embankment section it makes France the least impressive country for cycling on route. That said, I think that they know it with their attempts at scenic route diversions yesterday.
The early start at least got me to Basel for @4pm (86 miles) to witness the strange sight of swimmers floating on the current with inflatable bags presumably with their clothes in. Later I saw people paddle boarding on the flow. That obviously speaks volumes about the water quality.

Had a geat meal at the YH followed by a wander around Basel, another lively historic city that’ll justify a re-visit, if only to go swimming, and do the parkrun.

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