I’ve a hour or so up my sleeve while I wait for a train to Basel – yes, a train. But I’ve been convinced that the cycling from Strasbourg to the Basel/Mulhouse area is none too exciting and while pleasant, the ride from Wissembourg to Strasbourg was enough of the flat Rhine valley to see. From there, I think I’ll skirt the French-Swiss border through the Jura range – if I can handle that & whatever the weather does – and somehow get over/through the Alps to Aosta in NW Italy.

As mentioned, Saturday’s ride into Strasbourg was not too thrilling – pretty flat (only a hundred metres of climbing in over ninety kilometres) as I paralleled the Rhine upstream. A lot of it was road too, with not many dedicated cycle routes to be had. It rained quite a bit, but nowhere as bad as the torrents that fell from the sky in Belgium. As I was sitting eating my lunch, through another shower, I saw a couple of Italian flags flying past on the back of touring bikes. Eventually I caught up to Giorgio & Nora sheltering under a shop awning from another shower. From Umbria, they were a week into their honeymoon cycle-touring from Amsterdam back towards Italy – I think they were sick of the same weather that I was.

While we mostly conversed in English as we shared the ride into Strasbourg, it was fun to try out what Italian I can remember. Just as we approached the city, there was a cycle-path off the road and this one was most definitely riding along the top of the Maginot line – it was raised like a stop-bank for the river, but every couple of hundred metres there was a concrete bunker/pill-box. I bid my Italian cycling buddies arrivederci as we neared their campground and I my first warmshowers.org experience (like couch-surfing, but for cycle-tourists).

Adrien greeted me warmly, we managed to get my bike in the elevator up to the sixth floor (29” wheels are almost a bit much for small European elevators) and I even got a loaned a pair of house shoes (slippers) for my stay. Thankfully, Adrien graciously let me stay an extra night to what I initially proposed – this meant that I could have my birthday completely off the bike – and cooked me dinner and made tea. Like a lot of border town/cities around here – Strasbourg has at different times been German & French.

More TPHS history classes here: Germany lost Alsace (the region of which Strasbourg is the largest city) and neighbouring Lorraine back to France after Versailles, I’m unsure how many times before the area has changed hands. So there is a big German influence in the city’s buildings and language. In fact, Adrien is a primary school teacher and he shares two classes of six to seven year olds with another teacher – he teaches in German, while the other teacher teaches in French (I think I’ve got that correct). But Adrien is from Brittany, so not a native German speaker – but then Europeans do so much better at learning languages than Kiwis.

I slept well on a proper mattress, slept-in & missed birthday calls from family back home, returned said calls, slowly got organised and headed into the city for a leisurely look around – snacking regularly on various baked goodies. A climb up the cathedral (also called Notre Dame) tower was the most strenuous my day got – but 330-odd stairs take a little effort. As it was Sunday, there were only really tourists around but the city gradually woke up and was nice to walk around looking at the buildings and canals. I sat writing postcards, finally, with a beer looking up at the cathedral.

I did enjoy looking at all the steep roofs from the cathedral tower.

The view from Adrien’s apartment

Upon my return Adrien & his mate had returned from a couple of hours of road riding to the west towards the Vosges. I had suggested that I take him out for dinner as thanks and also for my brithday – but he was keen to cook crepes and somehow with the help of his ex-flatmate, it turned into a dinner party of nine. We rearranged the kitchen and living area to try and hold nine people and then Adrien dragged out his crepe hot-plate, for want of a better word. Bretons take their crepes seriously – this hot-plate was a 30th birthday present and it was hefty, weighing in at eighteen kilograms! That’s getting up there with my loaded bike. A vast amount of batter was made up, with buckwheat flour – this is best I’m told and gradually people started arriving.

Over a few hours the crepe hot-plate was in constant use and over good conversation (although I was lost whenever it strayed from English, which was often) and three bottles of champagne a most memorable birthday was rounded off. Somehow during the course of the evening my named morphed to Brian – to which there is only one answer. “I’m not Brian!” – of course that is slightly wrong with the negative, but it’s always surreal to me to be discussing Monty Python with people from foreign-speaking countries, for some reason.

Adrien with the tools of the trade

By the time I ran a few errands this morning (another kilogram shed from my luggage and rear bag structure now more secure), it was getting close to noon – Adrien has definitely gone out of his way to accommodate me. What a great stay and a nice break from the bike (only two weeks in), thanks Adrien and au revoir.