If the manager of this hotel were to walk in right now, I’d probably get thrown out for moving all the furniture around. I needed a space large enough to piece together the final three maps which has just allowed me to work out a little more detail […]
The non-Guardian reader campsite (see cycling day 39) provided me with a supermarket evening feast which I ate whilst sitting in the tent as I failed miserably in my attempt to find a chair upon which to sit and do the same thing. At least I was spared […]
To say I didn’t set off until around midday today, the distance I managed to cycle – some 93km – wasn’t too bad at all. But whereas quantity wasn’t lacking, quality was. It was not an enjoyable ride apart from one short portion in the ten or so […]
Dave and Pauline’s hospitality didn’t stop in the evening; it continued in the morning where I was presented with a very nice full English breakfast. The Cockers don’t even eat breakfast while in Spain – they prefer to eat later and have a large lunch – so it […]
The problem with writing these updates a couple of days after the events is that I forget so much so quickly. It can be very frustrating but here goes… I had breakfast in the centre of Perpignan and was still not sure which route to take into Spain. […]
Almost live from central Barcelona…
I’m about to enter country number 9, Spain, but this last ride in France along what I’ve seen referred to as the ‘Red Coast’ south of Argelès has, despite the cars, been a delight…
Eddy wasn’t just good, interesting company; he was useful company. Before the combined effects of the food, cycling and two glasses of local white wine (I know, sorry, I’m a lightweight) had had their effects, he talked to me about his own experiences of cycling through Spain and […]
Here we go. Apologies for the late update but I’m not going to move from my seat here in the garden of the Ibis hotel in central Perpignan until cycling days 35 & 36 are written. I may order another beer at some point. Life can be tough […]
I’ve just heard on the radio that the Prime Minister back in Britain wants a ‘cycling revolution’. Well, good luck with that but its a shame he wasn’t cycling with me yesterday as I made my way along the coast from La Grande-Motte towards Béziers. Some excellent examples […]
I tweeted earlier today pointing out how nice it was to spend Sunday morning cycling around an unknown town (see the next post for some of the pictures from Nîmes). I could say something similar about Sunday evening although in Béziers tonight it was without the bike…
Today was, at times, at many times, a frustrating day. The wind, the roads, the signage, the route, the tourist destinations. They all conspired together. Perhaps they wanted to show me another side to Provence before I departed for the (mainly) flatlands of Langudoc-Rousillon, a meaner, grittier, kick […]
Mont Ventoux is a place with iconic status but one about which I knew little about until just a few months ago. Scouting around for interesting cycling-related things to do whilst crossing southern France, I simply noted on the map that Mont Ventoux was actually in the very […]
Time to catch up. I’m a little behind so if you are waiting for the story of Mont Ventoux, please bear with me as I first update you on cycling day 32. Even before I retreated to my tent at the end of cycling day 31, the campsite […]
Back in summer 2010 it took me 30 cycling days to get to Brindisi in the south of Italy from my home in southern England. It’s now cycling day 31 on this particular trip. I cycled 3,311km three years ago averaging 110km per day. I’m currently averaging about […]
Now in Castellane. This may not get sent tonight as 3G doesn’t seem to actually be 3G in this corner of the Alps of high Provence (that’s what the French call this department or county). Split infinitive there, sorry but moving the ‘actually’ elsewhere seems to change the […]
I can’t say for sure but it wouldn’t surprise me if great works of travel literature have been penned whilst sitting in laundrettes worldwide. If they haven’t, this short piece describing my cycle from the Italian Alps to the French Riviera may be a first. But I doubt […]
May I first of all start with a public plea to the sign makers of Italy; sort it out! I experienced the same problems back in 2010 and am having to cycle through the frustration of the same signage ‘idiosyncrasies’ in 2013. I’m being polite. How difficult can […]
It’s now midday on Saturday and I’ve arrived in the town of Cuneo just above the plain of northern Italy. Not too high – just 550m – but the highest that I’ve been since arriving in Italy and from here over the course of the next 24 hours […]
It was the equivalent of one of those days when you turn up at work and just potter around doing bits and pieces but never seem to get to tackling the big issues in your job. This tends to happen for me as a teacher on the very […]
