Day 2 - continued

Photo 13: The Tranche de Bayonettes. This memorial marks the position of the trenches of the battle of Verdun.

Photo 14: Sitting on the ridge of Thiaumont the Douaumont Ossuaire contains the remains of 130 000 unknown French and German soldiers who fell on the battlefields of Verdun.

Photo 15: The owner of a French farm house came out after we parked across his drive. He came armed with a bottle of Cognac and chatted about our route through the mountains!

Ben kicked off round 2 and enjoyed a flat ride that compensated for the hill he'd been subjected to earlier. Ben finished his ride at the bottom of a hill and I jumped on for the next leg.

My leg started with a long uphill which took up the first 20 minutes of the ride. By the time I got to the top I was really looking forward to going down and seeing some flat land again. The downhill seemed really quick after the long trudge up the hill but after that there was a nice flat stretch and then some undulating hills to take me to the end of my stretch. A lot of the second half of my ride had been through little towns and villages. They were all stereotypically French, however the amazing thing was just how quiet they were. We hardly ever saw anyone and there were very few cars and the window shutters were quite often locked. Everything felt deserted.

The scenary on the last two legs of the second round changed again. After the Champagne vineyards in the morning we once again entered World War I battlegrounds passing by the memorial to the 1914-1918 Tranche de Bayonettes and then passing the site of the Battle of Verdun.

Dave cycled the last leg of the round while Ben, Marc and I took a quick sight-seeing tour. By the time Dave finished we were just 40 miles away from the finish in Nancy which meant just one more leg each of 10 miles and we'd be done for the day.