A hot sweaty, exhausting day

By now we should have been more prepared for leaving a city, Basel but we werent and following signs we discovered we’d actually nearly completed a circle, finally on the correct route there was then a dreaded DIVERSION!Swiss signeage is not as good as german signs at the best of times. Luckily Basel was fairly deserted as we left so able to safely back track over junctions plus take extra photos of the cathedral and sights as we left. An early coffee stop was needed after 15kms but we’d only done 10kms off our route of the day.

It was so warm we then scheduled ourselves another morning stop at a really good Roman ampitheatre Augustus Raurica, now still used for open air events not blood thirsty ones however.

The cycling tracks then got worse up and down hills or next to main roads. We arrived at a really scenic town Rheinfelden on market day so there was a slow walk to get through the town with all the crowds so we gave up and had lunch there. Walking out I was taking a photo of the stork tower and said to hubby” how bad is that they” ve put a plastic stork on top of the nest” then it moved…not plastic at all.

Hubby was impressed with seeing historic salt mines covered with wooden structures so he duly got a few snaps.

The next section was through forests but on potholed , gravel tracks with minimal signposts up and down hills. Once we went back after taking tne wrong track and found the signpost hidden behind a tree. Where is this Swiss precision? My legs were shaking after pushing my bike up yet another steep hill, where had this flat cycle ride gone?

It was so hot and extremely humid 30C but not like a comfortable 30c in Perth, at least the forest gave us some relief. We were overheating so once we arrived at Bad Sackingen whose claim to fame is the oldest covered bridge across the Rhine and an epic poem about a trumpeter who could not marry his love, we decided we”d stay the night. Not so easy the first 3 hotels we tried were full, the tourist bureau was shut it was still intensely hot and we had nowhere to go.At least we’d heard the trumpeter play and the poem read out whilst we were wandering around looking for somewhere to sleep.

One hotel had one single room and i would have slept on the floor, “verboten” not allowed, clearly the heat was getting to everyone as noone was very helpful.We saw a sign about a bed and breakfast so peddled off there noone answered the door. I found a brochure outside the tourist bureau and it had a list of other places to stay so off we peddled yet again. We found an ok hotel although no airconditioning it was cool compared to outside.Alas it had a balcony which was lovely except our neighbours could not sleep and spent the night smoking on their balcony. It was too hot to shut the balcony door, not a good day or night.

We’d decided to do shorter days with more heat and humidity forecast plus the “undulating” hills for this section seem a bit more than undulating. We also booked ahead for the next 2 nights no more hunt the hotel in the heat…

This is May, 30C and extremely humid what is going on?