(Featured image: on the rocks of Riomaggiore with Lara, Grace and Ian (US)) Language Merda! One of the downsides of not 'merging' as much is that the Italian language, my favourite of all, eternally passionate and emotive and simply beautiful to listen to (and speak), eluded me. I don't even think my vocabulary doubled in …
Oooooh, Italia. A country that exudes passion out of every pore and pothole (if you're in the south). A country more divided than England, more insane than France, and more proud than anywhere else in the world. And with very good reason. If there were a ranking in my head, Italy entered this trip as …
Is it the place itself? The landscape, the landmarks, the land in general? Or is its inhabitants? I think as with most things the answer is somewhere in between, but it has been an inescapable realisation while travelling that the latter are much more interesting in the long run. People are constantly different, whether it's …
(Featured image: A drink with Joe Dickmann in Lyon) And so here is part two of my very wordy summation on my findings of France. What surprised me, what didn't surprise me, and what just downright confused me. Food As accurate as my last comments on French food are, I feel like there's room for …
Continue reading "France: Crash-Course Comparisons (part 2)"
Having spent a good 95% of my life in the UK, I know it pretty well, and it comes as natural that anywhere else I go gets judged on my experience from back home. And it also means that those 'anywhere else's are very much somewhere else, and to me relatively unexplored and new. So …
Continue reading "France: Crash-Course Comparisons (part 1)"
I'm not sure whether I mentioned it or not, Â but one of the big things I'm into is history, and one of the big historical attractions of a European cycling tour (or any tour for that matter) is castles. I like castles. And so following a terrible record of castle-seeing/conquering in the UK (I went …
I should really have seen it coming when my first night camping, the day I left London, was marred by a strict continuation of the rain that had soaked me all through the day. Somewhere in Kent, not in the grandest of moods, I drip dried in the shower block so to spend more time …
Giving London a chance is one of the first real meaty plans that I had for my trip, given that I'd grown up barely ever setting foot in the place and being otherwise somewhat prejudiced against it for its centre-of-everything, arrogant nature, and of-course its location in the south of the country which earned instant …
Following what must have been one of the most exhausting days of my life on day one, I had a decidedly pleasant follow up to York, close enough that I set off in the early evening. Things would improve further too with York being my first major stop-offs, with a whole day to rest. And …
This is a blog post mixed with an update on proceedings. If you're pressed for time or can't be arsed with a very rambly semi-philosophical post, then there's basically three things that need announcing: 1: There is no longer a set route between Orleans and Lyon, I will probably be in Lyon by the date stated …
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