Nou estat d'Europa

Day 3 - Rhinau to Strasbourg

This was not the travelling life. Sandra had found it increasingly hard to coax any speed out of her bike in the last two days. We couldn't diagnose any obvious problem and I was now carrying most of the baggage but here we were riding through the suburbs of Strasbourg at an escargot's pace. The bike lanes were no longer solely ours as a multitude of other cyclists suddenly appeared and a cheery 'bonjour' was no longer appropriate. We eventually made it to Petit France, a particularly attractive area, in time for a late lunch. It soon became clear that we'd be going no further that day and as I sat with a cold beer overlooking the river I could think of worse hardships. Strasbourg really is a very beautiful city which is all the more remarkable given that it has changed hands 5 times between France and Germany. I would highly recommend a visit. Catalans had arrived enmass to complain about their elected representatives being unable to take up their seats in the European Parliament which had opened that very day.

They were everywhere in their luminous yellow t-shirts, from the cathedral square where they sang songs of freedom and waved banners to the cafés and bars where they protested by drinking all the good French wine. Secessionist movements like theirs and like our own north of the border concern me in general. Finding a way to continue to coexist within countries is important I think, wanting to reinforce intrinsic and irreconcilable differences between peoples has often had dark outcomes. But should you keep a people against their will? I also think you should not. Greater unity between people is not the steady upward curve it once was, will we look back with sufficient history and see it as a repeating cycle of harmony and disharmony that we as a race are doomed to never escape?<br><br>

Kilometres travelled: 679
Kilometres rode: 150
Falls: 0

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