Salamanca: The Rest…
Call it ‘part 2’ or ‘the photos that weren’t taken from or of the Universidad Pontificia’. Look out for… what looks like a frequently egged former head of state in the Plaza Mayor, modern buildings that fit in seamlessly with the older ones, a yet to be carved […]
Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia De Salamanca
So many pictures today that I have split my collection into two. The first group were all taken within or from the tower of the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. I’ll post the second group a little later this evening.
Cycling Day 10: Plasencia To Salamanca
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. [Saturday evening: Too tired to write the blurb tonight but come back tomorrow for the full story. The stats and pictures will hopefully suffice for the moment. Some of the photos do need explaining…] It’s now Sunday morning […]
Cycling Day 9: Cáceres To Plasencia
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. An interesting day… I had no great expectations that it would be. Just another few hours trundling along the N-630. I set off with no definite destination in mind; the plan was to cycle as far as Carcaboso […]
Cáceres: Bicycle Meets… Steps
But we persisted and succeeded in seeing an extraordinary wall city. World Heritage site with good reason!
Cycling Day 8: Mérida To Cáceres
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. It required a short climb out of Mérida this morning to rejoin my almost constant companion on this leg of the cycle, the N-630, but it wasn’t too many minutes into cycling along the road that I stopped […]
In Praise Of… Spanish Road Signs
I’ve written much about the quality of road signs across Europe from the perspective of the travelling cyclist; French – the benchmark of excellence, Swiss – disappointingly poor (no distances), Italian – oh dear… (More details on the books). But I have to say that Spanish signs rival […]
Cycling Day 7: Zafra To Mérida
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. The day kicked off with a visit to the post office in Zafra to post the documents, clothes and zoom lens back to Britain, all 2.2 kg of them. I am indebted to the woman who served me […]
Sunglasses: Third Time Lucky?
Pair 1: bought at an outdoor shop in the UK, lost somewhere in or near Tarifa on cycling day one. Pair 2: bought at El Cortes Inglés in Seville for about £11, broken at some point in the following 12 hours. My fault? Probably. Too late to return […]
Zafra
It’s a nice little place as long as you stay within the old part of the town. I wandered around the almost deserted streets earlier before the über relaxed atmosphere started to affect me and I came back to the hotel on the main square of the old […]
Cycling Day 6: Monesterio To Zafra
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle A short day after yesterday’s long ride to Monesterio. In fact, not only short but predominantely downhill. It was very much in the same vain in terms of cycling conditions along the defacto cycle path otherwise known as […]
Monesterio: Thoughts For Today
Here’s the bike: He looks very muddy after yesterday’s encounter with the realities of following a walking trail (see yesterday’s post, now updated with pictures). If I pass a high pressure jet car cleaning place today I’ll strip off his panniers and do the necessary. I’m not […]
Cycling Day 5: Sevilla To Monesterio
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle This risks being quite short as I’m very tired… I really want to avoid cycling 100 km + days but I’ve just my first. There will, inevitably, be others, but with the average distance that I need to […]
La Plaza De España, Seville
I’ve seen pictures of this before but on my two previous visits to Seville never got to see it. Not quite sure why as it’s in the city centre… It’s an extraordinary building but not as old as you might think. Built in the 1920s for an international […]
La Ruta De La Plata… More Details
The Ruta/Via de la Plata is clearly quite a famous thing in Spain as most people that I have mentioned it to in the last couple of months immediately recognise the name at the very least. Most, in addition, know something about it. I knew nothing about it […]
Cycling Day 4: Dos Hermanas To Sevilla
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle I had to wait until nearly halfway through the Eurovelo 8 trip along the Mediterranean to intersect with my previous continental crossing – my take on the Eurovelo 5 – in Piacenza, Italy. I even posted a video […]
Paul, Mercedes Days And Seville
Here is Paul from The Netherlands who wins the accolade of being the first touring cyclist I have not only seen since leaving Tarifa but also the first that I have had a good chat with. He’s an interesting chap, widely travelled and was careful – he kept […]
Cycling Day 3: Jerez De La Frontera To Dos Hermanas
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Not masses to write about the cycling today as it was simply a case of finding the N-IV (no idea what the significance of that name is) in north-east Jerez and following it all the way not just […]
The Top Five Boroughs In England For Cycling
By Cheryl Smith While treating illness and disease is at the core of any health service, tackling problems before they arise will be essential to dealing with the problems caused by unhealthy lifestyles and ageing populations. The Healthy Access project from Toothpick.com will empower people to make healthy […]
Cycling Day 2: Conil (Fuente Del Gallo) To Jerez De La Frontera
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Well I did have a brilliant idea (see the last paragraph of ‘cycling day 1’), although it wasn’t that brilliant. I looked again at the online maps and there was clearly lots of back roads that would take […]
Cádiz: The Return
I couldn’t resist coming back for a cycle around the city where I spent all of March… I only left last Friday at dawn but it does seem like a long time ago!
