DAY 5 on the bike, June 18th - Chalon-sur-Saône to Bourg-en-Bresse

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This entry by Tom.

We started our day with a pretty good Kyriad hotel breakfast--scrambled eggs and bacon, in France!--and a plan to ride as far along the recreational pathway from Chalon-sur-Saône to Givry toward Mâcon as we could, then Caroline would get a pickup. It was another beautiful clear, sunny morning that would turn into a hot day sooner rather than later.

We started well. The path was busy with Sunday joggers, cyclists, dog-walkers, you name it. Didn’t mind since there is plenty of room here for everyone. Mostly we were surrounded by trees which helped keep things shady and cool but in places we were a little bit above the valley and out in the open, and the views were pretty good. We also came across the picnic tables in the small park in Givry where we stopped for lunch on our 2011 trip and discovered the recreational pathway that we were now on.

Caroline, not wanting to ride to the point of crankiness, decided to pack in a bit early at Cormatin. Luce and Donna were visiting the impressive chateau there and even took a guided tour. We met up around noon. I took off on the remainder of the alternate route since I’d ridden the trail in 2011 plus I had the time.

The little excursions up the sides of the valley resulted in some pretty nice views, especially down to the abbey at Cluny. Caroline, Donna and Luce visited that, too, and reported that much of it had been torn down during the Revolution. The climbs were not long or steep, and neither were the descents.

I continued on the "route touristique" into Mâcon even though I wanted to get on the bike path to ride through the tunnel again. Looked for it but somehow didn’t find it. Oh well.

In Mâcon, I was low on water with about 35 km to go on a hot day. But it’s Sunday and pretty much nothing is open. About 17 km from the end I came across a restaurant that was open seven days and even though the only signs of life I found were what must have been the couple that runs the place getting ready for dinner service, they filled one of my bottles. Good to go.

Caroline had reported that Dave had arrived and the gang was all hanging out at our hotel, the Kyriad Bourg En Bresse, and were down at the pool. Then she met me out front of the hotel as I pulled up. We were already checked in so it was straight into the shower to clean up before hitting the pool ourselves.

The water was cool but after getting in, that was just fine by me--and Carole, too. Caroline and Sue hung out on the patio until we joined them and decided it was time to find dinner, which was a bit of an issue since not much is open on a Sunday night.

But I had a plan. I’d found a restaurant that served up Bresse chicken near the Brou basillica. It was not an overly long walk and when we got there we found the restaurant but also the hotel that we stayed at the last time we were here six years ago and the restaurant we ate at then. We might have even gone there again tonight but it was closed.

We were greeted by Jack the spaniel and seated at our chosen restaurant in the very pleasant open-air area out back under a canopy of huge trees. Caroline got the largest Niçoise salad we’ve ever seen and I had an entree-sized “terroir” salad loaded with chicken livers, a chicken with cream sauce main course with a side of Dauphinoise potatoes (which may or may not have been authentic but they were still good), and essentially two desserts--white cheese with raspberry coulis plus a chocolate mousse. It was exactly what I wanted.

We returned to the hotel and pretty much collapsed.

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