We slept in as heavy wind and rain bucketed down - finally appearing at 9 for a great breakfast buffet with pancakes and sausages. The Pan Au Chocolate was one of the best ever! Organized, we marched off to the laundry with a backpack full of rank clothes. We found it and ready to go but there was no soap machine. The tourist office was 2 blocks away so I went there for advice - where to buy soap? It was Saturday when stores are open - but no! This was 7/14 a national holiday everything is closed. She suggested we try the phone number in the laundromat - - recorded message! Is there any store open? yes in Cernay there is a large store 7 km away. How about a taxi? She calls and none are running. I remember 2 bikes at the hotel- we go back - can we rent them? Sure! Problem solved-- but then the tires are flat ! And no pump! We needed other supplies so we finally just walked there - easy and fine without a pack - until the sidewalk ran out with 2 miles to go. This was dangerously stupid and never forgotten - imagine walking along a freeway with no shoulder... Somehwere along here I managed to drop the umbrella I'd been carrying. We had to carefully maneuver along the overgrown road shoulder till reaching the Hypermarche. And it was great with cheese, produce, bread etc. and soap! There was a Buffett style restaurant with the salad I had craved for some time. I noticed a spigot that dispensed red wine the way ours would water in a similar setting. Peach ice tea for me! A fantastic brownie!
We then walked a mile and a half to the Cernay train station and took this back to Thann - limited holiday schedule. ( But why didn't we just take it there in the first place?) We used the hotel spa - whirlpool, sauna and fancy hydraulic massage machine. We got the laundry done finally. We went to dinner at a Lebanese place with great ambiance- decor, music and savory food- meat brouchettes ! A good day in the end -(ok it could have been much better) but not especially restful .
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