Haute Saône: On The Bicycle I

Cycling around with Ernest and Nicole used to be one of my activities in Neuves-Granges. After I left them in 2002, they missed me for that. This time before my visit, they told me they had got my bicycle ready. So I thought we would be pedaling up and down the roads in the countryside very often during my stay there.

Almost one week after my arrival, we went for the first ride. And they suggested a new place, the cycle route in the region.

The Nantes-Budapest cycle route crosses several countries from East to West of Europe, including 1000 kilometres in France. Franche-Comté is one of the regions which participate in the project.

To avoid the crowd, we chose a Tuesday late morning. We took our time to load the car with the bicycles, food and bottles of water. Somehow we left behind helmets and gloves.

When we drove to Montbozon, the midday sun was unlike the one we had in Malaysia at its full heat throughout the year. I would have been reluctant to even get down from the car. The starting point was already a pleasant view.

After we had left the car at the parking and taken our bags, we began our bike ride. It was a very pleasant outing with the nice weather and the fantastic scenery.

My eyes, as well as my camera, were busy capturing the greenness of

the forest

and of the grass.

Ernest suddenly stopped and took out his video camera from his waist bag. He had discovered a pair of owls resting on a branch nearby. When I waited for him to finish filming and my turn to take a picture of the birds, one of them flew away. I was worried that it would also join its partner soon, so I promptly shot it on film without the camera's zooming in on its face.

As the cycle route used to be a railway, we met from time to time a building which used to be a station on the level crossing.

We sometimes also came across houses,

cows,

sheep,

and of course lovely flowers.

Sometimes we passed under a flyover.

There was an area where big rocks were neatly placed on both sides.

After two hours of pedalling, we decided to take a lunch break when we saw a table and benches.

We could feel the sun's rays striking when we stopped moving. As we had forgotten to bring the helmets, Nicole affectionately laid a tissue paper on Ernest's half bald head to prevent it from shining more...

But the wind blew the thin and light protection away very soon. And Nicole herself also could not stand the heat on her head. Actually what we needed was not solar energy, but glucose, protein and carbohydrate to provide another type of energy to our leg muscles in order to continue our journey. The menu of our picnic was fruits for starter, cheese-sausage sandwiches for main course and chocolate mousse for dessert. Bon appétit!

Once the stomachs were filled, we rode on the bicycles again. We passed under a few flyovers,

and found one of them with colourful paintings on the wall. The animals were glad that we were reaching our destination soon.