D+R London to Milan

A long but not too difficult day today. The first 20 miles along a canal, the next 20 on quietish B roads, and the last 20 on a gently inclined (upwards) cycle track, plus a few miles of gravelly off-road. Lest we forget our roots 😁 We're still in France, in the Vosges region. Hilly hills all round. We've arrived in Belval, at a private sex hotel! Booked on Expedia, honest! The hotel, painted bright blue and orange is called 'The Factory' - a la Warhol. With psychedelic lighting in the bar. Photos not allowed. We've declined the 'sans vetements' pool, sauna and jacuzzi, and locked ourselves in our room. I'm lying on leather cushions, writing the blog 😁

A new breakfast experience - juice your own fruits! - but got the hang of it. A lovely, fairly leisurely ride along the Moselle cycle path to Nancy. What a lovely city - one of the most beautiful central squares we have ever seen! All thanks to Stanislas (haven't quite worked out what a Pole was doing in Nancy). Wondered why most of the shops were shut until we discovered it was Ascension Day, but there was plenty of patisserie available...

Wheres

An interesting night last night. We came back to our hotel (the Bristol; us Brits like a bit of nostalgia) and we couldn't unlock our door. I went down to reception, and the receptionist looked at me pitifully (Les vieux Anglais sont dippy!), came up and tried himself. No joy. To cut a very long story (about two hours), the emergency locksmith was called out to drill open the door, and we took our stuff to a new room (upgraded!) He literally drilled open the metal lock! The whole thing was replaced and in good working order by the morning! Today was a great day. An easy 42 miles down rolling, fast roads to the Moselle river, and on along the towpath into Metz. A lovely, old city with one amazing cathedral. So high, I needed my belay glasses to see the roof! We're in an Ibis hotel, so pretty good. And we're off for an Asparagus supper - a regional speciality at this time of the year. Bon appetit. (We're also pretty done in, as we've just had a big bottle of La C

An exhausting day! Off and on a busy road to start with but then on to a cycle path that followed the river into Luxembourg City. The approach through the suburbs was lovely - very green. Then it took us another hour to find our hotel! D's satnav nearly exploded going round in circles as we went through city gates (several times!) and up and down the cobbled streets between the upper and lower town, and across bridges.... Anyway we finally found it, conveniently next to a bakery! A word from D. Luxembourg is the most pedestrian/cyclist unfriendly country ever. Signage is dreadful, not that there's much to sign. And it's a massively wealthy place. It needs Chris Boardman to shake things up a bit. I kept blaming Junker every time a lorry pushed me into the side. The closest I've ever come to voting for Brexit!

A lovely breakfast this morning. Shame that us small-appetited cyclists couldn't do it justice. Our route today was in two halves. The first 25 miles were on gently sloped, well surfaced, old railway lines, courtesy of Belgium's Herr Beeching. The second 25 miles were on country lanes and, unfortunately, the main N7! But we've arrived at our hotel (on the N7) which is lovely. We're in Luxembourg, which is somewhere between Belgium, France and Germany. We never even saw a border. And we lunched in a small Belgium town where everyone spoke German only. Fortunately R speaks everything. We had an hour or two of light rain today, but nothing serious. Thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow 🤔 We'll see.

A

The hotel turned the volume down last night so D wasn't down at reception again in the middle of the night (I slept right through both nights!) And the breakfast was very good.... Thwarted by a triathlon just outside Maastricht which meant we had to do extra mileage! But we got back on track. We've finally met the hills but at least that means the routes are more varied. Into Belgium now and already the villages are less neat than in Holland. After a few miles of a really hard gravel track through a wood we arrived at our marvellous bnb! A wellness centre all to ourselves a la Kate Archer, so we've soaked in the jacuzzi for a while!

Home of the famous treaty. Can't remember which one though. Our hotel was very nice till about 11pm. Then they turned up the disco music. Boom, boom till 1 am! I had to go down to ask them to turn the bass down, which thankfully they did. This morning, our Dutch friends Lex and Peep arrived. It was great to see them and spend the day with them. Plenty of food, a good walk around the city, beer and more food. Great fun. We couldn't find a laundry that was open, so we washed the essential bits by hand. They'll last till Freiburg in a week's time 😁 Maastricht is a lovely town, pretty and relaxed. Full of up-market shops. But now to bed, and off into Eastern Belgium tomorrow.

