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Stage 1 – Arlsheim to Colmar 91km (03-Jun-2019)


What a weekend before the start of our tour. Saturday’s 75km trial ride to Ursula’s sister’s home from Zurich to Gontenschwil on a glorious day was smooth and enjoyable. Moni (Ursi’s sister) and Christoph (her husband) are always very thoughtful; they had a bottle of (Prosecco) sparkling wine for Ursi and a Bratwurst and avocado for me for dinner (our favorites). I was in solitary confinement after dinner watching my beloved Liverpool win and lift the Champions League Cup for the 6th time. Happy days.
Sunday, they drove our bikes and us to Basel to Peti’s (Ursula’s brother) home where waiting for me were some chocolates (very thoughtful) and of course he cooked a special Bratwurst for me.  Another surprise was, Ursi’s younger brother (Thomas and Evelyn (his partner)) arrived.  Nice way to send us off on our first bike tour together. 
Start of day 1 was good, a beautiful sunny day; Peti (Ursula’s brother) and Therese (his wife) were there to see us off on our first bike tour together.   
Getting through Basle during the morning rush hour was a breeze due to the dedicated bike paths that swiftly brought us through to the Swiss/French border; then on to the beautiful bike path, Rhineweg and various cute little villages along the way with no cars to be seen anywhere.  Stopped in one of the villages for a short break, refreshments and use of the facilities; 5km later, discovered that Ursula had left her gloves in the Ladies so her knight in lycra on his shining bicycle, yours truly, went back to retrieve them which added 10km to my overall ride. There’s a beautiful bike path through the forest on the outskirts of Colmar where we felt a few raindrops and when were within spitting distance of our hotel, the heavens opened up with a massive down pour, soaking us. Could have been avoided if someone had not left the gloves behind in the ladies. C’est la vie.
After checking into our hotel, which was only a short distance from the main tourist attractions, we wandered around Colmar, which looked ever prettier than when we were last here.
Dinner was had at an Italian joint, risotto washed down with a beer and a glass of red for madam and lasagna for sir washed down with the holy water. 
Lost all photos of the bike tour up until Colmar due to technical issues experienced whilst transferring from phone to laptop. Not happy, so the photo gallery for day 1 of our trip will be skinny. Never mind, the good news is that some of the photos of beautiful Colmar were retrieved; hope they do the town justice.
We felt surprisingly good but the day had taken it’s toll so it was early to bed for madam whilst sir put a lot of time and effort trying to retrieve the photos, unfortunately without success. This delayed the posting of day 1 blog.





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