The Last Day

It's the very last day. Boo! And yet - hurray!! We pootled along lots of D roads until we got close to Le Tunnel, then switched the motorways back on. 

It was a great ride, mostly empty roads, lots of long straights but some very twisty bits over the odd hillock or two. It's surprising how high the land is around the coast, the wind was absolutely incredible, really hard to maintain a straight line sometimes, and a bit dodgy on descending bends.

Today's Big Thought...

We came through the Somme, and especially a little town called Albert. In fact we went right through the middle, past the Somme Museum dedicated to the 14-18 war. We passed many war graves, row upon row of white crosses - everyone knows about those. Seeing them is quite different though, triggering in me a very visceral response. It made me reflect a lot on the past and how Europe tore itself apart twice over the last century, and how much effort has gone into making that less likely. I hope we can remember those times and continue to learn from them as our wonderful leaders negotiate our exit from the most successful international cooperative in history.

And we'll be in Blighty an hour earlier than planned! I hope the Spitfire escort

Is ready!

Strange Decorations - #2

The hotel Le Florence is pretty interesting, seemingly a large complex of buildings near the town centre. Our room is seriously massive, and in one of a number of blocks of rooms that all seem to be pretty old, linked and separated by some complex courtyards. It's pretty cool.

View from the bedroom window.

The courtyard the bikes are parked in. The place seems to be in the middle of a never ending refurb, including this intriguing doorway to nowhere...

The dining room is huge and empty - apparently breakfast is available 4-12.00! Which is the longest breakfast interval I've ever encountered.

It's also deserted when we arrive, which given the huge window of valid arrival times, is probably due to the same factors that may explain why we haven't already met intelligent life, we miss each other's existence slots!

But it does leave me free to examine today's Hotel USP - The Easter Decorations. Very sweet. And we have mini eggs at our places!

Diner pour les Touristes!

The last night - let's explore S-Q and find something to eat. All the places we Googled were either closed (Le Panda Qui Fume - a microbrewery and this very interesting) or not quite what we were looking for. As a pit stop, we had a cheeky Leffe in the dodgiest bar so far - its level of dodgieness is evidenced by the local who, having completed his time, proves unable to find his way out.

And onto the main square where we select a brasserie based on a) the food choices b) the lack of crappy thumping music leaking out.

The square isn't as deserted as this makes it look, I just liked the circus tent thing in the foreground.

The food is ok, it turns out to be a chain that regards its customers as a revenue stream rather than friends to be cherished, but they do serve big beers. Which may be a Bad Thing for some - Jim witnessed a fight across the square, with "the winner" kicking multiple bells out of "the loser" (status determined by which one was on the floor).

It's quite a picturesque place in the evening sun.

The Longest Day... Probably

Another cross country day today, pretty ambitious - 240+ miles, and nearly 8 hours. Glad to be here in Saint-Quentin, nice big room, big beds!

We just rolled along today, D roads, occasional bit of N road, but mostly small villages and empty two lane roads. So easy going!!

Lunch was a supermarket job, enjoyed at the roadside. It was sunny but cold, 10 deg at one point, so I put the woolly hat on to get a start. And then I put the jacket liner back in, and was properly comfortable!!

There's always so much to see, and ponder on, it's impossible to recall much in particular. Nice windy road near Strasbourg, vast vistas in the middle of France, quite a few tractors chugging away, and almost all the villages looking deserted. After eight hours, it's all a bit of a blur! And it didn't rain...

So, restaurant tonight, last one :). Looking forward to being home, feels like a long time since we were there last. And I can't believe we've actually been to Greece! That's amazing!

What Do You Do On A Monday In Hoerdt?

Looking relaxed in Hoerdt - nice BnB, or Chambre d'Hote, he is a sysadmin at the local psych hospital, spent lots on refurbishing the old outbuildings, now runs a two room show, with a very nice sitting and dining room on the ground floor.

After dinner (cordon bleu chicken, salad, strawbs and cream for pud), we walked into town. It was completely deserted at 10pm, none of the restaurants looked like they'd been open, so we were glad we'd had the CdH dinner to arrive to.

And there's always one isn't there??

Bowling Through Bavaria

My initial plan was to take the GPS fastest route, which involved maybe 3.5 hours of motorway. However, when we took the no motorways option, it was only 5.5 and looked much more interesting. What a good plan!! You see that the route pretty much drills across Bavaria and then past the Vosges.

And what a lovely day for a ride - sunny, clear, fresh, possibly a bit too windy sometimes but hey, we'll take that over rain anytime!

The first bit was over the rolling lowlands of Bavaria, great bends, little traffic and easily passed if a slow truck or whatever. Villages every 5km or so, so be careful with the limits, people live here you know!

We did have a hard time finding lunch, every place that Jim's magic box turned up was shut. So we pulled into a Lidl, selected some choice comestibles (in truth, Parma ham, salami, Gorgonzola and a baguette), and stopped at a roadside spot. By now, we were in the Schwartzwald, rolling bends, and steep wooded hills.

You can just make out Jim down by the stream...

Looking back up the stream, the sound was a wonderful accompaniment to lunch.

And then to cap it all, we turned onto the B500, rated one of the top 10 biking roads on the world... Wow. We didn't do all of it, but it's pretty amazing, up, down and lots of sideways. What a fluke!

And now we're in Hoerdt, just across the border in France, having passed the guys in khaki with the SLRs and other security type chaps. It's a BnB, beautifully done, and they're doing dinner... More news to come. After we've finished petting the beagle, anyway.

Strange Decorations

#1 in an occasional series

Now, assume you're the owner of a stube in Bavaria, with an attached hotel. What do you do to give your place a unique feature?

Hang a vendor's cart from the ceiling, of course. 

Didn't really hold us back though...