TOUR DE BOURGOGNE

Wednesday August 23rd

We leave with our camping car direction Dijon to get to a camping site, Camping du Lac de Kir, Dijon. We arrive there late afternoon, get settled and like it. I prepared a salad at home, get a pizza with it and we enjoy a lovely dinner. After that a nice stroll around lac de Kir. We make it an early bedtime. Unfortunately, a lot of noise around us, the neighbour packs up at 6:00. But we can leave the camping car in " garage morte" modus until we return. Very convenient!

Thursday 24th August

7:00, we are early birds. I've prepared at home a fruit salad, I pour some coffee, buy some bread and organize a nice breakfast. After that, quickly cleaning, washing up, getting the car to the garage morte and leave. –“Le Canal de Bourgogne“ is right next to the camping site. So, we can easily follow it after getting some nice pictures of “Chateauneuf”. For the rest nice, smooth water on the canal, some ducks and houseboats. The air is damp and moisty, really heavy. On our way we pass Pouilly-en-Auxois, where we have been cycling years before.

Here the canal runs through a very long tunnel. At about 3 o’clock a very hard wind starts to blow our heads off with strong gusts. It looks like rain; the sky is totally black, but we can make it without any serious downpour. Get to a supermarket and buy enough drinks (it is still very warm; we drink liters and liters. …), and get to Pouillenay, Hotel Macarena 102km.
Dinner at the hotel 

Chateauneuf

Friday, 25th of August

In the night we can already hear some heavy rain drumming against the windowpane. This means for us to get our rain gear immediately sorted out, rain jackets right on top of the bag, we try not to despair, get some breakfast first and start cycling in a lighter rain than during the night. I don’t mind the rain so much since the general temperature is still rather warm. 

After 1 hour we can already take off the full rain gear and gradually we peel out of the warmer clothes. It is clearing up and the day evolves into a pleasant cycling day. At times we are all alone: no roads, no houses, no other cyclists, only us and the canal. The ride is easy, and we find a good pace. After a little break we get to St Florentin, Chambre d’hôtes. This is an old “maison de maître”, well restored and decorated. We get a lovely room and just when we open our bags to get settled, a very heavy rain shower starts outside. Glad we are indoors now; we shower and do some shopping and find a little “crèperie” for dinner. 101km

Saint Florentin

Saturday 26th of August

In the evening some more heavy showers left us with cooler temperatures than the previous day. So, we dress a bit warmer and leave, rain gear ready to use it any time. We hit the canal and leave St Florentin. It is really chilly; I wear my jacket. Our ride is a bit varied today since we often leave the canal to cycle through little villages and small towns. A nice change, a different landscape. We get to Auxerre, a perfect little jewel of a town: a very nice Gothic cathedral, half-timbered houses and many tourists tasting some Bourgogne wine and having lunch. We enjoy a little stroll around while pushing our bikes and taking pictures. Later we learn that Vauban was born in this area, there are countless castles and fortifications, he must have had a hand in that…



We are on and off the canal, getting a bit lost at places and end up in a tiny village Surgy, l’Auberge de l’Orme 102km. Here we are close to the canal Yonne. The hotel is very old and extremely modest, but it was all we could get. Nevertheless, the elderly landlady cooks her first vegetarian meal for us (this is after all the Bourgogne, not exactly a “veggie” place…) and we are grateful for that.


Sunday 27th of August

Get our breakfast, get our bikes out of the bar where they spent the night and start to cycle. Soon we are at another canal, “le canal du Nivernais”. This is a famous channel for “la tradition du bois flottant » (floating wood) : this is a system where they float big wooden logs, align them similar to a raft and let them drift downriver. After a while we peel out of our warmer clothes although temperatures will be moderate for the rest of the day. One part of the canal ascends: “l’échelle à 16 écluses”,a row of 16 sluices, one after the other,this is quite tiring. We get to Cercy La Tour and, surprise, find an open little “épicerie”. I quickly buy some fruit and drinks for the coming day.

After that we arrive at our Chambre d’hôtes, chez Marie, with extremely friendly people. They show me a kitchen that I am free to use, and I hurry back to the little shop to buy some food. I cook a nice vegetarian pasta with a salad, and we enjoy it thoroughly! Cleaning, showering and resting.

Monday 28th of August

Breakfast at “Marie’s” is delicious, we can borrow even a pump to refill our tubes and happily leave these friendly hosts. Again, a rather chilly morning. We return to Canal Nivernais and follow a little loop to Decize, a little town on the top of a hill, the church in the center, the houses in a circle around it.

