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Published: August 24th 2013
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We are starting to notice a change in the length of the sunlight as summer heads towards its closing stages,although we hope it hangs on for a while longer yet.
Our room at the hotel doesn't get direct morning sun so it was a good excuse to sleep in a bit longer and also to give Gretchen more time of rest although she woke this morning feeling much improved,even on yesterday.
We are heading today for an overnight stay close to the Swiss border and then tomorrow pop over into Basle and stay a night with Daniella who is a friend of our daughter,Leigh,they both having worked in a restaurant together while they were at University all those years ago.D moved earlier to Basle for a 3 year contract with her employer and at the time when she knew we were coming to Europe she invited us to stay.
The hotel had been comfortable enough but we are looking forward to a bit more space again with apartments that we have booked going forward around France.
The day as usual is beautifully fine and by the time we hit the road around 10am the day was already
heating up to the mid 20's.
The road initially took us through wine country with vineyards everywhere you looked.Even local cemetaries which had probably been there for several hundred years were engulfed by the vines leaving the dearly departed enclosed by vineyards.Not a bad location if you used to enjoy a tipple in your previous life!
Lunchtime found us in Gray,a sleepy town on the River Saone with an attractive bridge across the river with hanging flower baskets making it very photogenic.We had to walk a few streets before we finally found a boulangerie open to get ourselves some lunch which we took down and ate beside the riverside watching a couple of small boats exit a lock on one side of a weir in the river.
As we pushed on though we left the Burgundy vineyards behind and in their place were fields of what was left of harvested grains and huge acreages of baled hay.The farmers and their contractors were certainly hard at it in preparing for the coming winter.The only crop that still seems to be left to harvest is the fields of corn.
The territory we were driving through now on the
N57 was pretty well much uninhabited and at times we travelled several kilometres without seeing a farmhouse somewhere in the distance.
Then as we approached the town of Vesoul and descended own a hill into a wide open valley the whole scene changed with a great number of buildings that were all inter linked.These all turned out to be part of an assembly plant for Puegot and Citroen.To go with the buildings was a substantial railyards and we assume they ship the new cars out by rail.It seemed an odd place a great distance from any major French city to have such a large plant.But then it was close to the German border and perhaps components for the vehicles come from there too.We reminded Cindy that this was probably the place she came to being.She seemed so excited that we even ended up going the wrong way at one turn although to be fair that was more to do with Vicky the GPS,who could have come from China!
The road towards our destination turned more east and we arrived into a more populated area around the Swiss and German borders.
Our hotel for the night looked like
a converted Premiere Classe under another name as it had the usual 3 x 3 room although there was a separate shower and toilet which wasn't part of the room giving a little bit extra room to find somewhere for the suitcase,had we decided to bring it in.However we are only here for a night so we sorted out tomorrows clothes and came in with just one load.
There wasn't a lot of choice in restaurants in the immediate area and we opted for a Quick burger restaurant,the French equivalent of McDonalds but a slightly different taste to the burger ingredients.
We head into Switzerland for a 24 hour stay tomorrow and it looks like the fine weather will continue.
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