Cycling Day 1: Tarifa To Conil (Fuente Del Gallo)
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Finally, it’s started! I’m sure you are as relieved as me… It was a soggy morning back in Tarifa (see previous post) but after that very virtuous breakfast it was off to knock on the door of the […]
And We’re Off: Next Stop Nordkapp… (Well, Via…)
Breakfast In Tarifa
I did sleep last night just a little, but most of the time was spent listening to the pitter patter of raindrops on the tent. Grumbles of thunder in the distance were a sign of things to come and the downpour coincided with my departure time. Over the […]
Prologue Day 2: Gibraltar To Tarifa
The plan this morning was to first spend an hour or so meandering my way along the edge of the rock so as to complete a full circumnavigation. OK, it’s not perhaps the British Isles but it would at least give me claim to having visited most things […]
Gibraltar
It’s a curious place. Dont get me wrong; I actually quite like it (and my hotel – the Rock Hotel – is wonderful), but it is slightly strange. I’m sure that I’m not the first person to make such a comment. It’s British but not quite British. It’s […]
Prologue Day 1: Estepona To Gibraltar
So, not the first day of cycling from the southernmost point of Europe to the northernmost point, but the first day of cycling any kind of distance on a fully loaded bike. It was a straightforward journey along the coast although I when I looked out of the […]
Ready To Take On Europe (Again)
Tomorrow morning, Tuesday 7th April, it’s a relatively short ride to Gibraltar and a final night of luxury in a hotel. On Wednesday it’s an even shorter ride to Tarifa and a campsite just to the west of Europe’s most southerly mainland point. Then on Thursday 9th I […]
In Praise Of… Yep Bike
If you ever need to reignite your faith in the wider cycling community then I can suggest few better people to meet than Roman and his colleagues at Yep Bike in San Pedro, just south of Marbella on the Costa del Sol. I first contacted Roman a couple […]
Estepona: The Calm Before The Cycling
Sunday night near Estepoba on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain… The start of the cycle approaches fast but here’s a quick summary of the last few days… If you were paying attention back at the start of March (no? You should be ashamed…) you will remember […]
Ronda / San Roque, Andalucia, Spain
After having left Cádiz it was back to Estepona yesterday to pick up Reggie (the bike) but my uncle Ron had pieced together a full but very enjoyable day of sightseeing before I was finally able to hit the sack in a comfortable bed (first time in five […]
“The 10,000k Challenge: …Faffing Across Europe On A Bike!” By John Chick
John Chick recounts a tale of long days in the saddle followed by even longer days at the PC writing his book about cycling to Istanbul and back… “Writing a book about my adventures rolling around Europe‘s less travelled roads was never on the cards at the inception of the 10,000k […]
Cádiz: The Last Post
Once this is uploaded I’m off back to the flat to pack (listening to the leaders debate as I do so), have a shower and then hit the sack in preparation for a 6am rise and a coach to Tarifa at 7am. My time in Cádiz is done. […]
Cádiz: Coming Soon…
A final collection of photos from my last afternoon in the Andalucian city… Watch this space!
