On the home stretch

Following the tip of a good friend, we left Nizza in the direction of the Verdon Gorge. This huge network of gorges, mountains and small villages is situated in a large Nature Park just 100km inland from Nizza.

A good starting point for some of the many trails in this area is Castellano. Unfortunately the visitor center was closed, but there was a QR code at the door, which gave you a 50 page brochure with descriptions of all the walks. I was parked in a small car park on a pass, from where two trails start. First, my human and Carmelo went on the longer one, leading them up a mountain to stunning views of the surroundings.

The shorter one, only about 4km was relatively flat, but the enticing prospect to see fossil sirenia bones made up for that. Today it is hard to imagine that Dugongs or Manatees, which belong to the family of the sirenias, were mistaken for mermaids back in the day, but there is plenty of evidence suggesting it.

The fossils are 40million years old and particularly well preserved. To keep it that way, they built a glass front over them, so no silly tourist would go hammering away at them to take a souvenir home. We spent the night a bit lower down, but still it was rather cold. We did have power, though, so we could run the heater. Makes getting up in the morning a lot easier.

And getting up we did relatively early, to have plenty of time for another long hike. This one would lead right down into the gorge and then run along the river for 16 kilometers. I guess it would be nice to be here in summer, too, but the solitude this time of the year brings is not to be underrated. My human met exactly 6 other people on the whole trail. And two dogs. This is a really awesome hike, always along the river, through an epic landscape. The sheer cliff walls all around, the overgrown forest, the water, just wonderful!

And because it was so empty, also at the car park, my human had a super quick shower after climbing back out of the gorge, before we set off again. The drive through the park was really spectacular and it was a bit sad to leave it behind. One could easily spend a week just there. We spent the night between Grenoble and Lyon, which would be our last port of call in France, before getting on the long ride home. Pretty much the whole city of Lyon is UNESCO World Heritage. It is a city of bridges, as two rivers divide it into parts, the Rhone and the Saóne. On a hill above the old part of town you have a huge Roman Theater, built 15BC, seating 10.000 people! Above it thrones the Basilique Notre Dam, a 19th Century church of great proportions with a surprisingly unostentatious interior.

By the river you find the enormous Justice Palace and the Cathedral St.-Jean.

If you walk across any of the bridges spanned over the Saòne, you get to the more modern, commercial part of the city with it's great open places, the modern Opera building, some very fancy hotels and some more churches. Plenty of those.

I am not sure if it has never been gone in France or if it's just back in style, but you see Skateboarder everywhere here. My human had a beer while sitting next to a square, watching them do their tricks. The skill level expanded from quite impressive to let's not talk about it. But having no skills of her own in that regard, you have to hand it to all of them

And then of course there is the legacy of Paul Bocuse. A citizen of Lyon, he is jointly responsible for the fact that the city has more restaurants per head than any other city in France. Not a mean feat.

To celebrate that, my human had a 3-course Lyonese meal in one of the typical restaurants, called Bouchon.

She isn't quite sure what that main course was, as no English was spoken, but she is pretty sure, well, she hopes, it wasn't tribe. Which is a favorite ingredient in Lyon. From our spot at the campground a bit outside of the city we headed North the next morning. Because the toll on roads is so ridiculous in France, we had decided to take the slower, but free roads again, since we had time. Almost six hours for some 400km, with the weather changing from rain to shine, from fog to cloudy, and back. We crossed the border to Germany just before dark and stopped behind a wine bar, which offers a couple of spaces to campers. Wine bar? Yes, you guessed right. After an hours walk to stretch her legs, that's where the last evening on the road was spent. We got on the road ridiculously early, 5.30, so we would be home in time for a Weißwurst breakfast. From Müllheim, which means Trashhome, go figure, where we spent the night, it was autobahn all the way. And that's it. For now anyways. 160 days, a bit over 11.000km, plus almost another 1000 with the bike, uncountable kilometers on foot, 9 countries, a few new friends, a few old ones visited, many sights seen, many things done and memories made. What a blast it was, from beginning to end. All three of us had an amazing time and we thank everyone who shared moments, information and knowledge with us along the way. Now my human has to go back to work for a little while to earn the money we can then spend on the next leg of the trip. Wherever that will take us. So long folks, stay safe, Rusty