Whatever my next “adventure”, whether it be in winter or summer, 2011, 2012 or beyond, I need to be a bit fitter than I was for the last one. I wasn’t at the peak of fitness when I set off for Brindisi on the 18th July but by […]
Iain Harper has just commented on the previous post and reminded me of his experience in Switzerland in September. I went to look at his pictures of Facebook again and found this one taken at the Oberalppass. Brrrr…. Where is your tent Iain? Ah yes, you stayed in […]
This article on the Travelling Two blog makes me wonder; should I plan something for the February half-term holiday? The picture here (from the article) is beautiful but I’m sure if I were to wake up in one of those tents at 3am and start shivering violently, I […]
Shocking news from NewsBiscuit.com; Education Secretary Michael Gove today used his speech at the Conservative Party conference to outline radical plans to scrap modern foreign languages as part of the National Curriculum. Under new proposals children will instead be taught to speak slowly and loudly, as if the […]
I caught the first five minutes or so of this programme last night on BBC HD… I was falling asleep at the time, despite the fact that the programme started at only 9.30pm! I blame the red wine that I had consumed in the afternoon with Johnny (see […]
I have many work-related things on my mind this week, despite it being half term; I have developed a complete lack of ability to switch off my school thoughts when I am on holiday. This isn’t helped by the fact that most of the people that I know […]
I have just spent the day fiddling with computers at work. This has been nice, especially as it involves new kit (although the new Smart Document Camera is refusing to work!) but a touch disappointing; it was my plan to come in and spend the day marking three sets of exercise books. […]
Not quite a Simon & Garfunkel song title but it does put this post into context; I can’t sleep! You would think the first Sunday evening of a half-term holiday would lead to a seamless night of sleep that would last until perhaps the clock was back into […]
I need to read this. In the meantime, I’ll watch this…
At some point today, the counter over there on the right will tick over to 50,000 hits on this website (plus the 7,500 when it used to be hosted by Blogger). It could be you! That’s 50,000 in about 10 months! Here are some fascinating (!) facts about those […]
My pan-European cycle continues to generate a fair bit of interest. Andrew from Leicestershire writes; A friend and myself are planning to cycle from Rome to home (Leicestershire) next year for the Loros charity. I was wondering if you could send me the exact route you took (plus […]
Here’s something interesting from the Department for Education (why not go the whole hog and just return to the “Department of Education”?). Michael Gove has decided to stop separate funding of the Specialist School programme; the £450 million will, instead, be redirected through the “Dedicated Schools Grant” that gets […]
I didn’t realise it would be a name badge affair; here is mine, complete with my justification for inclusion on the ‘VIP’ list, the ‘EuroVelo 5 blog’. If only they hadn’t chosen to employ a deaf DJ for the evening…. The music blaring from his speakers was so loud that […]
I’m at risk of soon appearing inside the covers of Heat magazine! Not only have I been invited to Decathlon’s VIP opening on Wednesday and have a potential visit to Siena on the cards to talk about my cycling adventure, I now have in my possession a ticket […]
I tweeted earlier that I hoped this year’s Language Show would be better than the last and, much to my delight, it was! Even I, the master of refusing to take pieces of paper that just happen to be thrust in my direction, have a nice CILT bag […]
Did my PC shrink or did my iPhone supersize?
I watched with amazement this week the tunneling efforts of the Swiss (as well as the Chileans of course) who have managed to bore their way through 37 kilometres of Alpine rock under the St Gotthard Pass. That puts my efforts to cycle over the top into perspective! […]
Doretta Vicini emailed a couple of days ago reporting back on her talk about the Eurovelo network to the Ciclomundi Festiva in Siena at the end of September; There were many interesting reports about long bicycle rides, as for example the one by the Swiss Claude Marthaler who also wrote several books, […]
Got home last night after a couple of days hurtling up and then back down the country for a couple of language teaching events. The first was a meeting of the schools involved in a national CLIL project lead by Do Coyle, Professor of Learning Innovation (great title!) at Aberdeen […]
I think I’ve just found one way of reducing the budget deficit by a few pounds at the (state-funded) Specialist School’s Annual Language Conference….
This time for professional reasons. Off to Southall in Nottinghamshire this morning for a CLIL meeting (to The Minster School – a wonderful place the government built before scrapping the Building Schools for the Future programme), and then this evening to The Belfry near Birmingham for the second […]
My uncle David was in touch last week; he sent me a cheque to add to the donations for the BBC Wildlife Fund, the charity that I was supporting when I cycled along the Eurovelo 5. I’ve added it to the Just Giving site and it brings the total […]
WordPress have revamped the way in which they show the statistics of people visiting the blogs they host, such as http://www.apsykes.com ! Here is the bar chart that shows the number of visitors per week since March 2010. I love how the chart peaks on week 31; that was the […]
…and yellows, oranges and dark greens! The sky above Oxfordshire this morning at 6.30am.