Cádiz: Parque Marisma De Los Torunos
The original plan, as noted in last night’s post, was to go kayaking. Alas it was too windy and all such activities had been cancelled. Instead I went with one of my teachers José (with the beard), his girlfriend and my fellow student Glen to the Parque Metropolitano […]
Cádiz: The End Is Nigh…
Earlier today I attended my final lesson at the K2 Internacional language school here in Cádiz. The choice was a bit random and based primarily upon the school’s location on what looked like a nice square in the old part of town (and the impressive video on their […]
Cádiz: Semana Santa In Benedicion De Dios!
When I imagined Semana Santa in Cadiz, I thought it would be two or three religious-themed processions on Thursday and Friday of ‘holy week’. I wasn’t expecting thirty or more of them spread throughout the week and in many cases stretching late into the night. Last night the […]
Prudential Ride London And UNICEF
By Imogen Walker, UNICEF UK Are you looking for a cycle ride with a difference? Or maybe you want to challenge yourself but aren’t quite sure how. Then look no further as Unicef UK are delighted to be able to offer places in the Prudential Ride London 100. […]
Cádiz: Museo De Las Cortes
Amazing model from 1779 now housed in the Museo de la Cortes. Hanging above the model is an iconic picture depicting the presentation of the 1812 constitution to the King, I think. Two years later in 1814 the (new?) King ripped it up, if not literally then metaphorically. […]
Cádiz: Sunset On The First Day Of Summertime
The sun is beginning to set on my time in Cádiz. Three more days at the language school followed by a day off and then an early morning bus to Tarifa on Friday to meet up with my uncle and eventually, back in Estepona, my bicycle Reggie. All […]
Ditching The Rough Guides In Favour Of…
I would happily class myself as an enthusiastic early adopter of technology, especially when it comes to cycling. Back in 2009 when I cycled along the Pennine Cycleway as a shakedown of my skills as a first time touring cyclist I blogged as I travelled having moved on from writing […]
Cádiz: The Puerta De Tierra Meets The GoPro
The wonders of mobile blogging… I think I’ve more or less got the whole thing sorted. Here are a few GoPro shots from this morning, transferred wirelessly to my iPhone and beamed up to the Internet via 4G. Hopefully also a couple of videos (but it’s there where […]
Cádiz: La Plaza Montidero & Bar / Restaurante El Serrallo
You may remember – I’ve certainly mentioned it on here before, and probably elsewhere – that one of the principal reasons for choosing to study Spanish at the K2 language school here in Cádiz was not just its general location in the heart of the old part of […]
Cycling Tarifa To Nordkapp: Two Weeks Until Departure
The plan is that two weeks today – Thursday 9th April – I will be standing somewhere near the southernmost point of the European mainland looking north and thinking “here we go again…” (or even, “bloody hell, here we go again…”). Between now and then, my time is […]
Cádiz: The Post With All The Bicycles
I promised this a couple of weeks ago so here it is; the post with all the bikes of Cádiz, or at least some of them. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that the city is up there at the top of the European premier league of […]
Cádiz: My Favourite Photograph(s) So Far
…and then perhaps this one:
Cycling Tarifa To Nordkapp: Planning Week 1
Can I just get something off my chest? Or indeed off my bed here in Cádiz. Digestive biscuits as sold by Carrefour here in Spain are not to be mistaken with what most of you and I would consider to be a ‘digestive’ biscuit. Far too sweet, far […]
Cádiz: The Andalucian News At 9.10am
If you’ve got election fatigue in the UK, spare a though for the poor people in Spain. This year they have a triple whammy of local, regional and national elections to ‘look forward’ to. The election season kicked off yesterday with regional elections here in Andalucia and the […]
Cádiz: El Puerto De Santa Maria
There’s a a feeling you get when visiting El Puerto de Santa Maria that its glory days are in the distance past. But what glory days they were; Columbus sailed from here on one of his journeys to the Americas and the first map of the Americas was […]
The Equipment Needed To Blog From Tarifa To Nordkapp
The photograph below has been inspired by BikeTourGlobal on Instagram doing something similar. That said, it follows on from the photograph that I posted to CyclingEurope.org back in February (which is also at the foot of this post) showing all of the equipment I will be taking with […]
Cádiz: The Pillars Of Hercules
I mentioned The Pillars of Hercules in the previous post and it gave me an idea for a dreary afternoon in Cádiz; see how many of them I could spot in coats of arms dotted around the city. The predominant coat of arms shown below is the one […]
Cádiz: El Museo De Cádiz, Part 3
A modest collection of contemporary art on the second floor. It didn’t take me long to stroll around. The three-dimensional cardboard piece was my favourite, the contorted bodies reminding me of some of the religious stuff on the first floor (see earlier post). As for the black metal […]
Halfords: Get On Your Bike!