Time to catch up on yesterday’s events along the road to Portugal. Sometimes I arrive either too late in a place to muster up the necessary energy and concentration to write. In other places when I am staying with someone it would be rude to take myself off […]
So where are you tonight? Who said that? It’s Ivan, Ivan iPad. Oh my… Haven’t we taken this too far? As I was saying, where are you tonight? Ask me for a Shakespearean quote Err… OK. Andrew, can you give me a quote from Shakespeare? Yes, I’d be […]
My plans as they stand for the upcoming week are below. As always they will evolve, change, be scrubbed etc… as circumstances & events dictate. My arrival in France will miss the self-imposed deadline of the 1st August (quite considerably) but… If you have any comments or suggestions […]
I started writing this last night but eventually gave in to the weight of my eyelids shutting… How could I not take a day off in Venice? That’s the plan for today but before that, I need to catch up on yesterday’s events, cycling day 23. I have […]
So I find myself back by the Adriatic coast but this time in Italy. Just to the north of Venice in a place called Caorle. Or is it Porto Santa Marhgerita? I’m certainly staying at the (very busy) municipal campsite in the latter but I have cycled back […]
Apologies. Another late update. The good news is that I am in Italy. I feel that I am at home. Which is very bizarre as I am not Italian, have never lived in Italy and have merely been an occasional visitor to the country over the last twenty […]
After my enforced day off it feels just like the evening before you return to work after having been sick. I am now more or less sure that I wasn’t suffering from dehydration after all and that my problem was a bug that I had picked up somewhere. […]
When I normally say ‘rest day’ it is no such thing. It’s a ‘day off the bike day’ but today really is a ‘rest day’. I won’t go into detail but I wasn’t particularly well yesterday evening. The symptoms were more associated with a bug of some sort […]
Time to catch up on events of the last 24 hours… For the first time yesterday (cycling day 20) I suffered in the saddle beyond the point of comfort. I self-diagnosed myself as a little dehydrated, combined with that slight fever you can get from having lots of […]
It’s not imminent – I will still be staying here tonight at some point along the coast – but I can see the end and finally another country. It seems such a long time since I crossed from Montenegro into Croatia. It’s actually only a week but it’s […]
This place is comedy gold but more about where I am staying tonight later… It was a very quick job packing up back at Chez Zorbin in Skradin. I had a quick chat with him before I left and he explained how he was an engineer and used […]
When I look at the map I don’t seem to have cycled very far today compared to the previous two. However, three days into my post-Dubrovnik campaign to make it over the border into France by the 1st August, the number of kilometres cycled has been comparable to […]
A few months after I had published “Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie” (available in all good book shops, a few not-so-good books shops and online), a chap contacted me to say how wonderful it was (honest) and I subsequently exchanged a few emails with him about […]
The plan over the next week or so is to cycle a minimum of 100km and find a campsite to stay in overnight. Today was day one of the plan, and it worked a treat! Leaving Dubrovnik and all the other tourists who had flocked there wasn’t difficult. […]
The finest performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet I’ve ever seen… It was a nice modern touch to include the theme music to The Apprentice as well. [Shut up & go to bed!]
It’s easy to get quite snooty about the tourist crowd. I’ve already taken a few side swipes at the cruise parties that I seem to be bumping into (often literally) on a far too regular basis – and they are certainly here en masse in Dubrovnik – but […]
The children at Gillotts School where I work had their final day of the academic year today. Here’s a message that I recorded for them this morning which they were shown during their tutor time. Apparently they appreciated it (although not the jokes…)
These previews could catch on… Here are three photos from my morning. Full commentary & higher quality photos later.
If proof were needed (and can I say that it isn’t) that this was just one long mad dash from A (the Temple of Poseidon in Greece) to B (Cape St. Vincent in Portugal) then today was that evidence. Which isn’t needed. [Get on with it, please…] I […]
Haven’t had one of these before but I’ve cycled through some stunning places today… Here’s a couple of pictures to whet your appetite. Full update later in the evening.
