Today we left Switzerland and cycled into our fifth country on the trip, Germany. We were again disappointed to not have a country crossing sign at the border, but so it goes. This day was pretty tough – it was about 97 degrees and the Rhine bike route (at least on the German side) was a lot rockier than we anticipated. We managed to go around 150km but were pretty exhausted at the end of it. 

After checking out the city gates dating back to the 1400s in Basel, we followed the Rhine on the German side (the river forms the French/German border in this area). After a few hours of tough cycling we stopped in Breisach, an old fortified town, for lunch. We walked around the fortifications on the hill for a bit before continuing. 

We worked our way further up the Rhine in Germany until we stopped for a cold drink and met a Brazilian touring cyclist. He told us the French side of the bike route (which had now started to parallel the German side) was paved. That was all we needed to hear. We crossed over and were immediately reminded why we miss cycling in France. The path was not only paved, but followed a tree-lined canal which felt 10 degrees cooler than the exposed German side. 

We didn’t have a destination in mind until this point, so we settled on Strasbourg and booked a much-needed hotel with A/C. Upon reflection of dinner in Strasbourg, we realized we (unintentionally) had breakfast in Switzerland, lunch in Germany, and dinner in France. 

We walked around Strasbourg in the morning, but those pictures are included here. As we heard, it’s a beautiful city with a great downtown and park area.