Fun video from last year. I’ve just watched it again after someone shared it on Facebook.
Cádiz: Three Weeks Down, Two To Go…
I arrived here in Cádiz in the early afternoon of Saturday 28th February. (What do you mean you don’t remember?! Weren’t you paying attention?) I’ve now been in the city for three weeks. It was a beautifully sunny day. I perspired slightly as I carried my bags around […]
Cádiz: Cerveza / Beer (And A Few Phoenicians…)
Thursday is turning out to be the night of indulgence. In previous weeks it has been tapas and this week it has been the turn of beer. That said the indulging was limited and it was more of a late afternoon event than a full-blown evening one but […]
Cádiz: The Rain In Spain…
If you bump into Professor Henry Higgins in the near future, would you mind pointing out that currently the rain is Spain seems to be falling mainly on Andalucia and especially the corner where Cádiz is located. However, my mood has lifted somewhat from the mid-Cádiz blues that […]
Tour De France 2014: Remember That?
Infographic courtesy of Blue Chip Holidays.
Cádiz: Fifty Shades Of Grey Sky And Enchufe
The title might have persuaded you not to bother reading this but for those of you still here… It’s not been a great day. Nothing bad has happened. I haven’t been thrown onto the streets of Cádiz or expelled from the language school or anything like that. It’s […]
Cádiz: A Journey Into The Mountains And The Pueblos Blancos
The second day of our Andalucian road trip (see Saturday’s post for day one) set off inland and headed in an easterly direction to Arcos de la Frontera… …followed by lunch and a mid-afternoon stroll around Grazalema… …and finally a late afternoon visit to Zahara de la Sierra. […]
Cádiz: A Journey Along The Costa De Luz
Sometimes images speak more than words. Today is a good case in mind. Thanks to my very enthusiastic (i.e. he seems to be very good at getting stuff done) fellow student of Spanish, Dutch Mike (he’s not called ‘Dutch Mike’, just ‘Mike’), a car was hired and four […]
Poker Pros Help Spread The Love For Cycling
By Albert Thompson For a number of poker pros and poker run enthusiasts, cycling is the way to go. Ever since televised poker exploded onto the world stage in a big way about a decade ago, poker has been one of the most watched and enjoyed spectator sports […]
Reggie Ridgeback, The Number 1 Bicycle In Britain!
‘Along The Med on a Bike Called Reggie‘ and ‘Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie‘ are still riding high in the cycling books chart – that’s all cycling books, not just Kindle ones – at Amazon.co.uk. If you have been one of the people who have downloaded […]
Bicycle Film Festival, March 19-21, Brighton
For more information see the festival website.
