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Vineyards and villages

UPDATE – LIVE TRACKER WORKING AGAIN NOW!

Knowing the weather would melt us later, we took to the road early, after a big boulangerie breakfast.

We had stayed in Obernai, a village full of designer shops befitting of somewhere sounding like a ski resort (but actually in the lowlands).

As the morning went on a routine became apparent. Picturesque Alsatian village was followed by vineyard by picturesque village, etc.

It was a beauty show. Each village was filled with large brightly coloured houses boasting exposed external beams, dripping in hanging baskets in full bloom – like something out of an Asterix book. Then we rode through immaculate vineyards between them, casting views over valleys overlooked by castles seemingly atop each promontory.

But the afternoon brought the full glare of the sun on a windless day and on tracks without cover. It reminded me of Laurie Lee’s description of the sapping heat: “the brass taloned lion which licks the afternoon ground ready to consume anyone not wise enough to take cover.”

We took cover in the only place we could find: on the floor of the French equivalent of Greggs. Not pretty, but effective.

Having endured the furnace we cut a corner, shaving 20km off our intended ride for the day and finally sought full cover in a cheap hotel for the night.