Sunday the 4th we woke up to rain. Actually the rain arrived during the night, we couldn't do anything about it but hope it would leave by morning - it didn't. It was cold and rainy all day, so we chose not to visit Lyon that day and instead caught up on our laundry. Fortunately there were facilities right there at the campground and we made use of them three loads worth. In between loads we computed, played cards, read and napped. (Hopefully the weather will soon improve consistently, this daytime napping is wreaking havoc on our nighttime sleeping patterns.) Had vegetable soup and baguettes for dinner and went to bed. Monday the weather had cleared enough for us to go to town (umbrella in hand, it wasn't that clear). We were camped at Camping International - Port de Lyon and a bus stop is at the entrance of the campgrounds. We road it to the end of the line and from there jumped the metro to downtown. That metro was the nicest one we have used yet. It must be very new, it had automatic cars with large windows so we could view the underground tracks (whoopee!) and was very clean with no graffiti or clutter. Three stops took us to the St. Jean cathedral exit where we road the escalator up into the heart of Le Vieux Lyon (old town). Lyon is another of those towns built by the Romans, Julius Caesar actually, at the conjunction of the Saone and Rhone rivers. Early on it was a merchant city and communications center and all of its history since has reinforced that purpose. It is pretty big, having spread out way beyond the original six hills on which it was begun. An important market center for centuries, it is also where the Lumiere brothers invented the cinema and an important silk industry is based here. A huge college population is here with 20% of the city inhabitants being students. Lyon considers itself one of Europe's best-kept secrets and is marketing itself accordingly. It has even convinced UNESCO to recognize it as a World Heritage Site. We spent the day from 10am to 8:00pm walking the streets of old Lyon and the alluvial peninsula between the two rivers. A great deal of it was pedestrianized which makes for easier gawking at historical buildings, shops and people. The Fourviere is the hill where the original Roman settlement was and is the oldest part of Lyon. A funicular takes you up the hill or you can climb the steps up. We opted for the later having no idea how many steps we had to climb - had we known we would have taken the funicular (be forewarned, my thighs ached for two days afterward!). A Roman theater and Odeon (?), which looked to us like a little theater, are being reconstructed using original materials. At the top of the hill is a basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is quite a landmark and quite the church. Outside it is impressive looking, but inside it is so intricately decorated as to demand that you sit down for a while to take it all in. Huge mosaic scenes of important French religious events are on the walls. The alter and ceilings are elaborately decorated too. It is fairly new, having been built in 1870 and reminded us of Sacre Coeur in Paris. Since none of the tourist books we consulted mentioned the basilica except in passing, I suspect the citizens of Lyon look upon it in the same manner as the Parisians do Sacre Coeur, with some disdain. We thought it was pretty cool, but then we liked Sacre Coeur too. After spending the day there, our take is that Lyon is a Paris wannabe. Both are ancient cities. Both cities grew up around rivers. Both are successful. Both have "over the top" basilicas built at almost the same time. Both have good metro and transit systems. Both have an extensive network of bridges crossing the rivers. Lyon even has a pedestrian bridge somewhat akin to Paris' Pont de Art. Both are illuminated at night. What Lyon doesn't have is the style and beauty and sense of culture that is Paris and that makes Paris so unique. Lyon doesn't have the architectural elegance that Paris has. The streets throughout the old town we walked housed commonplace buildings occasionally interspersed with outstanding ones. In fact, we are wondering why UNESCO included Lyon as an architectural site on its list. We saw nothing that warranted a whole area of the city to be included. And yet, we had a magical evening in Lyon. Occasionally you find yourself in a setting where everything comes together perfectly. Ours was nothing more than sitting at an outdoor café waiting for the city lights to come on. We drank wine, talked to the waiters, and watched squads of students garbed in black "uniforms" pass by. We were among the very few tourists in town and found that we were actually a part of an ordinary evening in Lyon...In Lyon, France - once again we realizing our boldness in making this trip and we savored our whole travel experience completely. Sometimes the ordinary can turn into the extraordinary and that night it did. The last bus to the campground was 8:45 and we ended up rushing to make it. At the bus stop we tried to get our three fellow passengers to sing a song. "Frere Jacques" was the only one we knew in French - they laughed and laughed and wouldn't join in!