Decize

 Pittoresque! Get back to the crossroads and continue to Bourbon-Lancy. At Devay the 2 rivers split up and we take the side of the Loire en Bourgogne. We do not always follow the river Loire in a straight line, although right at the beginning we ride on a kind of “dam” next to it. But later we follow a track that leads us through the countryside, the canal gone, but up and down, at places rather steep ascends to our surprise…. We stay on this track for quite a while until we read a sign “Voie verte de Dijon” 37km. We decide to use this typical old railway trace, aligned with big trees and less hilly. Soon another surprise: Dijon is now announced at 19 km, so much less than a few moments before. Well, we don’t mind this cut off since it had been a bit of a difficult day weatherwise (warm clothes on/off, rain gear on/off…) so we feel like getting done with this.

Digoin

In Digoin we cross the same water bridge (bridge plus canal, so water over water) than 2008. Funny to be back suddenly.

 

Hotel Montagne et Mer  

94km

Shopping and pizza

Tuesday 29th of August

Same procedure again: after breakfast prepare all the warm clothes and keep the rain gear at hand since it is cold again. Heading away from Digoin we ride across the country until we hit “Eurovélo 6” (The EuroVelo 6, which we have done years before, is an almost 4,500 kilometer long cycle route that connects the Black Sea with the Atlantic) that leads us soon to Paray-le-Monial, a nice town with its abbey (rather famous) and the cathedral. The place developed a bit into a cultural highlight with the numerous exhibitions, art galleries and concerts.

Paray-le-Monial

We cycle on, up and down and over and out, I sometimes lose all sense of direction and wonder if we are turning in circles… which we obviously don’t do because we safely end up at the river again. Here we can follow an easy line along the river and get to Monchanin. Some way to go before we finally find our “B&B” hotel, get a good place to store the bikes and have our first little rest since we started the tour. Dinner next to the hotel and get settled for the last day.

Wednesday 30th of August


Chilly morning again, so back to warm clothes. After riding along a canal until Chagny we turn off and get another veloroute. Although the temperature is really modest for an August day, we still enjoy the kind of serene atmosphere. The track’s quality is really good, the ride enjoyable. Finally we get to the wine hills and vineyards, amazing, as far as the eye can see vines!!!And….the picking and harvesting has just started, “les vendanges”, it is very busy around us. We cycle through this landscape for many kilometers, enjoying the sights and stopping at places to watch the activities…Everywhere “les clos, les domaines, les caves” in full action. The wine villages are really nicely restored and maintained, there is some money where there is wine!

Meursault

We come through “Beaune”, beautiful town in the Bourgogne and certainly a highlight of our trip: the buildings with that typical Beaune style (colourful tiles on the roof, arranged in a special pattern) , “Hotel de Dieu, the Cathedral, little streets with countless wine shops and wine tasting places…

The sky shifts from grey to kind of blueish back to gray…until we arrive in “Nuits-St-Georges”, one of France’s “wine-Meccas”.75 km Ibis Hotel

We stroll through the little town, there is not a lot to see, get dinner at a kind of “crêperie” and go back to the hotel.


Thursday 31st of August

We leave Nuits St George for rather a short cycling day. We get back to our camping site outside of Dijon to find our camping car patiently waiting for us at the parking space. We load the bikes on the car, pay the camping site, hop into the car and off we are towards Luxembourg.

670 km

100 SCHLÖSSER MÜNSTER

 

Thursday, 8th of June 2023

Happy birthday, Jacquel!

The plan is to leave at midday, we calculate some four to five hours to Münster, make it an early evening arrival, so we can check in at the hotel get settled and the car safely parked. After that, some food, and "bubbles" for Jacquel!

Hiltrup-Hotel just in the outskirts of Münster, we find the public (plus free) parking right in front of the hotel open (it is a car sharing parking space). The bikes are safe in the hotel, we get some dinner and prepare for tomorrow's departure.

Ahlen

Friday, 9th of June

We leave the car behind in Hiltrup and get launched on the tour. Immediately we pick up the idea: very "Nordic", real countryside, red brick houses, half-timbered - the typical Northern style of buildings; The farms look nice and tidy, with huge red roofs and large barns. It smells strongly of chicken and pigs. The grass is high, at the point of being cut. There are lots of stripes of cornflowers,daisies and poppies, all very colourful. We enjoy the ride, get a cold drink in Ahlen and go on. 

We follow a bit the river "Wese", but don't come past any castles so far. Instead, endless fields with many small Iceland ponies. Arrival at “Hotel Dreams”, Beckum. No restaurant here, so we cycle back into town and enjoy a tasty Indian meal. 80 km

I have a premonition about something else: - in the morning we get a solid breeze which builds up to some serious headwinds until late afternoon, when it is blasting our heads off!!!!

