Hotel Relais Des Vallieres Besançon

... count! In Besancon, we visited the Musee du Temps (museum of time) which houses many time pieces through the centuries. We saw the "world's most complicated watch" . Additionally, we saw the Astronomical Clock that has 30,000 parts which run 70 dials giving 122 different indices. Amazing! Besancon is surrounded by a Citadelle /Fortress, which ...

Finally got to a chateau today, but not the sort I had anticipated. I had been expecting something more grand with lots of fine furnishings, gillt etc.. and while this chateau was grand it was a bit more medieval. It had been an important line of defense in the many wars that have featured in France's history. After the Revolution the revolutionaries ordered it and many chateaux to be destroyed because of what they represented, so this magnificent ...

... interesting local fish.I told Ed he was not allowed to fish there. :) It also had a pool of large goldfish outside that you could pet. They tried to eat Ed's fingers. We checked out the "Insectarium" as well, where they had tanks of different insects from different places. Hopefully it is still there, since the room was primarily made of wood and we saw a lot of termites escaping their exhibit when we walked through. We walked along the tops of ...

... hello to various people on the trail as you do. In the end I got into Krems about 4pm. At 56 miles its decent day (after yesterdays disaster). I do need a rest day; the washing situation is desperate and my hands and muscles are feeling it. But they have great maps outside town so you can see how to get to what your looking for. Excellent. So I go straight to the camping but they don't have wifi so I head for the hostel. Which is ...

... as I'm in a major town and its possible but its replacement looks less warm and cost almost three times as much. After that I went for a ride round the city's riversides which were full of people sunbathing. Also on one island people were having barbecues etc and it had a very nice relaxed feeling. So I got off and hung out for a bit. Then back to the supermarket for supper then another kip and finally to blog. Quest for wireless didn't happen so no photo's uploaded. The ...

... compatible stuff; just a tupperware box. No lockers either but it looks ok. Food supply should be better Tomorrow too as only cafe's were open today. Two nights here as I want to reaquaint myself. 150 kms from the austrian border, thats 2/3 days cycling. Hostel has a shower in the shareed room, a terrace and a TV room but no wifi. Went for a night time stroll in Regensburg. Its changed and there are a lot more cars. Also my memory of it is an ...

... map tomorrow and see if they identify themselves. It would be good to offload the used maps onto someone who's going to use them. Raining hard again first thing this morning. It's now stopped and the workmen have decided that shouting about where to drill is a good prelude to drilling concrete. Which makes a kind of ringing noise. Then about 30 minutes ago we had a heavy snow/sleet fall which didn't settle and is now moving away. Checking out the route in S Germany across the ...

... to get lost, and I wasn’t even leading. Though we did have the world’s crappiest map and the most useless instructions to go with it. Honest to god one of the instructions we were given was “if you see a dog, follow it. It knows the way and will lead you.” We did indeed find a dog frolicking in some vineyards, which my group insisted we should have followed. Considering that I saw Lassie the actual wonder dog later, and this was ...

... with herbs, pepper, flour, etc. or inside they were stuffed with cheese or something like that....Also this is the region in France where you start to see hard cheeses contrary to the very soft, creamy cheeses that you see in the majority of France. At this particular market there were a lot of sausage and cheese stands, so much to the point where I began to realize that this was something regional, so I decided to go up to one of the stand ...

... used constantly during it's hayday. During WWII, it was used as a headquarters for the Resistance movement in France against the Nazis. Today, it's like a little theme park, which is basically a zoo, a park, a museum, and an aquarium all into one-there were a lot of French tourists there, primarily families, because well there's a lot there for families to do. it was a lovely Citadelle and it was very interesting to see it. Sadly I didn't ...