Biking Adventures and Beyond: Haguenau and Strasbourg...pre supported bike tour

We were able to spend a couple of days getting to know Strasbourg and Haguenau, France while we got ready for our supported bike tour in the nearby Alsace region. We were pleasantly surprised with how stunning Strasbourg is with its grand half timber houses and more modern French architecture. The huge cathedral of Notre Dame was an impressive Gothic style church with a working astronimical clock fashoned with many moving characters marking midday. A highlight was a lovely boat cruise along the extensive canals throughout the city, at one point connecting 3 main rivers. One day we rode from Haguenau to Strasbourg along more beautiful canals and bike paths. Some people have taken up living on converted river barges.

As travelers new to a country's train systems do, we managed to misread the return train schedule back to Haguenau. After enjoying a delicious evening Vietnamese meal, we leisurely made our way back to the train station thinking that we had plenty of trains to catch back to our hotel. Well...no more trains, only buses. No problem, right? The 9:25pm bus would not take all of our bikes underneath the storage area. Ok...now what? We considered biking the 30 km back, but night was falling upon us. With no lights to speak of, we all agreed to bag that idea. Peg and Maya went to check out budget hotel possibilities, while Ian and Roger were scheming a plan to wait until the 10:25 pm. By this time, the rain began to fall as we began to feel desperate. Good thing the we are all good natured (esp. Maya and Peg) and were willing to give the later bus a try. By happenstance, we found a super helpful, friendly transportation expert, who after hearing our situation of getting refused on an earlier bus, came out to the later bus with us to make sure that the driver would take our bikes. Karma was on our side...we landed in Haguenau - still raining, of course - to be able to ride the easy, but dark and wet 2 km back to our warm and cozy hotel. Our 11:30 pm arrival warranted the consumption of our last Belgian chocolate. What a day!

Lunch sandwich making ritual continues...even in our hotel room!