I wasn’t in the greatest of moods this morning when I woke. I had slept relatively well (who wouldn’t after most of a bottle of Montenegrin Chardonnay?) but was still narked that I had been taken in by the wide boy who had turned the patch of land […]
I can highly recommend this type of holiday if you want to delve into the variety of accommodation on offer within Europe. Last night I was having a shower in a wet room and then donning a white bath robe in a boutique hotel in was of Europe’s […]
So… The next couple of countries are coming up fast; Montenegro & Croatia. Today is Monday 15th and the plan is: Tuesday 16th – Tirana to Ulcinj (Montenegro) This might be a long day in the saddle but I have just had a decent rest here in Tirana. […]
There isn’t a great deal to tell about today’s cycling (well shut up then!) but for the sake of completeness, here goes (at which point everyone has found something more interesting to do. Anyone still there? I could say anything! It’s all a lie! I’m really sitting at […]
While you’ve been watching the cycling or cricket or just tanning yourself in the UK sun, I’ve been hard at work on the terrace of the Hotel Vila Alba here in Tirana. This is my view over the rooftops…
So, here it is, the tale of an epic day in the saddle, all 172km of it. In fact I’ll start by reeling off the statistics. When I cycled to Italy in 2010 I gave the statistics at the end of each day on the blog. (One reader […]
Despite the very best efforts of the combined armed forces of Albania (the drivers & the roads), Reggie and I have arrived in the Albanian capital, Tirana. We are just about in one piece after the ordeal of the last few days and are going to be taking […]
…and they don’t serve food. It’s the bar under the hotel where I am staying for a ridiculous 15€ (I would happily have paid triple that; last night I paid double and had mice thrown in for free!). I sighed but they were very apologetic. I smiled, they […]
Like many probably most others I came to Albania with a number of preconceptions. In the main they have so far turned out to be false or certainly outdated. What I’ve discovered is a country that appears to be heading in the right direction from closed communist to […]
This is simply a stunning country…
Where does one start on a day like today? The beginning I suppose. Waking up in the hotel room in Saranda and pulling back the curtains was akin to taking part in a nuclear test in the 1950s but forgetting to have turned around. The sun was beaming […]
I’ve been sitting here for far too long… but I don’t care. The view is breathtaking (as was the cycle to get to get here…).
If I had any real worries about cycling into Albania (they weren’t for dramatic effect, surely?) they have certainly been dispelled by today’s events. Waking up at the campsite in Ioannina was a delight. Looking out over the lake and across to the mountains is the kind of […]
Put your tent up where you want, great view in the morning, green, friendly neighbours… (let’s just give the guy on reception the benefit of the doubt that he was having a bad day…)
This really is another side of Greece. Isolated in the mountains as it is, the town is frequented mainly by locals and a few hardy tourists but if Ryan Air opened up a boat plane service between the Thames Estuary & the lake here, people would flock! It’s […]
Sitting here in a café sipping coffee on a rainy afternoon in the mountains is very reminiscent of summer 2010. Over the last couple of hours my mind has been cast back three years on many occasions due to the wet weather since I arrived in town… Today […]
It was indeed a shorter day in the end and nothing untoward happened. Following coffee in Mitikas it was a relatively short cycle to the much nicer Paleros where I had planned to meet Ed Cox. Ed is cycling from Bristol to Brisbane and he had contacted me […]
From boutique hotel in Nafpaktos to this. Scruffy campsite, dodgy clientele, questionable facilities, somewhat derelict camping shower… The ironic thing is that I actually slept quite well. A shorter cycling day in prospect today. I’m meeting another cyclist called Ed Cox at 11am just 30km up the road […]
I’m in Mitikas. Didn’t arrive until about 8pm but more of that in a moment. I eventually dragged myself away from the café in Nafpaktos and headed back in the direction of the bridge. It’s a very photogenic thing and I spent a bit if time snapping photos […]
So, from the jaws of potential disaster comes another pleasant surprise. In this case it is the small coastal town of Nafpaktos. It’s quite bustling on this Monday morning as the residents wake up to another week at work, play or (let’s face it for most of the […]
