Before the start of this trip, if you’d asked me what a great day of cycling looked like I would probably say one thing: flat. I was never a fan of long, intense, tiring climbs which cyclists seemed to adore. I think this was mostly because I was riding up hills in busy urban areas …
After having a very Nice (the pun never gets old!) city-filled week on the French Riviera, we continued along the coast leaving the urban sprawl behind. Offices were replaced with never ending wetland and the abundance of people was swapped for an abundance of birds. We had read online that this area was home to …
If you are one of the few people who has been reading this blog from the start, you may remember that early on in the trip we lost a day on a coat rescue mission when we left a waterproof jacket at a campsite in the Netherlands. I have to admit, sitting at that train …
Mother Nature is a very powerful woman. Of course, we had the crazy heatwaves early on and as we’ve been heading south we’ve noticed the rivers getting emptier and emptier, and the ground is getting significantly drier. We mostly clock this as we struggle to put our tent pegs in, which is obviously trivial, but …
Unsurprisingly, Milan has a lot of really great shops. There’s something for everyone. From high end designer stores selling €20,000 high heels through to sports shops selling €5 flip flops. This was the silver lining when, in the centre of Milan, my trusty 8 year old croc flip flops broke. After a minor panic, I …
We officially arrived at the source of the Rhine exactly one month after we left England. We had a long cycle up to the top of the cycle path and decided to extend it with the 3 hour hike to get to the actual source of the river. It was immensely calming to sit by …
When someone asked me about our route before we started I would jokingly say ‘and then somehow we cross the alps’. Part of me thought we might get the train to avoid the mountains but I think we both knew in our hearts we wanted to give it a go cycling over them. As the …
If it weren’t for a friendly stranger from the past sticking a stamp on a lamppost, we never would have figured out the exact location where we crossed the border into France. There was no sign, no indication that the country had changed and, as we would come to realise, this would be the case …
We’ve spent countless hours looking at cycle routes, planning rides and thinking about where we want to visit. It’s great to spend time building excitement for the next part of the route but, and I know it’s a cliché to say, the best memories we’ve made so far have been short snippets that have nothing …
We usually roll into a campsite at some point in the afternoon after a long day of cycle-seeing (my own made up word for cycling and sightseeing). Sometimes we are hungry, usually we are thirsty and we are almost always tired. We begin our little ritual of lazily building our tent, showering and washing our …