Tuesday, March 6

We woke to a day that was stunning, clear skies and a bright sun - of course, it was a travel day! We drove north out of Lyon towards Dijon and hit wine country again. First Beaujolais wine country, which turned into Burgundy wine country. One knows that France is famous for its wines, but to see all these regions that grow the grapes is another whole story. Vineyards everywhere. Acres and acres and acres. In the winter all we can see are the bare vines and the stakes that support them. The vintners (is that what you call grape farmers?) are in the fields trimming the vines preparing them for spring growth. It looks like backbreaking work - leaning over each vine and cutting off old branches, leaving only one, then burning the clippings in a portable fire drum. Every vine must be tended in this manner and there must be millions of them - no exaggeration! The drive was uneventful, the only standout was the town of Beaune, formerly the capitol of the Dukes of Burgundy (until they moved to Dijon). It was another of those walled cities that I find so very impressive. Walled cities were a common enough event centuries ago, but to find ones that are perfectly preserved (or nearly so) in this day and age is less common. They all are beautiful, some a bit more than others, but what is so striking is how they perch above a modern community and are so obviously foreign to this era. The big event for our day was getting Bruce's bike fixed. He had blown out seven more spokes on his front wheel just before we left Spain and we were planning to have them replaced in Holland. He has missed riding something dreadful, and has actually been riding mine (with strict orders to be gentle on it). Today while grocery shopping at Carrefour, he found a whole new rim for $20 US. We took it to a sporting goods store in the same complex and their bike mechanic put the tire on the rim, gratis. Bruce was thrilled! Still in wine country, we made it to Dijon and as we drove through (there were no campgrounds nearby that are open) we found the city Lyon ought to be. Dijon was gorgeous! Beautiful old buildings and churches, the city walls still intact...this we saw just as we drove through! We plan to visit this city on our return trip, weather permitting. As soon as we left Dijon the grape fields vanished, it was odd, south of the city, vineyards; north - farmlands. Another fifty kilometers and we found our campground outside (the walled city of) Langres. The campground was a mess - mud and rain puddles everywhere. Since all the pitches are on grass it was like a swamp. We and the other six campers had to camp on the road so we wouldn't sink in the mud! Then it rained some more that night!

Wednesday, March 7, 2001

We got out of the swamp with nothing worse than muddy shoes on Queenie and drove six long hours in a bleak, foggy, rainy day. Trying to decide where to stop for the night was an exercise, there were no more open campgrounds until we hit reached Luxembourg City. We feared that would be a long trek and started out early. We took back roads towards Nancy and were treated to a scenic route of lovely countryside, or would have been if visibility were any good. What we saw were ghostly images of farmsteads, animals and trees partially hidden by the fog. Once we reached Nancy we got to use the motor route, which improved our timing considerably. We reached Luxembourg City around 1 pm and decided that was too soon to stop. Consulting our camp book we found the Bastogne campground we used on our last visit to be open year round. That settled, we drove to Bastogne. There we learned our camp book was wrong and the campground closed but we were directed 17 km further along our route to Houffalize, a very nice campground (3 star) but with the same winter problem, mud. We were able to camp on the tarmac and had the whole place to ourselves, not a single other camper around. Bruce took his newly repaired bicycle on a cruise and came back to get me to see some sights. We followed the road and the river Ourthe (perfect for kayaking!) towards a massive freeway viaduct (hence the name of our campground: Camping du Viaduc). It was a beautiful and massive engineering feat finished in 1978. What really caught our eyes was a small super upscale farm with the strangest sheep/goats we have seen yet. The males had double sets of horns, two growing straight up an easy foot long, and all had long, long coats of wool. They lived in a pasture with a gigantic metal sculpture of Don Quixote, easily 16 feet tall. Across the road where the farmhouse stood, were Sancho and his cart. My theory was this was an artist's homestead, it was so classy and artsy I could think of no other alternative to its existence. Bike ride finished, we BBQed chicken breasts and made a salad for dinner. When we tried washing our dishes in the designated dish washing area we came across a surprise, the water faucets were all turned off. We got water out of the bathrooms and washed our dishes only to discover the water was pouring out the drain onto the floor. What a mess! Then we had to grab the squeegee out of the bathrooms to mop the water. We figured they had opened the P-traps so they wouldn't freeze for the winter. And that is winter camping in northern Europe.

