20261013and14. The push to get to Lyon involves stops in Saint-Marcel and Macon.

As I write this I’m looking out our hotel window here in Lyon at a huge cloud of teargas and black smoke above Place Bellecour, where protesters have set the Tourism Office on fire. It’s part of a massive, France-wide “manifestation“. We were just in that square, and on that bridge, two hours ago.

It’s wild. At any rate, we’re safe up here but I have to say, it’s surreal listening to the explosions of tear gas cannisters, sirens, helicopters, and the shouting of the protesters about a kilometre away and watching reports of the violence in other cities, on the television.

Now, back to beautiful Beaune. What can I say about Tuesday October 13th? We left at our usual time, around 9 a.m.

It was an easy, mostly flat, 45 km ride from Beaune to Saint-Marcel.

There was no special reason to stop there, in truth we were just overnighting in Saint-Marcel (and Macon, the next evening) because they broke up a 200 km stretch from Beaune to Lyon. They were “waypoints”, not destinations.

It was just drizzly enough to necessitate stopping in a culvert of sorts while we pulled the waterproof covers onto the phones.

Our accommodations for the evening in Saint-Marcel (an unremarkable town, to be honest), were at the Chateau de la Villeneuve, a beautiful home run by an elegant host. We pulled the bikes into the “orangerie” …

… and then walked back into town for a kebab and taco dinner, one of the most delicious and cheapest dinners of the trip, and the family who owned the restaurant were happy to have Canadians as their guests.

This is the elegant gate into the chateau.

The next morning, “Isabelle” made us a gorgeous breakfast, beautifully presented in a very pretty dining room surrounded by French antiques.

Wednesday’s ride from Saint-Marcel to Macon – “an administrative city”, according to Isabelle – was 60 km (4 hours) of misty and wet, mostly flat, riding along the Saone River. The Saone balloons into a very large river by the time it reaches Lyon, but at this point it’s a modest and meandering body of water, seemingly almost without any current.

Isabelle had told us to stop at “Tournu” to visit the architecturally significant Abbaye Saint-Philibert L’Essential.

The Abbey is one of the most prestigious sanctuaries of primitive Romanesque art in France, famous for its transverse ribbed vaults. Classified as a historic monument since 1840, this former Benedictine abbey also features medieval mosaics, a crypt housing the relics of the founder, Saint Philibert, and a cloister.

When we returned our audio guides to the Tourism Office, we looked at the map of where we’d been riding. …

The gentleman there asked if we had ascended the 45 steps of the tower. We had not. When he said that there is a platform in the tower that’s behind the bellows of the organ, I was game. It was worth the trip.

Pushing on…

… we finally made it into Macon. (“May-Kohn”)

There were scullers practicing on the river. It was very peaceful.

Our hotel wouldn’t be open for check-ins until 3 so we had about an hour to kill: we ordered coffees (and Pringles, since they didn’t sell any food) at the Bar des Courriers, and enjoyed them in the sunshine with some of Macon’s couriers. (Handy, because we could keep our eyes on the bikes and the panniers. It would be a shame to come this far and then lose things due to negligence.)

At 3, we checked in, dragged the bikes into the super-secure storage area (taking care not to injure our backs while taking the seats off and folding them – echoes of Luxembourg when John seriously did his back in with a badly choreographed lift),

did the usual laundry and charging, then walked down the street to a unexpectedly spectacular meal of Veal Sweetbreads with mashed potatoes (for me) and Veal tete (?brains? I don’t know?) and leeks for John. An unexpected culinary gift.

Next stop: we thought it would be Villefranche, but we were wrong. Standby for the next instalment!

John loves a deft pivot. This was a doozy.