I think I’m getting there with the new-look website. Clearly I would have preferred to go to work yesterday and today instead of coughing and sneezing over this computer (it’s true – I would; the hassles of being a teacher and missing two days of school cannot be […]
You may notice from the Twitter feed that I have taken the day off work; for the second time this month I have been feeling off colour. A couple of weeks ago I croaked my way through the first few days of term and now I have picked […]
…just next to where I live if you remember. My trudges across town for replacement bits and pieces for the bike will soon be at an end. It opens in October.
Sorry, the second change of name in as many weeks. http://www.resycling.net implied something that the site wasn’t (about recycling that is although I’m all for it!). I did own http://www.sycling.com on a blog I once set up with blogger but I’m buggered if I knew how to get […]
If you happen to be passing through Siena today, 25th September, you could make a little detour to go and listen to Doretta Vicini who is talking all about Eurovelo at a round table discussion at the Ciclomundi Festival entitled “In viaggio lungo le strade della civiltà” or “Travelling along the roads […]
Here’s a little story that, in the past hour has had its denouement. Kind of… Before I set off on my trip along the Eurovelo 5, I made sure that I wasn’t going to be stung by any hefty mobile phone charges from Orange. I had recently upgraded […]
Another reader that I have shamelessly neglected in preference to the day (and usually evening) job this past week is Iain in Deal. He sent the following email; My Switzerland trip has been booked, well the ferry has been booked I’ll drive down to a friend who stays […]
This is the fifth attempt at writing the content of this post; all previous efforts have disappeared before they arrive on the blog itself. I am wondering if it has anything to do with “upgrading” my browser to IE9…. Let’s try again this time in Firefox. Mmmm… seems […]
…I will be responding to the emails and comments received this week. Being back at school means that I don’t really function on any other level until the weekend. Apologies, especially to Iain and Doretta; check back in a couple of hours!
At least something is glad to be returning to Benevento…. From the BBC News website ** Library returns looted manuscript ** A 12th Century manuscript which was housed in the British Library is to be returned to Italy because it was looted during the Second World War. < […]
Tomorrow, I’m back to being a cycling commuter; I can’t wait! For the first week and a bit of the academic year I’ve been getting a lift from my friend Jo, who also lives in Reading. It’s been nice having someone with whom I can chew over the […]
Iain – the guy I stayed with in Deal before setting off for the continent along the Eurovelo 5 – has been busy advising me on Reggie’s refit (thanks for that Iain – very useful). He’s also emailed with a question about tents; Hello Andrew, a quick question […]
No one say “rubbish”; that would be too much of a cliché….
After three weeks of (almost) dormancy, I’m trying to give new life to the blog. The name had to go I’m afraid as it no longer seemed relevant (although http://www.eurovelo5.com still points in this direction and I’m not deleting any of the Eurovelo 5 information on here), so I […]
Reggie, after his £137 refit. New chain, new cassette, new cables, new headset, cleaned, greased, tyres pumped up. Ready for the winter commutes.
Apologies for the delay in posting this thank-you (my broadband connection has been down since I arrived home last Tuesday and it has only just been repaired), but here goes…. For providing me with a bed for the night when I was in their town or city thanks […]
I found it difficult to match up many places that I flew over last Tuesday with my route in the other direction. Is that Ostuni? What lake did I photograph? And where did I cross the channel? Is that Boulogne? What I do know is that what took […]
Cycling days = 30 Rest days = 5 Time in saddle = 174 hrs 58 mins (7.3 days) Longest day in the saddle = 7 hrs 45 mins Distance cycled = 3,311 kms (2,057 miles) Maximum distance in a day = 172 kms (107 miles) Average speed = […]
Distances (and speeds) are in kilometres (per hour), not miles (per hour).
Courtesy of http://www.wordle.net , a visual representation of the body of the posts that I wrote over the course of the trip from the 18th July to 24th August: 38,673 words in total. Great tool!
We made it in one piece!
Here is Reggie on the conveyor belt of destiny. Will he look like this when I see him again at Stansted? That said, he is doing better than my D-lock which was confiscated from my hand luggage; potential weapon….