Today was another lovely sunny day. But it was a long trek into Belgium and then out again! (We had a coffee at the border!) Most of the day was alongside canals - pretty but relentless for a cyclist (except for the elderly locals who whizzed past us!) A diversion forced us through the branches and nettles (and we may have squashed some of the farmers seedlings) to get back to our path. We're now in Maastricht which looks lovely - meeting Lex and Peep (Dave's Dutch friends) tomorrow.

Our Bnb in Made was great. Quiet and peaceful for a good night's sleep. And a lovely Dutch breakfast (ham and gouda) this morning. We set off in good cheer. The route today was just 45 miles with a gentle tail-ish wind. Flat of course. Our shoulders/necks are starting to ache after about 30 miles, so the last few miles were hard. I won't mention R's sore bum! We arrived quite early at our hotel, with enough time to visit the Philips museum. Good fun seeing all the old TVs, tape recorders, Philishaves and other gadgets that we bought 'back then'. Our hotel is a boutique hotel, which means it's a bit odd and pricey. But the bed is nice and comfy 💤

Harwich port has nothing! So everybody had to eat elsewhere. We met a nice Dutch couple back from Wales and a group from Peterborough doing a charity cycle to Holland. Much cycle banter!? Took a while to get on (good fun charging up the approach lane to the ship with the peloton!) and tie our bikes up with string (very high tech) but our cabin was great. Wakey wakey at 5.30 over the loudspeaker and off again into Holland! Dutch cycling network is fantastic and car drivers polite. The scenery around Rotterdam is very industrial and rather dull, with a dearth of cafes. But the landscape got prettier at the end of the day. In a small town tonight in a lovely bnb. Off out for food and drink!

Day 2 started with sunshine, and stayed that way for most of the day 👍 We left our b and found a small cafe for breakfast in Great Dunmow. We then headed East on a fantastic, flat,15 mile cycle track, courtesy of Dr. Beeching. Half way along, we came to an old station that had been converted to a cafe. Of course. The local enthusiasts had commandeered an old carriage and built a model replica of the station as it was in 1945. Mildly interesting. We carried on, through Braintree, and onto the A12!!! A cycle lane next to the road kept us safe, but definitely polluted. We worked our way through Colchester and on quiet roads onto Harwich. Essex is a very pretty county, ruined only by dozens of posters of Farage - definitely Brexitland. We're now in the Stena Line waiting room. Waiting for 8.30 embarkation. Europe awaits 😄

Our first day on the tour. A pretty flat day to ease us in. We started from home! No travelling to get to the start. We used quiet roads (and the Peckham Parkway - an oxymoron?) to get to the Olympic Park. The other, totally mental cyclists were the main danger! Maybe they said the same thing of course 😄. Once we arrived at the river Lee, all quietened down and we had a really lovely cycle past all the houseboats. We've arrived in a small (pretty grotty) bnb, or more accurately b, in the village of Takeley, near Bishop Stortford. A pub dinner will go down nicely.

We're off tomorrow on our summer cycle. 896 miles from our front door to Milan. We're cycling through 10 countries, about 50 miles a day, over 19 stages. We're having two rest days in the middle to reconfigure our bodies and bikes, and most importanly, to wash our clothes! We're travelling light, mostly on our backs in a rucksack. We've toyed with panniers, but aren't great fans. Navigation is via a Mio 400 GPS cycle computer. It's just like a car SatNav system, but with smaller, less well-defined maps. We used this last year for our LEJOG trip and it worked well. Backup is the phone. The 19 sections are uploaded into an App called 'Ride with GPS', and give a pretty detailed view of the whole route. Backup 2 are 1:100,000 road maps of the whole route. As well as a backup, the paper maps give a much better overview of where we're going. The final preparations to the bikes have been completed, and our gear is in the hall ready for an 08:30