It was a treat to wake up leisurely and spend the morning pottering around and relaxing. We got out all the maps and spent an hour or 2 plotting out our next course. Our best guess at this stage was 10 days to Venice across the Black Forest to Lake Constance (Bodensee), along the lake to Austria and over the Alps into northern Italy. Of course we may not follow this but good to have a plan.

After lunch Philippe and Chantal took us on a great tour bike around Strasbourg – an amazing mix of ancient and modern. Pretty France full of very old timber framed buildings surrounded on all side by flowers and canals – very busy on a Sunday afternoon.

The cathedral was incredible. It is due to celebrate its millennium next year. Inside it was full of both modern and ancient stained glass and an amazing astrological clock.

Then we saw the modern side of the city with some amazing buildings including the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament. For the first time in Chantal’s experience we were able to go inside the inner oval of the parliament building which had a very interesting architectural shape. Then we saw lots of Art Deco buildings from the era when the city was in German hands from 1870 to 1919. All this was seen as we pedalled around the city at a leisurely pace.

Back at the apartment David spent some time working on the bikes (broke spoke) then we had a delicious meal of pasta for cycling and gorgeous cheeses accompanied by a St Emellion – perfect.