Day 21 - Neuf-Brisach to Huningue (Near Basel)

60.5 km - Total so far 1,146.10 km - Route pedalled.      Relive Video (with pictures)

Video of the day: Europe Day 21

We are safe and secure in Huningue, France.

Home for the night

The bakery was on our route so we had to stop and pick up croissants for our lunch. For some reason, RideWithGPS displayed the route on a blank map. The map with street names was not available. It took a bit longer than planned to find our way back to EV 15.

As we learned about bike touring, we read that 'mental toughness' was essential. That came in handy today. The forecast called for rain in the second half of the route so we had our rain gear handy.

What we had not anticipated was how boring that 60 km would be. It was paved paths thru farmers field, commune after commune were we saw no one and long stretches along canals. We got a bit of rain and a drop in temperature. It was also very humid making it difficult to stay warm.

Check out the canals: 

Huningue Canal

Grand Canal of Alsace

After 53 km, we decided to stop at 'La Maison éclusière', the welcome centre for La Petite Carmague Alsacienne. La Petite Carmague is a 15 km long x 2 km wide natural reserve in the area of the three borders (France, Germany and Switzerland. We went in for a quick coffee and had a half hour chat with the summer student working there. This made up for the least exciting bits of the first 53 km.

Coffee break over

Before heading to our stop for the night, we swung by the international grocery store. I spotted as many licence plates of Switzerland and Germany as I saw of French plates.

We are spending the night in a Batchelor apartment inside a huge house. We were shown the sauna and indoor pool in case we needed to relax. Hélène got to prepare supper in a well equipped kitchen.

Tomorrow we have a quick ride through Switzerland (country #4) in order to spend the night in Albbruck, Germany.