Rolled out pre-dawn. Not that it matters much, central Paris largely cut off private cars last year, and the city center is easy to ride around now. Paper thin clouds kept the temperature down to the first control at Blandy-Les-Tours. The baker was shut , the small grocer locked up tight. The cafe was dark. We caught a maintenance man sneaking into the Mairie, unfortunately he couldn’t locate a stamp for our control cards, so a photo proof-of-passage had to suffice. We wouldn’t encounter an open shop until 100k into the day. Not a good sign as the next day was a public holiday, and even fewer services would be operating. We rolled into Villeneuve-l’Archevêque at 12:01pm. Just in time for the post office to lock the door. The baker up the road was perplexed but stamped our cards and served up two piping hot and bone dry pizzas. By now the thins clouds had burned off. The European heatwave you’ve heard so much about: Yeah. That’s now. We limped into Semur-en-Auxois hot, tired and hungry, but on schedule Friday started out something like the Missouri of France, mile after mile of rolling farmland. The bright orange sun seemed to vaporize the moisture out of the crops and suspend it in the still air. My Garmin said it was 104F, and I was under the same sun as it. The vast fields of corn and sunflower provided no shade at all. After 400k of flat and rollers we crossed into Jura, one of my favorite regions of France. The temperature dropped steadily as we made the 45km long climb into the mountains. The peak in St Laurent en Gradvaux gave way to a cool and exceptionally speedy 25km descent into St Claude, getting us into the overnight just as a light ran began to fall. Now 500km in, Saturday was a breeze. We slept in and made the 15km climb out of St Claude. At the Col de la Faucille the tourist office was seemingly overjoyed to supply a control card stamp and a hearty “bon courage!”. The rest of the day was typical lovely Jura: Misty, shady, colorful; the air cool and filled with the scent of decomposing leaves. Before long we were descending out of the mountains and into Bellegarde to catch the train home, two full hours ahead of schedule.