There are some days which, however simple you think they might be, end up being anything but. Today was one of them. Lets roll the clock back to last night. I do get frustrated on those ‘rest days’ when I’ve done the resting bit or in the case […]
The reason for trekking all that way across the Peloponnese was, of course, to visit the ancient ruins of Olympia. I don’t want to make this to be too big of a thing but if you read my book about cycling to Italy you may remember that I […]
It pays to be up early at these places; I have the Olympic Stadium all to myself…
I’m not sure why I ever thought that I’d be able to cycle all the way from Corinth to Olympia in one day and then have time to have a look around the ruins here before setting off the following day for Patras. It was never going to […]
This really is a tale of two very different days. The full story later but the two graphs below show the route profiles of the two days. The first one is yesterday’s ride to Levidi, the second from Levidi to Olympia. I’m celebrating the crossing of the Peloponnese […]
If cycling day 1 had been a little bit of a shakedown for Reggie, today has been a shakedown for his rider! I set off early this morning from the campsite in Corinth with high hopes of settling into another campsite in Olympia later in the day. I […]
It took me an age to pack last night in the hotel. As per usual I had emptied all the panniers as soon as I had arrived on Sunday in order to find things which obviously necessitated replacing them before I left. If only I had a memory […]
Slight change of plan for tomorrow. The original one had been to cycle from Athens all the way to visit a WarmShowers contact in the eastern Peloponnese near a town called Astros. Before setting off at the weekend I plugged a few of my initial cycling routes into […]
‘Hang on!’ I hear you cry… OK, I’ve only done one cycling day so far but I couldn’t very well pass through what is arguably the birthplace of modern western civilisation and not pause for a look around. The Parthenon is the main attraction in these parts and […]
This whole trip is fairly green in an environmental sense but last night is was physically bathed in green in a wonderful rooftop terrace bar that I was taken to by local journalist & cycling blogger Manos & his girlfriend Katerina. A great evening and a fantastic introduction […]
I suppose it should be ‘back’ to Athens but… Before I start just a couple if quick admin points. Firstly, fear not those who did not read the blog posts back in 2010 but subsequently read the book ‘Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie’. The book was […]
First time I’ve tried to do this at distance… Lights, camera… and action:
I’m not a list person but here goes… 1. Finish coffee in this great little local café just up the street from the hotel. 2. Go to the bike shop I have been recommended (just 300 metres away apparently – it looks promising from the evidence of the […]
After writing the post last night I lay on the sofa back in the flat in Reading but didn’t sleep a wink. By the time my colleague Stéphane arrived to pick me up at 4am I had moved all my things into the street including of course a […]
The day has arrived. It’s now past midnight and we are into Sunday 30th June 2013. My flight leaves Heathrow Terminal 5 in under seven hours. And yes, I’m nervous. Not that I have had a great deal of time to think about such trivialities as nerves today as I […]
A colleague at work – David Wall – gave me a card this morning; here it is. I am touched that anyone should go to the effort of doing something like this but he is not the only one to have passed on their best wishes as I […]
Well, it’s a preliminary pack but will allow me to cycle to work for the final time this academic year on a fully-loaded bike. The question is… what do you think I didn’t pack from the original spread of equipment shown in the second photograph?
Courtesy of keen cyclist & colleague at Gillotts School, David Wall, here is the official pre-Eurovelo 8 photograph of me and Reggie. I’m even smiling… (3 working days to go!)
They used to make a really cool little video showing a fly-through of the route of the Tour de France, but strangely, for the 100th Tour de France they have reverted to simplicity… Shame. My route this summer will pass over the route of the Tour de France […]
Not very waterproof but we are hoping for dry, sunny weather…
I’d like to think that all readers of Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie take up this position when reading about my cycling adventures… Great photo courtesy of @iamjakamo on Twitter.
It has yet to be rebound and may be better as two volumes but here it is, hot off the chopping board… The Rough Guide to the Eurovelo 8; Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, Spain & Portugal (or at least the bits I’ll be cycling through). I have […]
