Today, I crossed the Rubicon — just kidding, it was the Rhine River. Still, it marked the completion of the second leg of this trip: the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. I cycle the entire canal — not bad for 16” wheels.
My destination is Strasbourg, but instead of continuing on the French side, I decided to broaden Greengo’s geographical horizons. Germany is a new country for him — in fact, it’s his 50th, so it’s a milestone for both of us. He’s one well-traveled Brompton.
In the span of five minutes, we passed from France to Germany to Switzerland and back to Germany. I stayed on EuroVelo 15 until Breisach, riding through peaceful forest paths along the river. Even though the trail wasn’t paved, I didn’t mind — though later I had to clean the layer of dust Greengo picked up along the way.
Originally, I was supposed to stay on the German side all the way to Strasbourg. But when I stopped in Breisach to snap a photo, I glanced at the map and noticed that Colmar — one of the most popular towns in Alsace — was just 25 km away. After a few minutes of hesitation, I decided to go for it.
On the way, I passed through the star-shaped fortress town of Neuf-Brisach, the final major project of Vauban, Louis XIV’s brilliant military engineer.
Once I arrived, the first thing I did was pitch my tent at a nearby campsite. Instead of cycling into the town (which would’ve been faster), I chose to walk — mostly to spare Greengo from bouncing over Colmar’s cobblestone streets.
The old town was, unsurprisingly, full of people — it’s summer, a Saturday, and a very touristy town. But today I wasn’t nearly as tired as I was in Basel, so my tolerance for crowds was higher. I wandered around a bit longer, and I think I photographed everything there was to photograph. Eventually though, the campsite’s pool started to sound better than even the prettiest architecture.
Today in numbers:
91 km – distance cycled
1883 – the year Colmar installed electric street lighting, just a few years after Edison’s invention
5 – times Colmar has changed nationality