Baume Les Dames-Ranchot-France-8-28-14

Today, we had our dream cycling day. After a cloudy morning, a sunny day, no wind, and mostly level or slightly downhill. The 90% rain did not come. The bicycle path between Baume les Dames and our destination for the day which turned out to be Ranchot was as smooth as butter. We sailed along the bicycle path that followed the Doubs River and the canal. Sometimes the Doubs was on one side of the path and the canal was on the other side of the path.

Baumes Les Dames-Ranchot-France-Le Doubs River

The Doubs is a lovely River. It’s interesting to note, that they have built weirs at all the places where rapids used to be. By doing this, they are able to build a lock along one side of the river for boats to cruise up and down. There are many rapids therefore many such weirs and locks.

This was a cycling day. There are few towns along the route and all must be accessed by leaving the route. But cycling was so much fun; we didn’t want to leave the bike path.

The French people have been incredibly friendly. Everyone along the bike path whether they are bicycling or walking their dog or walking with their children says Bonjour. We have seen many cyclists on racing bikes. Obviously, the home of the Tour de France, is a reason why there are so many people bicycling as fast as they can down these paths. There are still long distance touring cyclists along the route, but the number has certainly dropped down by the end of August.

The entire ride, we did not see a Café a place to eat or a place to get water without leaving the path itself to go into a town. You will not find grocery stores along the route either unless you go into a town.

We stopped at Osselle which has a lovely campsite on a pretty Lake.

St Vit is too far off the trail to go for groceries so we continued on until we came to Dampierre. At Dampierre, there is a lovely free camping site with a shelter and picnic tables right on the bicycle path. But once again, we could not find any groceries. We cycled another 1.5 km to Ranchot where there is a boulangerie that opens at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. That’s where we bought our Coke and beer for the evening. At Ranchot there is a beautiful campsite overlooking one of the waterfall weirs on the river.

Baumes Les Dames-Ranchot-France-Le Doubs River

They have a restaurant at the campsite and there is also a small restaurant right in town. All is very close together and easy to access. There is one more campsite after Ranchot at Orchamps which we passed the next day. We did not like that site anywhere near as much as Ranchot.

Watch out for Saturday and Sunday in this part of the world. The grocery stores are closed. Last night we camped near two restaurants the intent of choosing one for supper. We had our choice of restaurants and a plat du jour or a daily plate for a reasonable price. Well, it was Saturday, so they don’t serve reasonably priced meals. Everything was €17 and up for one meal. So we decline to eat there and went back to the campground. Meanwhile the campground was having some kind of party and all the tables were reserved so we could not have any supper there. So we went to bed with a couple of granola bars in our tummies. Then, the fireworks began right over our tent. The explosions shook the ground. Next morning was Sunday and nothing is open so we are cycling on no food.