Day 19: Companionship and serendipity

It seems to happen every time on these trips: as we get closer to the end, I tend to get wistful. It’s strange because not so very long ago on this trip, I was so ready to come home. Even though everything was going well, a combination of too much sugar and too much caffeine was making me anxious, and I longed for the familiar. It also seems to be a trend that we have a dip in energy around the midway mark. Now that I’ve cut back on my sugar and caffeine intake, my mood has stabilized, and I’ve found the joy and sense of adventure in the trip again—just as it is winding down.

The first sign showing Bale (Basel), our final destination

As we were riding along today, I reflected to Sonia that we have really become seasoned cycle tourists now. Very little fazes us, and we are able to deal pretty well with the inevitable difficulties that arrive, rolling with the punches and appreciating the serendipity of missed opportunities that lead to other, different discoveries.

We left our hotel in (where was it now...) Guebwiller around 9 am, stopping for lunch provisions and then heading on our way under grey but thus far dry skies. We followed the EV 5 down to Cernay, where we came across a morning market perfectly situated to provide us with our mid-morning snack. We found a picnic table and had our brioche and tea just as it began to drizzle. One of the reasons I feel like we’ve become seasoned cycle tourists is that a little bit of rain doesn’t bother us at all now. We just put on our rain gear and carry on. As long as it’s not pouring, it’s really no problem.

Heading away from wine country 

At Cernay, we hung a left to start heading more or less east, down into the Rhine valley proper, following a lovely bike path along the Thur River. The countryside looks and smells much different, with various traditional crops growing and the aroma of livestock occasionally wafting by. We were trending downhill here and making great time. At the town of Pulversheim, we forked due east off the EV5, wanting to cut a few kilometres off our journey today. We rejoined it at Battenheim, where we had our picnic lunch and then stopped for coffee and a pastry at a nearby bakery. There we met a fellow cycle tourist who turned out to be a bit lost so with the help of our various maps, we showed him where we were and where he needed be. It turned out that to get back on track, he would need to take the same road as us, so we cycled together for 5 or 6 kilometres. Alistair Kirke (“with an E”) was from Scotland, just north of Glasgow, 75 years old, and had two “new” knees. He was also riding a folding Brompton bike with 14” wheels and a huge chainring. I think his pedalling cadence was about half of ours. I was seriously impressed. If I’m still cycle touring in 20 years, I’ll be really thrilled.

Rolling selfie with Sonia and Alistair

We arrived at our lovely little Airbnb in the little town of Ottmarsheim, the main point of interest of which is an 11th-century octagonal abbey church, at around 3. After settling in, we wandered around the town and went to look in the church but could not due to a rehearsal being held for a concert that evening. From what I could tell, it was part of a series of concerts celebrating the restoration of the church. We inquired and managed to get tickets. The concert featured a choir from Vienna, a girls choir from Colmar, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse, conducted by... wait for it... Jacques Lacombe, who was an assistant conductor of a different OSM under Charles Dutoit in the 1990s.

Abbey church in Ottmarsheim 

We went to the concert not really knowing what to expect, having no idea about the quality of the orchestra or the choirs. We were pleasantly surprised. The concert was quite eclectic, with repertoire ranging from Vivaldi to Pärt; the orchestra sounded excellent; and the choirs were very good, in particular the one from Vienna. It was also quite moving for Sonia, since they performed a number of works that she has done over the years with two mentors who passed away in the past year.

A full day indeed.