We woke up to blue skies and the promise of a brilliant days riding in favourable climatic conditions. Firstly we needed to backtrack 6 km from central Belfort back to Danjoutin to pick up the route descriptors. We then headed towards Vezelois picking up the cycle path adjacent to the canal. The canal path went on and on and on, but it was quite picturesque, passing by the edge of numerous villages.
There were many fisherman sitting on the edge of the canal often with multiple rods out. Not sure that I would be keen on eating the fish as the water is quite muddy looking and I am pretty sure the fish would taste muddy too.
At the 48 km mark we needed to negotiate the large city of Mulhouse before rejoining the bike track. This was quite slow and fiddly. We passed an open spot featuring a field gun and over the canal an army tank.
I gather the area saw a battle involving the sad demise of around soldiers during World War II. As the day was so nice and easy we decided to continue on and break just before the Swiss border at Huningue, as we had a good supply of euro but no Swiss francs. We found a delightful cafe called Le Shakespeare adjacent to the canoe centre and enjoyed a great lasagne. The waiter talked us into having tiramisu. Whilst I was already full it was very, very nice! Back onto the bike path following the Rhine river to cross the Swiss border we saw Basel looming ahead.
The Swiss border theoretically was just a few hundred metres ahead but access was blocked by a very large locked fence and gate. So we needed to use our nous and create our own deviation path backtracking and heading away from the river.