Cádiz: El Museo De Cádiz, Part 2
So, that’s the ‘fine art’ section of the Museo de Cádiz done. Spanning the period from the 16th to the early 20th it’s a modest collection of paintings. The earlier stuff is full of virgins, anguished faces, cherubs, monks looking worried… You get my drift. The 16th and […]
Cádiz: A Lecture On Language Learning
Today wasn’t the greatest day in my ongoing efforts to master the basics of the Spanish language. My small class consists of me, a francophone Canadian and a multilingual Dutchman (who is probably reading this so I had better be careful what I say!). Both are very affable […]
CyclingEurope.org: An Apology To Readers
So it’s Monday 9th March and I’m just about to start my second week at the language school here in Cádiz. Perhaps first of all I should apologise to all those people who are desperate for me to start writing about cycling once again. At the moment there […]
Cádiz: El Museo De Cádiz, Part 1
On the Sykes/CyclingEurope Luxembourg scale of local museum quality (where the Luxembourg City History Museum scores a straight 10 – more details here), the Museo de Cádiz that I’ve just visited comes out with a high 7. Today’s visit was the first of three that I’m going to […]
Cádiz: A Saturday Of Art
Yesterday, following my, err… ‘grate’ morning stroll to the main square in front of the ayuntamiento (or town hall) of the city, I sat down for a few minutes to upload the ‘grate’ pictures [OK, stop with the ‘grate’ jokes now…] to the Internet and to await my […]
“I Can Highly Recommend Both Books”
I’ve just read the following comment on Instagram and I’m very touched indeed. Many thanks to Dr. Guru Singh for writing what he has:
Cádiz: The Grates And Manholes Post
Bear with me on this one… Whatever you may think of grates and manholes (or indeed personholes as I suppose we should nowadays refer to them as), they do come in a great (no pun intended) variety of shapes and sizes. Indeed some are very small, others are […]
Cádiz: Giving The GoPro A Shakedown
It’s not the first time I have used the GoPro camera but it is the first time on this trip that I’ve tried to use it for a proper purpose. The results are mixed. I filmed a time-lapse sunset which was OK but the camera seems to compensate […]
Felix Rides To Slovenia For Charity
By Felix Leckie This summer I’m planning to cycle 1,450 miles with my dad from home to Slovenia for charity. The charity we are raising money for is called the Children’s Bereavement Centre. It’s a fantastic local charity that helps support children and their families affected by terminal […]
Cádiz: Nothing Important Happened Today
But that’s no bad thing. I’m here for a month and can’t do ‘important’ things every day. And it’s not saying that the ‘unimportant’ things that I did do were nevertheless uninteresting; they weren’t. So what were they? Well the lessons this morning of course (we were studying… […]
Cádiz: The First Official Tour
I’ve been wandering around Cadiz since my arrival last Saturday, so much of what I saw today on my first proper tour with a guide who knew what she was talking about – it was my teacher at the language school Christina – wasn’t new. But the Torre […]
Cádiz: Roaming And Learning
My cunning plan to continue to use my mobile phone and 3G/4G data during my two months in Spain – see the details at length here – is not working quite as well as I thought it might. To avoid the £3 per day charge from Vodafone UK, I […]
Cádiz: A Big Run And A Little Canival
The plan for today was – and still is – to spend a few hours reviewing my notes from the Spanish course that I completed during the last three months of 2014 at Reading College. I’m slowly getting a little better at coming up with the important bits […]
Cádiz: My First Day
Today has been very reminiscent of my first day at university over twenty years ago. It started with goodbyes, handshakes and embraces with members of my family (my uncle and his wife standing in for my parents this time around) followed by a long journey on a bus […]
Estepona: Bike Building And Boat Admiring
Today was spent in and around Estepona, the coastal Andalucian town where my uncle and his wife live. The bike having been delivered yesterday – I was expecting it today and was prepared for a long wait – I became a liberated man and we made the most […]
Malaga And The Alcazba
Before heading down to my uncle’s house near Estepona yesterday afternoon I took the opportunity of paying a morning visit to the Alcazba, the palace of the Moors. Not quite of Granada’s Alhambra standard but interesting nevertheless and as I was the only tourist in the place (there […]
Malaga
I would normally write ‘Cycling Day’ or ‘Rest Day’ plus a number up there in the title but that clearly isn’t yet relevant to this part of 2015’s travels across Europe as for the first five or six weeks I’m not going to be doing much crossing of […]
En Route! (Nearly…)
About to leave Yorkshire after a brief stay of just three weeks to fly to Malaga, Spain. Reggie (the bike) may already be there… Back in six months!
Preconceptions Of Cádiz, Andalucia, Spain
A few weeks ago I moved away from Reading in Berkshire having lived there for just over fifteen years. I can clearly remember my first visit to the town in Spring 1999 when I was summoned to the university for an interview. It was a horribly wet and windy […]
Packing It In!