Rittergut Haus Heerfeld

Saturday, 10th of June

Get ready to leave right after breakfast. Today is a bit of an open end story; we could reserve a room, but all restaurants are closed in the tiny village, so we might face another ride to the next village to get some dinner, but first we enjoy the early morning ride; a breeze, but not a chilly one, accompanies us through the nice countryside. This area uses the Dutch Junction system (Knotenpunkte). We are always at awe, how efficiently this system works, well signed out tracks of good quality. Pleasant! We enjoy and like the villages here: nice churches, beautiful, old houses, nicely restored. Our first castle is well restored and holds some lovely gardens, with cleverly shaped hedges, all green and large, the second castle + gardens are as well very picturesque. Some kms before we cycle through Rhede-Wiedenbrück and take some nice pictures of the the beautiful maintained houses.

Rhede-Wiedenbrück

After some 85 km we arrive at our hotel “Gasthof Averbeck” (Ostenfelde) which is still closed. We are early, so we decide to get a drink at the golf course. Here we reserve a table for dinner.The hotel owner sends me his message, she is welcoming us right now (earlier than expected). So, we get back to the hotel, shower and wash our clothes,cycle back to the golf course and enjoy quite a luxurious dinner . 90 km

Sassenberg

Sunday 11th of June

Today a long ride on the "menu". Again, the typical countryside with big fields of wheat and barley. Half of the day we judge the ride as an easy one: flat and smooth tracks.
Then we get a bit of a struggle with some good hills, even more so when a heavy  wind blows and the quality of the tracks is declining drastically... After some 60 km we get a break and some snacks, Dutch poffertjes, yummy, and ice cream. To pay for the calorie sin, we get some serious hills to climb and after that even get lost and cycle back for a short distance. Arrival in Tecklenburg after some 87 km, a town built up on the mountain with open air festivals in the castle. Bismarkhöhe Hotel

Monday 12th of June

start as early as possible after breakfast. We get steep ascents and rather cruel descends (my personal "pain limit" is at speed 50 km!) after a lot of ups and downs (thank you, e-bike!) the landscape changes: a smooth transition from serious hilly parts to merciful flatter grounds. An improvement of the track quality. At kilometer 50 we get some nice cake! During the afternoon we ride several times on tracks called "Fahrradstraße". These hold  an extremely smooth tarmac and run in a very straight line, a bit like the French "voies vertes ", the old railway tracks. We continue the ride and  come bye a huge castle, it looks like a French "Domaine",beautifully maintained (Schloss Surenburg)

Schloss Surenburg

Many churches are real eye-catchers, solid and big. We arrive in Bentheim, a big fortification over towering the city. Here as well they announce open air festivals, the castle as a backdrop. After some searching, we find our hotel DS on the hilly side (really hilly). Dinner at a Mexican restaurant, tasty! 90 km

Bad Bentheim

Tuesday 13th of June

 Early morning hours are very atmospheric: sunny, a soft breeze, all peaceful and quiet. We see quite a number of animals, like hares, rabbits, deer, pheasants, storks, ferret, woodpeckers etc. The animals are not very shy, they seem to know that cyclists are harmless, again we get to one of these "Fahrradstraßen" with a tarmac so smooth it makes our tires "sing". Great ride. Two jewels on the way: our favorite "die Wasserburg" with plenty of wild geese on the pond, worth the detour!

Wasserburg Haus Welbergen

Wasserburg Burgsteinfurt

Wasserschloss Darfeld

Wasseschloss Dareld

Coesfeld

Arrive in "Coesfeld" Casa Mallorca. This is a guest house where you receive a code by phone to open a little key box at the entrance. To our surprise it turns out to be a little flat, so I go shopping to prepare our own dinner plus breakfast the next day.

Lüdinghauser Tor-Dülmen

Wednesday 14th of June

We enjoy our homemade breakfast, rather early, since we expect a long day trip. Up till now Gaston kept on changing our plans constantly, organizing the route along the hard found accommodations. So, the trip starts to vary and drifts off many times from our original route.
This makes it hard to calculate distances. But there isn't really an option, every evening we work with two phones to search for hotels or guest houses... It is according to THEM that we calculate the route. Today we are so early that the wind is still cold and of course : headwinds. At km 50 we have a little picnic right next to modest castle and warm up in the sun. We cycle on and understand that we don't have to do 100 km (lucky, with that wind); we get quite often to small towns with an attractive little center. We take a break and walk through these, enjoying the sight seeing. Arrival in Erle, at the Brömmel-Wilms Haus 90km.

Haltern am See

Wasserschloss Lembeck

Thursday, 15th of June

The weather is still very nice and the wind less strong than the other days. We find a lovely trail along a small river, then around a lake, next to a canal, now on dirt tracks. The bikes and our bags get terribly dusty, our legs and feet have a layer of dust, too. Again, a beautiful castle "Wasserburg" "Anholt", all surrounded by water. The water lilies are splendid and the rose garden fantastic. 

