After a few days of riding through relatively flat to barely rolling, with big fields of grain, beets, and vineyards and towns with big gothic cathedrals, the terrain has changed. More forests interspersed with smaller fields - mostly growing hay, some alfalfa for the cattle. Lots of cattle (Carolais - look like Palomino horses, or maybe somebody had a terrible accident with a bottle of bleach). Small farms, very small villages.
Into the Vosges Mountains - rather gradual climbs, but in steep sided valleys. The Vosges are formed as the western side of the Rhine plain. The Rhine (for the geology bluffs) Valley here is a graben - a flat plain about 50 km (30 miles) wide with geologic faults on either side - pretty steep walls to the valley. But, the slope down away from the valley is pretty gradual, and that's what we're climbing. Tomorrow we'll finish the climb to the top, then drop down into the flat Rhine valley and 2 days from now ride across the flat valley.
Riding today was through small farms and higher up the valley through beautiful, dark, shaded mixed conifer and deciduous forests - reminiscent of areas of New England, or of Oregon coastal range - but with smaller trees.
We'll ride into Munster - a French town, not the better known German town which is far to the north. Munster cheese is named for the French town, not (as I had long thought) for the German city.
The Vosges Mountains are in the area of Alsace-Lorraine. It is an area where towns that spoke German were intermingled with French-speaking towns. In 1870, the Germans won a war and took over Alsace-Lorraine and kicked out as many French as the could. In 1918, the French took it back - guess what they did. In WWII, Hitler used Alsace-Lorraine as an example of the evil of the French - and used that as a way to whip up a little militaristic fervor (seems to have succeeded). Germany never annexed the area, though the controlled it during most of WWII, and now it's back to French - though we're seeing more and more German sounding towns, and German names on streets (and one of our fellow riders poinnted out, at our campground German style unisex bathrooms and shower rooms - doors on the showers, much to the girls' delight).
Yesterday was supposed to be the longest day of the tour - 130 km. I managed to get lost with a group in the morning and added an extra 25 km, then get lost with Jean in the afternoon and added another 10 km or so - managed to get in a nice century ride.
Sorry, unable to load any new pictures today.
Into the Vosges Mountains - rather gradual climbs, but in steep sided valleys. The Vosges are formed as the western side of the Rhine plain. The Rhine (for the geology bluffs) Valley here is a graben - a flat plain about 50 km (30 miles) wide with geologic faults on either side - pretty steep walls to the valley. But, the slope down away from the valley is pretty gradual, and that's what we're climbing. Tomorrow we'll finish the climb to the top, then drop down into the flat Rhine valley and 2 days from now ride across the flat valley.
Riding today was through small farms and higher up the valley through beautiful, dark, shaded mixed conifer and deciduous forests - reminiscent of areas of New England, or of Oregon coastal range - but with smaller trees.
We'll ride into Munster - a French town, not the better known German town which is far to the north. Munster cheese is named for the French town, not (as I had long thought) for the German city.
The Vosges Mountains are in the area of Alsace-Lorraine. It is an area where towns that spoke German were intermingled with French-speaking towns. In 1870, the Germans won a war and took over Alsace-Lorraine and kicked out as many French as the could. In 1918, the French took it back - guess what they did. In WWII, Hitler used Alsace-Lorraine as an example of the evil of the French - and used that as a way to whip up a little militaristic fervor (seems to have succeeded). Germany never annexed the area, though the controlled it during most of WWII, and now it's back to French - though we're seeing more and more German sounding towns, and German names on streets (and one of our fellow riders poinnted out, at our campground German style unisex bathrooms and shower rooms - doors on the showers, much to the girls' delight).
Yesterday was supposed to be the longest day of the tour - 130 km. I managed to get lost with a group in the morning and added an extra 25 km, then get lost with Jean in the afternoon and added another 10 km or so - managed to get in a nice century ride.
Sorry, unable to load any new pictures today.
yeah, lost by accident... I believe that. You just wanted to ride more.
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