Fine and sunny, 14-25deg, 72km, av. 15.5km/h, tot. 990 km.
Great brekky in the motel again and cycled away at 8:00am . Soon onto a lovely sealed canal path, which wasn't to last unfortunately. After 10km it became a Le French Le s*** goat-track. We expected more between two major tourist cities in the middle of the Moselle Region and in the Land of the Le Tour de France. It wasn't till the 52km mark that we picked up a decent path again. However we stayed positive and enjoyed the sunshine, the birds, wild flowers, a very surprised snake, and forest setting, when we weren't trying to avoid boulders or potholes. Although we'd rather be dodging potholes than having trucks dodge us. Never heard of a cyclist getting killed by a pothole. Also no headwind to worry about today so that was good.
Eventually made it to the motel (Novotel) at 2:10pm none the worse for wear and feeling reasonably good about the day, albeit a little disappointed with French cycling infrastructure.
Metz is a lovely city with lots of ancient buildings and structures. It also has a nice feel about it with a lot of traffic-free streets, cafés and restaurants. We had our normal post-ride wander and did a quick recon for tomorrow. We have two nights in Metz so plenty of time to explore tomorrow.
Dinner at Le Pub (pseudo Irish) good beer & great pasta.