Waltz into Vienna!

Tuesday 3rd October 2023. Brignais.

I had a short ride to a town called St Columbe, opposite the historical city of Vienne.

Janice usually waves me off with a pack of French biscuits for emergency energy….but I found out that (Big, Freddie Starr, Headline!)….Janice ate my Gerbils!! Shock horror!

It was a pleasant ride punctuated by my experience of ‘racing’ with a French cyclist. I say racing but I was trying to avoid racing whilst he seemed to deliberately competing with me. I’ve had this a few times from French cyclists….I catch them up quickly but when they see me pass them they up their speed and re-overtake me. They maintain it for a while and run out of energy and I’m in a position of trying to pass again but they manage another spurt! That’s what happened today. I passed him, he passed me and then slowed so I was coasting behind him whilst he was trying his hardest. He wasn’t interested at having a chat either! I had to stop and let him get away…..guess what….he slowed again and I caught him up again by going at my normal steady speed.

I met Janice with the van and we both completed the ride into Vienne.

Vienne was a Roman city that was called Vienna, whilst the Austrian city of Vienna was a Roman city called Vindobona!! There were several traces of the Romans in the city.

The city was almost the home of the French Popes instead of Avignon. The city, as you may now know, is a great visit and worthy of praise. It has now become overshadowed by nearby Lyon.

The only thing it is short of is some classical music composers…if only Johann Strauss had been born here! it’s about time that Vienna in Austria was exposed as the fraud that it is! A Vindobona Waltz doesn’t sound so classy now does it!

Vienne also missed a good wildcamp location. We could have stayed where we parked up but there was quite a bit of road noise. We moved onto Brignais, a town that seems to be a suburb of Lyon.

We arrive at our site north of Lyon tomorrow. I had pre-booked this well in advance of the Rugby World Cup, just so I was guaranteed a reasonably priced accommodation. Thursday and Friday should be a full on rugby fest in the city with our match on the Thursday night and the France v Italy game on Friday. Should be a great feeling in the city.