Wasserburg Anholt

We have a funny encounter with a stork: not high up in a nest

but on the top of the trunk of a low-cut willow tree, not shy at all and close to the cycling track. Deer in a cornfield, hares on the grass plains, we enjoy these wild animal encounters very much. We even do a quick "sidestep" to the Netherlands, right through Dinxperlo. Lots of Dutch people cycle next to us, the border is just right at our route. We have to take some detours, there is some work on the roads. We get a bit lost but, in the end, finish our loops in Bocholt Hotel Europahaus. Dinner at Café-Sahne 75 km

Friday 16th of June

"EuropaHaus" is a specialized job training centre (Healthcare). That turns it into a busy place for young and old, so people chat outside in the yard making a lot of noise and robbing us of a quiet sleep. But we get up and out very early, being on the street before 8:00. Right from the start we can see two nice castles, first Jugendburg (Gemen) and second Schloss Valon.

Jugendburg (Gemen)

The track leads us a bit up and down, but it is the wind we are basically struggling with. It even builds up into hard gusts around midday. 

Rehde

Rhede is a little place with a nice church and an impressive church spire. We meet some wild hares running in the fields. Another nice castle "Schloss Diepenbrock" ,north of Bocholt. We head on, the trails vary from nice and smooth to dirt tracks. A few wrong turns but in the end, we make it safely to the castle"Wasserschloss Egelborg" which is very close to our destination "Hermann's Höhe" Ledgen.  105 km

Schloss Diepenbrock

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Wasserschloss Egelborg

Saturday 17th of June

we are on the road at about 9:00, this year Gaston struggles with the distances: sometimes we are prepared for a long and hard ride which turns out to be much shorter and easier. This is exactly what happens today: at the junction point we realize that Gaston's estimation was wrong, we shall have a much shorter trip than calculated. We think about an option: making a different loop, including a visit of Münster to our day trip.

Münster

Luckily, we find the way signed out and cycle at top speed towards Münster. And we immediately get rewarded: Münster is a beautiful old town with picturesque gables, churches, and a fantastic cathedral.  All nice and clean and well maintained. It is a student's town, so we are surrounded by many bikes; cycling here requires a lot of concentration. After enjoying a nice stroll and taking many pictures, we decide to cycle back, get a bite and a drink at the outskirts of town. We cycle on towards Vennemoore Hotel.  Here we get a nasty surprise: we have booked the wrong day! This is a delicate situation, but the hotel owners are extremely tolerant and let us a complete apartment under the condition to only use one room and the bathroom.  So lucky! After settling down, we get a delicious dinner at the hotel so glad to be safe for the night. (all other accommodations are fully booked!!!)  85km

Sunday 18th of June

Hotel "Venne Moor" doesn't charge us with any extra costs for our mistake, so nice that we met with such tolerant people! Thank you, Venne Moor. After a very stylish breakfast we leave the place. The early morning hour is our favourite time of the day: quiet, peaceful, some animals around, chirping birds and a soft breeze. The only thing we do mind during the trip is the smell: the Germans like their pork! Everywhere are big farms with pigsties that produce all this ham, the schnitzel and the sausages. Naturally that results in a very unpleasant stench. It follows us all around and we are glad not to live here. But the cycling days get lightened up by magnificent castles. We meet four different ones, "Schloss Senden, Haus Kakaesbeck, Schloss Nordkirchen, Schloss Westerwinkel". 

Schloss Senden

Haus Kakesbeck

Our favorite of these three is "Schloss Nordkirchen", impressive, a real large estate, with a huge garden with many stone statues. It reminds us a bit of the French castles, kind of pompous... After buying some drinks we continue on our way to get another little fright: Gaston has a  puncture at his front wheel. We are in the middle of nowhere and push the bikes to a little space to start the repair. We struggle very hard to get the tire off the bicycle rim (the new e-bikes are not so easily repaired). At some point a young cyclist helps us. He seems to know the trick.... On top of our bad luck, the brand-new tube is defect, too. Gaston repairs it and we are finally done with this long procedure! It is already rather late, at last, we arrive in Ascheberg "Goldener Stern". Dinner at the local pizzeria 91 km

Schloss Nordkirchen

Monday 9th of June

we leave "Goldener Stern“ to start our last day. The "100 Schlösser" is a collection of several loops which Gaston put together into one big tour. Of course, the loops are interconnecting, and we sometimes pass a place for the second time.That is exactly what’s happening today: we are finishing the loop and get to familiar tracks.  We enjoy the ride, passing fields with free range chickens: it is funny to watch the hens hopping happily up the ladder of their little "home" van. I can't resist and get some fresh eggs from the farmer’s little self-service cabin.- In the end we arrive in Hiltrup, load the bikes on the camping car and drive back home to Luxembourg +/- 1000 km