Easter in Spain
Villemanrique to Portugal – 4 days 170km 742m climb Most of the cycle from Villamanrique was spent going in and out of Donana National Park which is huge and stretches along the Spanish coast near Seville. It’s a mixture of forest and wild sandy land dotted with trees and the cycle route varied from pristine tarmac to sand – something we’ve come to expect in Spain. It is beautiful, tranquil deserted and thankfully fairly flat and we thoroughly enjoyed our cycling. Easter is one big festival here with people dressing in their finest and every town and village having a...
Read MoreHere we go again….
Gibraltar to Villamanrique (322km, 7 nights, 1844m climb) Our reputation for bringing mayhem to countries after we visit continued with the Gibraltar row kicking off the day after we left. I don’t know what it is about us but soon countries will be paying us not to visit! Having landed in Gibraltar we then had to cycle over the runway and on the bike, surely a first and only time we get to cycle on a runway between plane landings. We managed a full restock at Morrisons in Gib and had a lazy evening at a Harbour bar seeing how many margaritas we could down in happy hour before cycling...
Read MoreParting is such sweet sorrow
Those of you who know me well will know I think of Shakespeare in the same light as Enid Blighton, Farage and Trump. I know people like them but I just don’t understand why. Bet you never thought you’d see a sentence with those four people in it did you? Anyway, his quote is appropriate for our departure day. It’s always sad to leave home, especially when you leave someone elderly – my Dad, Bob, is 91, though he seems to have moved the decimal point and is thoroughly enjoying his second childhood. He’s great fun to be with and is such a real character in his...
Read MoreBack on our own again…
By the time we woke up the Du Randts were already on the train back to Holland, in fact they may have already been in Holland – We were back in our old routine and lying in! We had a short ride up to Cologne when we finally got going and found a lovely campsite by the river a few kms south of the city. We had a great pitch right on the waters edge and met another touring cycle couple over a bottle of wine who were cycling to Vienna for a great evening. We had planned to go into Cologne the next day but woke to signs on the shower block saying please contact reception because of the...
Read MoreFall in you ‘orrible lot!
Our ten days with the Du Randts was eventful and great fun, Jacques and Mandy are early birds and we’re more likely to be thinking about a cup of tea from the comfort of our sleeping bags by the time they’re stopping for their first cuppa of the day whilst cycling. So we had to make an effort and get up, get packed and ready to go by 9am daily, which after some negotiation (us whinging) was relaxed to 9:15. He’s a hard task master that Jacques! Anyway, we set off in the direction of Strasbourg stopping at a lovely fortified walled French town for lunch. He was breaking us...
Read MoreA spoke In the works….
And on the third day the rain stopped, (well it had been biblical like). So we set off towards Basle. Our aim for the day was to reach a remote campsite on the Rhine, far from any town and we thought obviously going to be quiet. We’d stopped en route at the Rhine Falls for a quick walk around at the immense water fall and got to our campsite after a 65km cycle through some gorgeous villages and towns in Switzerland and Germany and were quite tired when we arrived at 6pm. The campsite was heaving and there was already a party in full swing with teenagers being teenagers, which is fine...
Read More
Recent Comments