20261009 Scey-sur-rainy-Saone to Gray. Canals. Cold. And cats.

According to our Ride with GPS app, the route that John had planned for Scey-sur-rainy-Saone to Gray was 60 kilometres.

We scarfed down a quick breakfast (croissants and coffee, always croissants and coffee) at the patisserie conveniently across the road, dragged the bikes out of the walled garden, and set them up.

We started in 4° C foggy cold, and 4° C on a bike in the fog is really cold! Wind chill + damp are a numbing combination.

Even later in the day when the sun came out it was gloves for me. Mitts, cap, scarf, long pants, a sweater and windbreaker for Patti. She doesn’t like being cold and clearly doesn’t mind looking like something out of Grey Gardens.

The morning mist on the Saône was beautiful.

On our route were two canal tunnels, both built about 1880, and both about 600m long.

They were built to save significant canal digging and lock building, and feature elegant entrance brickwork.

They are wide enough for only one boat, so signal lights indicate when the tunnel is clear.

They include very dim lighting now, but when first built the underground portions were completely dark. These canal tunnelss are found on the Voie Bleu network but they are all over France wherever there are canals.

(BTW, the route that we are following from Luxembourg to Lyon is mostly on the Voie Bleu path, 700 kilometres long. It’s an impressive project. We only deviate from La Voie Bleu in order to build hills and shortcuts into the route.)

If you squint you can see me in this shot (below) that Patti took from above the tunnel canal. It gives you an idea of how big they are.

A bit further down the road is the Château de Ray-sur-Saône, originally built in the 14th Century, and rebuilt in neo-classical style in the 1700s. It was part of a chain of chateaus created to defend the Franche-Comté Region in the Middle Ages. It took a bit of pedalling to get up to the top of the hill. (That is, Patti sacrificed a serious chunk of battery power to get to the stop. It was a serious climb.)

A cycle path trip is never complete without an obstacle of some sort, in this case a fallen tree. We stripped the bikes of all extraneous weight (panniers and batteries), and lifted them over. No strained back muscles ensued. #worksmart

An moth-balled hydro-electric generating station.

We arrived at our destination, a town called Gray, and, after a bit of looking for it with some help from a local, found our apartment and its keybox. We were really appreciative of being able to just roll our trikes straight into the lodging, dry and secure.

N.B. This is the third night in relatively small towns without hotels, so we had to use alternate accommodations that I found with booking.com. They have been great, but there’s always a bit of anxiety wondering exactly where the place is and how to get in.

Since leaving Luxembourg we’ve been travelling through Lorraine, next to the border with Germany. The three overnight towns have been rather downtrodden. The economy is mostly agriculture, with very little tourism, and it can be touch and go to find grocery stores and restaurants.

Gray is the largest of the three, and likely prospers somewhat with barges and canal boats in the summer months. It’s certainly quiet now approaching mid-October. We had a good walk though, climbing the steep incline to the upper town which features an impressive city hall (1560) and basilica (also 1560, and restored after being bombed and burned in 1940).

The basilica has several walls full of ‘Merci’ plaques, each with initials and sometimes a date and a short note.

The upper and lower towns are joined by long steep pedestrian walkways, and remnants of the medieval wall and tower appear. The brightly coloured roof tiles are typical of the area and we are seeing more and more of them the further south we go.

Cats enjoy the walkways. There were a lot of cats. And then we noticed the sign. Hmmmm….

Lower town includes a couple of bridges, restaurants, and access to the River Saône.

We found a restaurant around the corner from our apartment. Patti had a salad (we’re at that point in a trip where you begin to crave huge salads), and I enjoyed a unique local dish: three small bowls, each with a poached egg submersed in a different sauce. With fries, and baguette, of course.

Delicious.