The word of the weekend has been ‘packing’. On Saturday morning I transported the final items from my move from the south to my new ‘lock-up’ in Halifax (it’s actually a large wooden box in a former woollen mill) and then, after having packed most of my cycling […]
Cicerone Cycling Guides: The Rhine And The Danube
I’ve been sent a couple of cycling guides to review by Cicerone: The Rhine Cycle Route (ISBN: 978-1-85284-797-5) and The Danube Cycleway (ISBN: 978-1-85284-722-7). The Rhine guide is an updated version of the original 2013 guide, the Danube guide has just been published for the first time. When […]
Packing Cycling Gear: The Video!
OK. You’ve seen what I’m taking, now have a look at how I packed (most of) it into one holdall ready to be transported by Luggage Mule to southern Spain next week:
The The Equipment Needed To Cycle From Tarifa To Nordkapp
Although most of it is not new, it’s taken me about a week to assemble the cycling gear in the picture below. The task was not made easier by the fact that I had already packed up the contents of my flat in Reading into lots of boxes prior […]
Top Apps For European Touring
By Per Amble European Bike tourism is a growing pastime with thousands of new enthusiasts engaging in some fitness boosting, road rambling activity every passing month. Part of people’s new thirst for picturesque tours through Europe has been down to the massive innovation that is the smartphone app. […]
The BBC Radio Interview: What You Didn’t Hear
Being interviewed in almost all situations (I’m excluding being interviewed by the police here which I imagine is not a particularly pleasant experience) does, despite the often stressful nature of such encounters (job interview, other people listening…) have one very nice aspect. In life we don’t often have the […]
Cycling The Eurovelo 1/3
If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve posted these country-specific commentaries about the upcoming Eurovelo 1/3 trip from southern Spain to northern Norway: Cycling in Spain Cycling in France Cycling in Belgium Cycling in Germany Cycling in Denmark Cycling in Sweden Cycling in Norway
Saturday Morning Packing Frustrations
I woke up a couple of hours ago and decided to continue piecing together the pile of cycling/camping kit that I started to assemble earlier in the week. The start was modest to say the least but it only took me half an hour or so to bring […]
Eurovelo 1/3: The United Maps Of Europe!
There is a moment in the film Raiders of the Lost Arc when Indiana Jones places a sacred staff in just the right place inside a newly discovered ancient cavern and magically a blinding shaft of light pierces through the skylight. The whole scene is played out to […]
On Your Marks, Get Set…
Under two weeks now until departure and I’m finally beginning to piece things together in a serious way. The flight is purchased and the Spanish course booked but you already know that as you have read this, no? Yesterday I spent the day in Leeds in search of […]
“Simple Cycle Tours – We Carry Your Bags”
I’m not sure if some you have noticed (probably yes) but I occasionally post things on CyclingEurope.org that have been ‘sponsored’. You can work out what that means! Anyway, this morning I was chatting on Twitter with a chap called John Wilson who asked if I could help […]
The Corn Exchange, Leeds
Not quite nothing to do with cycling…
Cycling In Spain
So finally, after Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and France… I arrive at the beginning (if that makes sense), in Spain. If you remember, my posts about cycling through each of the countries of the Eurovelo 1/3 route that I will be following later in the year were […]
Cycling Accidents In The UK: The Facts
For more info about the statistics below, follow this link.
The Spanish Plan: February / March 2015
It’s been a busy few days since relocating back up to Yorkshire but I’m delighted that the whole process is now complete. I first started to plan my return to the county where I was born, brought up and educated over twelve months ago and everything has now […]
Taking The Donkey Work Out Of Flying With A Bicycle: Updated
If you choose to use the service discussed below, you can now save 5% by using the discount code CYCEUR15 Cycling to southern Italy in 2010 it wasn’t a problem; I set off from my flat in Reading and just started pedalling. At the end of the journey in Brindisi, […]
Breaking Book News…
I am delighted to announce that ‘Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie‘ has now broken into the highly competitive Indian book market. It is currently the number 1 cycling eBook available on Amazon.in! (OK, I admit it, it’s sold one copy but it’s a start…) Meanwhile back […]
