Last night we finally used our camping gear at a lovely spot on the river between Tours and Blois. There are lots of municipal and private campgrounds dotting the shores of the Loire in fantastic locations. Cycle tourists are waved in even when the designated spots are full. Camping French style, however, is not roughing it. At our spot near Mesnes we had wifi, power, ...
Saumur's Chateaux as seen in the Duke de Berry's Book of hours. Gord: I am a big fan of fireworks. While Ruth will generally decide in favour of sleep on an evening when there is a fireworks display, I show an unusual willingness to postpone my (ridiculously early) bedtime and take in the ...
July 13, 2016 AngersGordon: I love last judgement paintings, with their imaginative depictions of devils and the torments of the damned. So I was delighted to learn that Angers has a famous Apocalypse tapestry - several hundred feet of tapestry depicting the Book of Revelations as interpreted in the late 14th century. It does not disappoint in its images of the Beast, the Whore of ...
July 12, 2016Ruth: Our first day cycling the Loire together was lovely. It is such a treat to be on a dedicated bike path in a beautiful area. My knees seem to be holding up in spite of a few minor protests when I first start out. The ride is as flat as a Bretagne crêpe and just as tasty. Our first stop was a ...
July 11, 2016 NantesGordon: Ruth has a cold today, so I cycled the first leg of our potentially transcontinental trip on my own. I took the train to the seaside town of Pornic, conceptually dipped my wheel in the Atlantic, and cycled the 60 Kms back to Nantes. The coast near Pornic is charming, with an activity oriented beach scene and a sprinkling of low ...
July 9, 2016I first heard about Chartres Cathedral when I was 18, and my dad was on a sabbatical working outside of Paris near Versailles. We could see the cathedral towering above the fields in the distance on our drives, but I never made it there. Of course when you are a bit of a nut about church architecture Chartres has to be near the ...
On July 7th 2016 Gord and I fly to France to begin one of our longest bike tours yet.This trip is our Plan B. Originally we were going to try to cycle across Canada, but the stars were not aligned for that trip. In March I bought a new bike even though there was nothing wrong with my old bike Wanda. I ended up straining both knees ...
This map shows the Portuguese part of our trip but doesn't include the loop we did in Spain to Santiago.September 8, 2015Ruth: Today was the first day of school and already I am reminiscing on one of the best cycling trips that Gord and I have done. Our last three days were jam packed and we never did write a final blog on our last ...
Cromeleque dos AlmendresAugust 25, 2015Gordon: "Doesn't clothing seem somewhat inappropriate at a Neolithic religious site?" I asked rhetorically. And since we were the only people at the site, though we had passed a quartet of shaggy Druids on the way in, it was indeed possible to commune with the stones in a more natural manner. The Cromeleque dos Almendres is the largest Neolithic stone circle ...
Slightly creepy chapel bent on reminding us all of where we are heading. Perfect for Gord's Birthday!August 24, 2015Ruth:We now have only a few more days before we return to Lisbon and are spending two of these in Évora. The historic center of Évora is a listed Unesco site. Inhabited continuously by the Iberian Celts, Romans, Moors, and Christians, Évora is a tightly packed medieval ...