24th May 2017

24th May 2017

After our forced additional day's stay in Besançon we left this morning at 6:20am with renewed vigour.  We needed that vigour as we quite soon started climbing and climbing and climbing!  We were totally exhausted by the time we reached the small Chapelle de Buis, 5kms later!  We entered the chapel to find five monks chanting morning prayers.  Later we continued along beautiful path through woodlands until we reached the village of Tarcenay, where we stopped to have our lunch.  The afternoon was not so good as we had to go all the way via a very busy road. We were glad to reach our hotel for the night in Ornans. We had booked the Hotel de la Vallee, where they had a special offer.  The owner had seen us struggling earlier in the heat of the day and decided to give us an apartment by the side of the hotel complete with sitting room, kitchen, ensuite bathroom and a balcony facing the back garden. Luxury indeed! He thought we could do with a nice surprise!  There are still many good people in the world.

Tomorrow we face more challenges as at some point during the day we need to go through the Source de la Loue. To quote our guidebook "Because of the hilly nature of the terrain, with gorges with overhanging cliffs and rivers.......is a spectacular route in dry sunny weather. You don't need to have a good head for heights but you do need to be fairly agile, specially with a heavy rucksack.  It is definitely not recommended in wet weather or if you are alone.  If you slipped and fell nobody would find you very quickly!"

Sounds just like we like it!  Off to bed now - early morning start tomorrow.