Tow the line

Today's route was the longest one of the trip. 67.5 kilometers, but I always make it longer by staying in a hotel that is off route and getting a little lost. In miles it came up to about 54.5 miles. 

Lucky for me ît wasn't in Switzerland! It was in France on a tow path (get the title now) beside an old canal. 65km of level, mostly paved, trail. 

BTW, I actually stopped at a McDonald's today, but it was just to use the WC. 

Bikes are not a fad here. Check out all the bikes at the train station this morning! 

Susan and I ran into a lot of one lane bridges in New Zealand. These clearly show who has the right of way. 

Found me a lizard! 

Here's the dirt road section of the tow parh along the Canal du Rhone au Rhin. Trees obscure the view of the canal at times. Iit must have been a long time since these tow paths were used.

The path turned to pavement after a few kilometers, but even the dirt was better than some paved roads I've been on. 

Typical  "You are here" sign of today's route. You can see how straight the route was. Barely a corner except in town. 

I'll finish this tomorrow. So tired and late tonight. 

Bonjour. The sun is up and I slept well. I am finding top bunks in hostels to be more difficult than I remembered. Some of the ladders have rungs that only an inch wide and hard to find when coming down. Last night's ladder was better with wide rungs. 

I detoured off the path in Marckolsheim to visit The museum of the Maginot line. This is the heavily fortified line the French had hoped to hold the German forces at. Didn't succeed. It is the 2nd largest defensive line in the world, only bested by the Great Wall of China. The museum was closed for the French version of siesta, but I was able to walk around the grounds. 

Sherman tank

Halftrack

Crater left by a Stuka bomber's attack. 

Back on the tow path I passed a lock keepers house that had been turned into a restaurant. 

There were numerous Swans on the canal. Some of them had been very successful at reproduction. This Mama had 10 cygnets. 

Some,in deeper water, had to pull up food for the babies. 

Here's some pictures of the canal and tow path. 

Some sections looked like a tunnel. 

A lock

Giant carp!

In the navigable part of the canal there were long and narrow canal boats. Basically homes on the water. Wouldn't that be sweet!  Reminded me of a Netflix series we recently watched. 

What is this doing here?  Looks like it was getting too much water. 

The canal led all the way into Strasbourg where I  had to depart the route and find my hostel. Again, the old town is a maze of roads! With a few wrong turns and Google maps mispronouncing street names, I found my hostel. 

Here is a view of the moon and courtyard just before I tucked in for the night. 

Going to be a much shorter stage today; only 33km. I'm looking forward to that. May take some time to explore this old city. 

If you're trying to keep track I have traveled over 560km (not counting side trips and lost times) and have 812km official to go. I'll still do more than that because of my navigation skills. 

560km = 348miles

812km = 504miles