The footpath app broke up our route into two again today (I think because it didn’t recognize the trail in the middle for some reason) but there was no actual break in our walking. A total of 22.6 km (14 miles).
June 1, 2019
We had a leisurely morning and left Pontarlier around 11am. We left through the old arch and quickly joined the Doubs River footpath out of town. It was a beautiful and warm day.
We crossed an old disused railway and would end up tracing it off and on for a significant part of the day.
The green puffy tips are what the absinthe distillery uses for some of its recipes. There is a period of roughly one week a year when they are best for harvesting.
We wove through woodland paths, and along the disused railway some more and then crossed a major road to rejoin the river.
After about 1/1 1/2 hours the path opened up and we could see Château de Joux in the distance. It’s a 11th century fortress that guarded this part of the pass through the Jura mountains into France.
The route led up up the mountain to the Château de Joux and then back down the mountain
We were soon back along the old train tracks, where we stayed for a while. We started to get confused about the route, but decided to stick to the obvious parts, like the rail and the main roads.
M really enjoyed the old postal trains.
After a while we got tired of trying to find the route and just walked a few miles along the major road to Jougne and then broke off into the village of Les Hopitaux Vieux, where I got my bearings and re-charted the final 4 km into Jougne.
On the last few kms into Jougne we spotted an open bakery and bought ham and cheese croissants, tomato-cheese-bacon tartines, and vanilla eclairs to bring with us for dinner because we weren’t in the mood for what would likely be a 2-3 hour dinner at the hotel.
We entered Jougne and our hotel, Le Couronne, was right next to the church. Our room overlooked a pretty backyard. Though it was a relatively short day, we were hot and tired, so we quickly took showers, ate our dinner, and went to sleep. We cross into Switzerland tomorrow!
Canterbury to Rome 