Friday, 28 October 2016. Barcelona is blessed with large city markets in each major neighbourhood. They are a favourite target for Cheryl’s camera, especially in the morning, when the fish are plentiful and the produce is fresh. In the morning, she raced off to photograph the Boqueria market behind our hotel, while I got the next blog post drafted. Continue reading
Wednesday, 19 October 2016. 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. Yet, 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 is 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
Wednesday, 12 October 2016. 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.
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On Monday, 3 October 2016, 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 0710 train to Aqualva-Caçem. It never appeared. Continue reading
Wednesday, 28 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
22/9/2016, Thursday. Back in 2013, Cheryl rode the Camino Francesa and the Via de la Plata, the latter stretching from Santiago to Seville. 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
Monday, 5 September. Dawn came late as is usual in these parts. If it weren’t for the hikers setting their alarms, we would have slept until the sun came up after 0830. Spain occupies the same longitudes as England, but keeps Western European (Continental) time. During Daylight Saving Time, that makes the sun some up (and go down) two hours later than solar time. We never got used to that. Continue reading
This is the beginning of a very special journey. The Way of Saint James (El Camino de Santiago in Spanish) was inaugurated in 831 AD. For almost 1300 years, pilgrims have walked (and now biked) to the Cathedral in Western Spain where the Biblical apostle James is buried. There are several different routes that the pilgrims can walk, marked by distinctive blue and yellow signs. The Northern Way (Camino del Norte) runs from France along the coast of the Bay of Biscay through the Basque Country, Cantabria and Asturia, to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.
Trip update: This week I have thoroughly enjoyed riding around London. I hope that the people that then-Mayor Boris Johnson hired to turn London into a bicycle-friendly city stayed on after he left office, because I have never ridden in a city so well equipped as London for cycling. Continue reading
When I was four and five, Mom was the buyer for a national toy company. As you can imagine, we had obscene Christmases, because she could get the latest toys and games for wholesale or less. 
I remember having a pedal-powered Austin car identical to that of Prince Charles (his was green; mine was cream-coloured), and such luxuries. Continue reading
The Freewheeling Freelancer 