Goodby Saone, Hello Doubs

Dijon to Besancon to Montbeliard

Day 47 - Friday - July 29
Dijon to Besancon
It took us an hour to get out of town as the construction continued to play havoc with our route planning. This is the Chapelle des Carmelites built in 1642.

Must be a little town since there are only 2 passages (crosswalks).

After all the hustle and bustle of Paris and Dijon, silence and cow bells were our sounds of the day.

At the junction in Pontailler sur Saone, Donna spied a Coiffure that said both men and women served. 

Doug gave it a try as the barber of Seville had been quite awhile ago and he was getting pretty darn fuzzy.

We grabbed a sandwich and a pastry down the street from this great little lunch spot on the Saone River. 

Some plantation hardwood forestry.

Even France has little clearcuts.

Our smell of the day was wildflowers.

We spent the afternoon climbing out of the Saone River watershed to enter the Doubs River area. We were a little sad to say goodby to the Saone as it has been such a great place to ride.

Day 48 - Saturday - July 30
Besancon to Montbeliard
The Doubs River is our new river route...it's starting to be a theme!

That is the Citadel on top of the hill. Vauban, a famous French military planner had it built in the late 1600's. At the  riverside, we found our first sign for Eurovelo Route 6, a happy coincidence. It one of 12 trans-European bike routes we had discovered online last year.

We've been rolling our own since Lisbon so having signs to follow  reduced the time needed for route finding and was relaxing to boot.

This bicycle art was so distracting that we missed a turn in the route. The benefit was that we found lunch at the local food market. They had a very nice diner......better than last night's dinner at half the cost!

Many of the traffic circles, and there are LOTS, are nicely landscaped.

Navigation is made possible by an extensive series of locks and side canals.

Vacation cottages along the river.

A lavoir (old communal laundry site) that caught our eye.

Eurovelo Route information pillar. These were very helpful since we didn't have our own detailed map of the route.

One of the smallest drawbridges we've ever seen.

Another Angel of the Road. This gentleman guided us the last several miles to Montbeliard through a particularly complicated section, saving us a lot of time and frustration. 

We aren't sure what they were saying but they were having a great time saying it. They really hammed it up when Doug pointed his camera their way.

Our home for the evening....the.room was on the 3rd floor with no elevator. If we weren't tired when we arrived, we were definitely tired after carrying all our gear up those stairs.

Our room did have a nice view of the town though.