A mixed day of sunshine, lots of cool cloud, the odd headwind, and drizzle. It made me homesick. Plenty of interesting historic towns and villages to ride through, though. At Airvault I dodged a shower by having lunch in the fine covered market (pic) which was busy with the Saturday marché. It’s about the most…
Category: End to Ends
France 4: Chalonnes-sur-Loire to Montsoreau
Best day of the trip so far, mostly spent dawdling alongside the Loire. Which was pretty misty in the morning chill, but once away from Chalonnes, there were some fine views over the valley (pic). You can see why hot-air ballooning is big in these parts. One of our friends got married in a hot-air…
France 3: Vitré to Chalonnes-sur-Loire
Another long hot sunny day cycling through pleasant French countryside. You really get a feel for how rural the country, and its economy, is – you’re always being overtaken by tractors. And, if you cycle at my pace, joggers. There are quite a few chateaus too, in amongst the endless kilometres of corn and cow…
France 2: Pontorson to Vitré
A hot sunny day of quiet Normandy and Breton countryside. And a lot of English-looking farmland en route to Fougères this morning, though of course it could only be France because the cows were shrugging and the cars were giving me loads of room when they passed. It’s true, drivers, even HGVs, really do give…
France 1: St Malo to Pontorson
By ferry – especially when you’re cycling off it – is a great way to arrive in St Malo (pic). Its stern, grey, granitic old walled town centre is famous, though it holds unpleasant memories for me, and always looks to me like the backdrop to a harrowing black and white film set in World…
France 0: Portsmouth
The obvious way to get to St Malo with a bike is on the ferry from Portsmouth. The place reminds me a lot of my native Hull, being a gritty town with an underachieving football team and overachieving criminals, but with the major plus of being a port, ie a fast getaway to anywhere else….
Cuba 37: Havana
My last week in Cuba, waiting out the time between finishing my End to End and my flight home, had the feeling of marking time. The bike wasn’t really involved, which explained my limited enthusiasm. I walked everywhere, mostly between cheap bars and tourist lobster restaurants. Several of my intended big-ticket attractions (Capitol [pic], Motor…
Cuba 30: Viñales
With the End to End done, but two weeks left before my flight home, it all felt like being at school after final exams but before the end of term. From Fri 24 Apr to Tue 28 Apr I explored Viñales, a tourist town surrounded by spectacular lush scenery of mogotes, sugarloaf hills (pic). I…
Cuba 25: San Juan y Martinez to La Fe
The final day – of the End to End part of my Cuban trip, anyway. I set out in the dark from my miserable little hutch in San Juan and rolled cautiously through the black predawn. There were three cafes open in the town, and several people about. So at the first I had a…
Cuba 24: San Diego de los Baños to San Juan y Martinez
The penultimate End to End day, so I was keen to get on with it. I was out before sun-up, my bike twinklingy under-illuminated by three-euro mini-LED lights, picked up from an Albert Heijn in Amsterdam historically, and recently rediscovered in my tool bag. It was quite special to be sliding silently through the quiet…