Thursday, March 08, 2001

Another day of travel heading towards Holland. We were still on the motorway, driving through the Ardennes, the local winter playground. We kept finding patches of snow and comforted Queenie (who doesn't like snow) by telling her not to look! The weather is very wintry looking, low lying clouds spitting rain but it isn't nearly as cold as it looks. The trees are trying to bud so we can tell spring is on its way. We passed through Liege, Belgium to reach Maastricht on the Dutch side of the border. Maastricht is the oldest city in the Netherlands with a large university. We had missed it on our previous trips, and since we had time to kill thought we would spend a day or two exploring it. The nearest open campground was in Valkenburg, about 9km north of the city so we headed for it. Once there we found the campground to be closed as were three others. We were getting nervous! Finally we found one that we thought was open, Camping de Bron. The gates were open and we drove up to reception but it was locked up tight. The store had empty shelves and the toilet block was closed. This did not look good! We had just about decided to continue traveling north when a young man came over from the restaurant across the street. Yes they were open and he checked us in. We parked on the road near the one toilet block that was open. We are getting highly amused, again we are the only ones in the campground. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the managers wonder what we are doing camping in the beginning of March. I am beginning to wonder it too! Poor Queenie is so muddy and damp from condensation I keep the heater on continuously in hopes of drying her out. The indoor/outdoor, 4x6, wall to wall carpet we so cherish is dirty and there is no cleaning up until the weather dries or we get south. In the meantime we slog along. Maastricht is too far to ride our bikes to so it looks like we will miss this city once again. However, we are in Holland again and as soon as we crossed the border it began to work its magic on us. The countryside is so pretty, even in winter, with such interesting towns and villages I found myself delighted to be back. While we tried finding an open campground we got to see a lot of Valkenburg and it is a delightful little burg. Another of those unexpected pleasures that happen even when we think our plans have been screwed up. We took our bikes out for our first ride in the Land of Bicycles. Holland has a fantastic system of bike lanes, very safe and out of the way of car traffic. We rode the countryside for an hour, our first extensive ride since leaving Spain. In that time we traveled through three villages, found a beautiful church and lots of farmland. When we returned to the campground we felt we had been successfully initiated in to the Dutch Bicycle Riding Club.

Friday, March 09, 2001

Finally made it to Utrecht. We are in the campground we began our journey in and I am still not too impressed. However we have no choice, nothing else is open and the location here is convenient to reaching town. The manager remembered us, even that we were last here in July. The weather is still overcast and spitting rain. If it ever stops today, we hope to ride into town. Tomorrow we plan to take the train to Amsterdam for the day. Monday we see Donna whose mechanic will do a pre-check of Queenie for our A.P.K test. Tuesday maybe the A.P.K. itself? Then could we possibly be lucky enough to leave here Wednesday to begin our return trip south? We are anxious to check out the French/Italian Riviera (and maybe get away from the rain!). We were a little premature in awarding ourselves certificates for the Dutch Bicycle Riding Club. The rain gave us a break and we took it, jumping on our bikes and heading through the adjacent park towards center of town. We were so excited! We were waving at all our fellow bikers - "Hi! We've come to play with you big guys!" As we neared town we realized we were in danger of being overrun by the hordes of cyclists! Forget worrying about cars or pedestrians, our fellow bicyclers were who we had to watch out for. And they needed to watch out for us! For sure there are Dutch bicycle rules of the road, and we don't know them. Who has the right of way at bike intersections? When there is no bike lane (not often) who goes first? Do you ring bells at cycylists? Are there places bikes aren't allowed? So many questions and where do we find the answers? We have always noted (and used as a byword) that the Dutch walk with purpose. No dilly-dallying for them, no siree! They head for their destination pronto. They ride their bikes in the same fashion. Riders coming up on us from behind and assuming we knew bike etiquette almost bowled us over a couple of times. They tended to look at us oddly, but nothing worse. Our cheap little bikes fit right in with the hundreds and hundreds of bikes we saw too. Actually, ours looked pretty damn good compared to many of them. We rode around town for a little while, pointing out streets and places we had been to previously then worked our way home before the rain started again. It was a blast!!!