This week, I invite you to enjoy another sea story on my author’s blog.
Next week, we’ll start a new travelogue. Please join me.
Smooth roads and tailwinds,
JT
Come on over: Valencia oranges
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Shall we ride by the rivers?
With travel still restricted, the Freewheeling Freelancer is riding in circles around the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, ready to take you on another tour. While we wait for borders to open up for Americans, I propose to take you back three years to the tour I called River Run 2017. It features a ride along the great rivers of Europe, and certainly qualifies as armchair travel for a pandemic.
Come on over: silver at the “cruiser Olympics”
This week, I invite you to enjoy another sea story on my author’s blog.
Next week, we’ll start a new travelogue. Please join me.
Smooth roads and tailwinds,
JT
Ronda, Mallorca, and Barcelona, then home.
On a Wednesday in mid-October, the sky was turning from black to indigo then to blue. We got up too early for the hotel breakfast, and rode into Ronda. By now the train station in the capital of the Pueblos Blancos was familiar, but the day was not off to a good start. The ticket agent, backed by the various personnel in the station, did not want us to take the train to Granada. It turned out that the train station in Granada was being renovated, and that there was a substitute bus service for the last three stops on the line. They insisted that the buses would not take bicycles. Continue reading
Come on over: riding on the Riviera
This week, I invite you to enjoy another sea story on my author’s blog.
Next week, we’ll ride around Mallorca, continuing our tour of Iberia.
Smooth roads and tailwinds,
JT
Andalusia and the Pueblos Blancos
On a Wednesday in mid-October, the dark clouds that had been gathering all morning turned to rain as we left the ferry landing in Ayamonte, Spain. We rode to the bus station, where we hoped to make up lost time by taking the bus at least to Huelva, the next big town. Lucky for us, it turned out that it was a national holiday in Spain, so there were few passengers, no competing luggage, and light traffic. The DAMAS driver let us put our bikes in the bus and took us all the way to Seville. We also outran the rain.
Continue reading
Come on over: war games in the dark
This week, I invite you to enjoy another sea story on my author’s blog.
Next week, we’ll ride into Andalusia, continuing our tour of Iberia.
Smooth roads and tailwinds,
JT
El Camino Portugués: Obidos to the Algarve.
On a Monday in early October, we rolled out of the medieval city of Obidos in the predawn darkness. After some dead ends and backtracking, we located the empty, unmanned station. Watching a brilliant dawn, we waited for the 07:10 train to Aqualva-Caçem. It never appeared. Continue reading
El Camino Portugués: Porto to Obidos
Wednesday in late September: a memorably great day, and the first seriously warm day since we left San Sebastian. We got separated at first, so that we crossed the Douro River on different spans of the Luis I Bridge. Using our phones to effect a rendezvous outside the port wine tasting rooms on the Gaia waterfront, we made our way to the Atlantic on the south bank of the river. Continue reading
El Camino Portugués: Santiago to Porto
Back in 2013, Cheryl rode the Camino Francesa and the Via de la Plata, the latter stretching from Santiago to Seville. This time, remembering the ugly suburbs and industrial zones south of Santiago and the heavily travelled N-550, she suggested taking the train to Vilagarcia de Arousa. After Vilagarcia, we biked the Michelin three-star roads of the Rias Bajas peninsulas. Continue reading
