Day 3 St Dizier to Les Rousses

In view of the likely bad weather I planned a fairly straightforward route. I'd had a good night's sleep and with an early breakfast was off by 07:40. That did mean that i arrived at Les Rousses at 15:00, but more on that later.

After Chaumont the area of Terre-Natale was very pleasant. On a good day a walk in the woods might have been a good idea, but not today. Easy navigating into the Saone area with a very welcome coffee stop at a bar at Vaite and shopping for lunch at Seveux. These spots would be worth returning to another year, although I failed to get a a telephone card from the bar even though they advertised them on the door.

Besancon was hard to get through. I thought I must be going around in circles. Eventually I saw a sign for Pontarlier and then it was easy to follow on for Laussane; that was the best thing to follow. When I'm writing my routecards it's hard to predict which town will appear on the signs - sometimes it will be the next 2 house village, other times it will be a city in the next country. Perhaps there is a logic but I don't know the French system yet.



Once on the N57 I decided to detour via the d57 which was exceptionally pretty and sheltered as it was in a valley. However by the time I reached the turning for Source de la Loue it was raining again; this illustrated the source all too well so I pushed on. The next scenic section was perhpas not such a good idea as it put me on a high, open plain. Lovely for the hail stones to fly across. My initial plan had been for back road detours but that was before the weather; so onwards to Les Rousses.

There were 2 hours before opening time of the hostel so i went into town. After a cup of tea the rain had stopped so I took a little look around and bought, wrote and sent postcards. There's a luxury. The post office had a weigh and print machine which I used to avoid the queue.



Later I waited for cooked dinner in the hostel as I didn't fancy returning to town. It was rather dreary, perhaps it;s more exciting in the ski season? Dinner got off to a good vegan start with soup and then beans and vegetables but later courses were rather cheesy. Still excellent value though.

Over dinner I spoke with a retired French couple who were walking the periphery of France. They estimated 6000km over 8 months. Now they were half way round. That's quite a trip.

After the meal I took a little walk towards the ridge, but naturally it started to rain.

384km