Cycling adventures across Yorkshire, Britain and beyond
Today was a colourful affair of mostly riverside riding, the colours being forest green and cement factory grey. Yes, the Meuse is a grand waterway, but like most of Belgium, industry is never far away. But first I went through the Centre of Belgium. The country’s exact centroid – as determined by their equivalent of…
A functional day today, all on good main-road-cycle-paths, through Brussels and across the great linguistic divide. And all in perfect weather: sunny but not glaring, warm but not hot, breezy but not windy. I glided along canalsides from my Gent hostel with a continental buffet breakfast inside me, with a Dutch twist, in the shape…
It was too early to explore De Panne’s adventure park, Plopsaland, as I left. In a cartoonishly Belgian touch, it’s named after a gnome called Plop. Not a real gnome, obviously, but a character from a children’s TV series. I wonder what effect this sort of thing has on shaping national character. Belgium was, after…
Ah, Belgium. Where beer, chips and chocolate are culture. And three countries for the price of one – the Dutch-, French-, and German-speaking ones. Which may explain why it feels so expensive. But I’ve been here many times, always enjoyed myself hugely, and now I’m doing the place properly with an End to End. Which…
The final day of the Slovakian End to End proved perhaps the most enjoyable cycle-touring of the lot. Especially for fans of wooden churches, such as Eastern Slovakian Orthodox adherents, termites, those with an aversion to nails, and now, cycle bloggers. Indeed, I saw three fine full-size examples in situ today, as well as several…
Another short, easy, mostly flat day in scenery that could have been Lowlands Scotland. Especially for the frequency of Co-ops: yes, shops are open again after the Easter break, so I could buy proper food on the go from the ubiquitous village potraviny. After a miserable day of petrol-station crisps and biscuits yesterday, my usual…
It’s Easter still. And everything was. Still, I mean. All shops closed, all roads (almost) empty. The only refreshment possibilities were on petrol station shelves, in packets or with ring-pulls. I set off from Prešov through silent, echoing retail parks and through silent, echoing villages. In one village, though, I did see a curious Slovak…
An easy day of exploring Košice by bike, rounded off with a beer specially brewed for cyclists. No wonder Czech and Slovak brewers are often said to be the world’s best. I rode south from the city centre along the riverbank cycle path. It’s part of EV11, a 6,500km-long monster ‘Eurovelo’ route that links northern…
In brackets, as this is a side-trip to Slovakia’s lovely second city. I’ll sit out Easter in a place big enough for some restaurants and bars to be open, and I’ll resume the main ride from Prešov on Monday. It would be a terrible waste to come to Slovakia, one of the world’s great places…
Yesterday was a day off the bike: a day of admin, laundry, sightseeing by bus (the historic walled town of Levoča), and drinking green beer. (Evidently a special, brewed for Easter, maybe? I tried to imagine hints of apple, gooseberry, mint, kale, bayleaf or new-mown grass, but it just tasted of beer.) So I was…