Canal de Bourgogne - Fourth Day

Another sight-seeing day – cloudy but cool and dry.  We had a decent breakfast at our hotel and left about 9:30.  The people at the hotel were very pleasant but we were not sure they knew much about the hotel business.

We biked for an hour and a half or so and stopped at the Forges de Buffon.  M. Buffon was a wealthy French aristocrat and distinguished naturalist whose works filled 36 volumes. In 1788 at the age of 60 he began to build an iron and steel processing plant where his workers used water-powered equipment to help produce iron and steel, and various experiments were made to try to improve the quality of the product.  Before this, producing iron and steel and products made from iron and steel was an artisanal process that required a lot of time and labor.  This was an early attempt to mechanize some of the processes such that they relied less on craftsmanship and more on scientific and engineering methods.  Gerard and Roger had been there before so they relaxed while Tom and I toured the facility. 

Forges de Buffon Workshops

Water Wheel at Forges de Buffon

Tom in Workshop Forges de Buffon

Water-Powered Bellows

After that, we biked back to the village of Buffon where we had another of our best meals.  Plus the weather had improved such that we could sit outside.  David had a nice Cod filet perfectly prepared and presented.  David also had one of his more embarrassing moments at the restaurant when he walked full-tilt into a glass door.  Scared everyone including him as he made quite the loud crash.  No damage except a small cut on his forehead.

After lunch we headed off again - sunny with a few clouds, minimal wind, trail mostly paved – very pleasant riding.  Saw a number of pleasure boats and barges on the canal, and waved to the folks on the boats.  There were also a number of fishermen trying their luck on the banks of the canal. 

At about this point a young woman in flawless biking attire effortlessly blew by us at about 30km per hour.  Very humbling experience as we were then doing about 20km per hour and thought we were at last moving fairly well.

We rode into the town of Tonnerre that evening and checked into our hotel.  A very pleasant old place with atmosphere.  We did 66km that day.

We decided to have dinner at the hotel – Tom and I both had burgers – very good.  After dinner we wandered around town looking at some of the old buildings – very interesting.  Unfortunately, the town also has a number of empty buildings and storefronts that made the effect somewhat depressing.

Dinner in Tonnerre - Tom, Roger, Gerard

Among the interesting buildings was a very large former hospital building that had been built as a charitable work by Marguerite of Bourgogne, widow of Charles d'Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily and brother of St Louis, between 1293-1295, and a turn-of-the-century, nicely restored wrought iron and glass covered marketplace.

13th Century Hospital Building

Two Pictures of the Covered Market