Il cielo rosso la sera, i pastori sono felici
Tonight will be my 37th night away from home and I’m ready to return.; tomorrow on the 11.05 am Ryan Air flight from Brindisi to Stansted. I hear the weather in the UK isn’t great at the moment…. I’ll try and memorise the colour of the blue sky […]
The ‘problemo’ is solved. A few turns of an alan key and Reggie was reduced down in size and wrapped in bubble wrap for a comfy ride. The box was flattened and folded so as to fit in the back of Basil’s car. Tomorrow morning at the airport […]
This is a large box. The bike will fit inside the box. The bike will fit in Basil’s car. But the box won’t. Problemo!
“I’ve just about had it with this cycling from Reading to Brindisi lark. Who the hell does he think he is? He has spent the past five weeks sitting on me, at times cursing me and now, would you believe it, I have had my wheels removed and […]
Thanks to a couple of recent donations, my target has now been passed! To everyone who has donated a big thank-you and if you haven’t but are planning on doing so please don’t hold back. It means a lot to me personally that all my effort is helping […]
Relaxing with the ‘locals’ at Basil & Liz’s place near Ostuni. Just following your instructions John (thanks for the text).
The statistics you know (they are in the previous post). What you may have missed is the figure for the average speed today – 23.5 kms/hr – being the highest of the whole trip. It was a wonderfully easy ride and, with the wind slightly behind me, had […]
For the very last time, here at the statistics for today; Cycling time: 2 hrs 38 mins 39 secs Distance: 62.14 kms Average speed: 23.5 kms/hr Maximum speed: 52.2 kms/hr Eurovelo 5 distance: 3,318.8 kms That’s it: finished! My journey ends at a deserted, graffitied, litter-strewn end-of-harbour-wall lighthouse; […]
Should be there within the next half hour or so…
A slimline looking Reggie is ready for his final day on the road. There is no need to carry all my equipment with me to Brindisi as I will be back staying with Basil & Liz tonight albeit in their other property near Ostuni. The plan is for […]
Arriving in Cisternino and eventually finding Basil & Liz was great. Clearly we all celebrated but the celebrations were 24 hours before the event! Despite waking up feeling a little hung over from the good food and wine consumed last night I must cycle off to Brindisi today […]
What is David Dickinson doing in Puglia?
Fortunately they weren’t on holiday… 🙂
It’s a bit of a shock arriving on Alberobello; there are people and cars everywhere. There is even a car alarm going off every 30 seconds! I came here three years ago on my previous visit to see Basil and Liz so I’m not going to stick around […]
Just under half-way to Cisternino and I’ve paused for lunch in Gioia del Colle. Quite a busy town but then again it is Saturday lunchtime and where else would any self-respecting Italian with a car horn be other than in the local town centre to show off how […]
This sign would have had greater significance if this website still had its old name: puglia2010.com . As it is I still have quite a few kilometres to get to the end of the Eurovelo 5 route: Brindisi.
This picture probably gives you a much better idea of how stressed that postman must be…
Of course it wasn’t built for Mel Gibson’s film. Many of you must still be chuckling from the wit of yesterday’s post. It is a fascinating thing to look at however. And it’s no museum piece; people live, work, pray, paint, holiday… in the maze of dwellings in […]
Almost forgot! Cycling time: 6 hrs 47 mins 29 secs Distance: 128.4 kms Average speed: 18.9 kms/hr Maximum speed: 55.3 kms/hr Eurovelo 5 distance: 3,162.4 kms
I think I picked the route well today. I wanted flat and that’s what I got! It seemed a slow start this morning and when I posted from Venosa I was a little anxious that I would be cutting it fine to arrive in Matera and find a […]
This is a nice place that I just happen to have stumbled upon. I have opted for the (hopefully) flatter, longer route to Matera but I’m making slow progress so far. About 35 kilometres on the clock but only about 20 as-the-crow-flies kilometres from last night’s campsite. Back […]
As you can see, it’s market day in Rionero in Vulture. The name comes from the name of the mountain next door – Monti Vulture. Well, hopefully. I don’t fancy being carried off by an enormous bird who fancies a big breakfast. Mind you, there were wolves in […]
Not far from the Puglian border I reach a major, err… ‘milestone’
If you are reading this then it is probably at least Friday, if not Saturday or Sunday. My phone no longer wants to “connect to the data network”. Apologies. You probably all think I have been murdered if you aren’t used to using the Spot tracker link just […]
I will have to spend the rest of today reflecting carefully upon my visit to Benevento, Massimo, his ideas, his promises and his actions. It was an “interesting” experience to have spent 48 hours with him. The inverted commas say much. For the time being I’ll stick to […]
Massimo has a flat next to his parents’ flat and his parents live in his house somewhere else. So… while Massimo was in his parents’ flat, I was next door in his flat. Does that make sense? Anyway, once I had got myself up and out of the […]
Apollosa is a village in the hills somewhere near Benevento and the place where Massimo lives. I’m sitting in the small square just beneath the church watching the world go by…. The clock is striking 11…. people are chatting outside the bar and small supermarket…. old blokes have […]
It is now past 1am and I am so glad that later today I have a day off! The last two days cycling have been two of the most tiring so far; long, long days in the saddle towards the end of a long, long journey… In retrospect […]
I’ll explain later, but I have arrived safe and sound in Benevento and now at a concert in this village 30 kilometres east of the town.
