Bit of a disasterous start to this one! After booking the trip through Rad and Reisen, an Austrian cycling company, we booked our very cheap flights with KLM to Zurich. Unfortunately our flight was cancelled, fair enough these things happen, but our luck ran out when they told us that we'd be flying with Air France instead. We'd both had bad experiences at Charles de bloody Galle Airport, not only did they lose Angela's luggage the last time she was there, but I very nearly missed another flight there, due to their rubbish security/airport design. So we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. We arrived in Zurich without luggage, having taking the SAME plane with the same crew from Edinburgh and Paris - in other words they unloaded our luggage in Paris and failed to put it back on the same plane! That's Air France for you, not just rubbish but consistantly rubbish.
Fortunately for us we'd packed some cycling shorts in the hand luggage and our cycle rep. did a great job of chasing up our lost luggage - we managed to get it a couple of days later, by which time we must have been smelling pretty badly!
Our route took up the Rhine, from Strasbourg towards Mulhouse before returning up the Alsace, via the traditional wine route (hic). One the way we saw some great wee towns and villages, very well preserved considering how many times the region has changed hands. |
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The cycle itself was far more challenging than in Holland the previous year - we were caught out a couple of times by big lunches, well that's our excuse anyway ;O) If you're ever down that way don't rush past, there's some places well worth a visit, especially Riquewihr and Obernai.
British tourists seem quite rare around these parts, we were constantly being mistaken for being Dutch! But English is widely spoken, which was lucky for us.
After a great weeks cycling we returned to near Basel for my wee sister Helen's wedding, to Jochen who she met climbing in Morocco. Check out some photos from the day itself below - a fantastic day for all who were there :O) |
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