We woke up to drizzling rain. We expected it. We set our alarm so we could say goodbye to Clara, an adult child of our hosts who was on her way to school. She was so sweet in wanting to say goodbye and hug us. It was fun to get to know her.

We packed our clean clothes (yay) and ate a big breakfast, finishing the last of our food. We said goodbye to Jean and Estelle and left by 10 in a light rain. Gratefully it quickly cleared up. We followed a reasonable bike route out of town with minimal traffic. 

Today we crossed through three countries, France, Switzerland, and Germany. We are staying in Germany tonight.

In Basel (Switzerland) we stopped to see if we could help a woman who was having trouble with her bike. She explained in French to Natalie what was going on and Natalie started to explain to me in English what the problem was. She immediately said wait, you guys speak English? She was from Minnesota, but now lives in France with her Belgian husband. It was a fun connection. She also had been a high school French teacher.

Today’s ride involved more small shared roads and more small towns. The weather was amazingly good, with a few spurts of manageably light rain. I was sweating out in shorts and a tee shirt and Natalie was sometimes slightly cold in her coat. We are an odd couple at times. About 15 minutes before our ride ended I noted some blue sky and told Natalie we would be arriving at our Airbnb without rain. Within what seemed like less than a minute it started to pour. It was the hardest rain of the day. Gratefully we didn’t have far to go. 

We unloaded into a fun Airbnb, and then immediately hustled to get some food before stores started to close. We ate a salad and a pizza from a nearby restaurant and then walked in the rain to a grocery store where we bought a few supplies for breakfast and snacking tonight.

Tomorrow we have a similar day in terms of distance, but a little more climbing. And then we have a much easier day following that. Right now the weather looks like it should be pretty good tomorrow. We will be grateful for any hours we can ride without being in pouring rain. It has been so nice to be in Airbnbs every night.