My energy is fading… I’ve paused at this ESSO service station and just consumed one of those hypercritically ironic food-drink combinations: a Magnum ice-cream and a Diet Coke. I am content for a few moments to just stare at those mountains; aren’t they magnificent? Sorry about the awning; […]
This is yet another town built around a long straight road; it seems to be the way to do it in this area. I’ve never been to South America but a lot of the places have the feel of towns you imagine exist down there. The long straight […]
I think the building up there is the Abbey of Montecassino but I’m not really up for the climb so will never find out for sure. The Rough Guide doesn’t sing the praises of the place so I’ll content myself with the town of Cassino itself here at […]
Another new experience tonight; spending an evening on a working farm. Obviously my involvement in the farm is fleeting to say the least; the most I contributed was helping with the washing up. The place is run by guy called Antonello who has lived here all his life. […]
Massimo’s friend Tomasso arrived within minutes of me sending the previous message and escorted me to the farm just outside the town itself. Here is a picture of the main house Here are the statistics for Rome to Sora – another long day! Cycling time: 8 hrs 7 […]
Waiting at the railway station in Sora for Tomasso…. No sign of him yet. Due to meet at 6pm and it’s now nearly 6.30pm. I went for a beer in the bar in the picture and there was a punch up! Tables turned over, glasses smashed on the […]
Fiuggi is a nice find. Even nicer when it’s the place you manage to get your iPhone working again. It also thinks big; I have just had a couple of sandwiches (they were sandwiches, not panini, complete with the crusts removed!) in the Gran Caffè Martini and just […]
I left Rome early today; it made sense to do so as Marcello was off to work and with some hot weather finally being promised, I need to maximise the amount of time spent cycling when it is a little bit cooler. And it was certainly nice and […]
I set off exactly four weeks ago today and with any luck, I should be in Brindisi this time next Sunday meaning I will have completed the entire route from Reading to Brindisi about two days ahead of schedule. The plan for the coming week is as follows; […]
The view from the very top of the Vittorio Emanuele monument is amazing; here is the Coliseum and the hills beyond… which turn my thoughts to cycling south on the morning. I’ll start making my way back to Marcello’s flat soon to plan. Vittorio is a good name […]
If you can remember that far back, when I was in Luxembourg a few weeks ago, I visited an excellent museum all about the history of the city itself. It was well-presented, informative, interesting and told a complete picture that enabled me later, when wandering around the town, […]
It’s easier to get a better picture of the crowd than it is the fountain itself. So that’s what you’ve got I’m afraid. I walked from Marcello’s flat which is in the area behind the main railway station into the centre. It took me about half an hour; […]
9am. Need to go off and explore!
Here is Marcello. Great guy. He lives in this flat just to the east of the centre of Rome with his girlfriend and dog, Ambra. His girlfriend is away this weekend so it was Marcello, myself and the dog who had “hot” chicken curry tonight. Well, the dog […]
You know that I’m not on a pilgrimage but it was the first thing I bumped into… The statistics; Cycling time: 7 hrs 17 mins 44 secs Distance: 134.5 kms Average speed: 18.4 kms/hr Maximum speed: 50.6 kms/hr Eurovelo 5 distance: 2,601.9 kms Now off along the cobbles […]
As you can see it has a big castle! It’s a bit similar to Bolsena in that it sits next to and gives its name to a lake. Apart from that, can’t really tell you that much about it. I probably never will as it is mere curiosity […]
It is cold. There is constant drizzle. The wind is hell. All I am doing is putting my head down and watching tarmac to make sure I avoid the holes in the road. No fun whatsoever. Not one bit.
This picture sums up the glamour of this morning’s ride so far. I re-oiled the chain after yesterday’s drenching but still had a very annoying squeak on the back wheel. I put it down to the lubrication in the wheel itself being washed away along with the chain […]
It’s Marcello in Rome! Not Claudio…. Mi scusi. Another error on my part; today is Saturday; I’ve been a day behind all this week. This cycling lark is making me befuddled 🙂
