A bit beyond Bath...
What to do today in Bristol? I'm tempted to cycle to Bath again, it is such a good ride, but decide instead to take the train as bit further on to Bradford-on-Avon and ride back.

Ticket machine.
"But it was out of order, sir, see?"

I get a free train trip. I would have been quite happy to pay but there was nowhere to buy a ticket at my station and no one at the other end either. The bad thing about this is I feel like I can indulge myself having saved a few quid, and when I find a perfect little cheese shop with a deli counter I go a bit overboard laying in supplies for a picnic by the Avon. But the good thing about cycling days is they need to be fueled.

That's why a cycling holiday in France is the perfect option, folks. You have to do it! Not only do you get see the best of the country, you get to over-indulge on French food and wine.

I have a policy of trying a local cheese so this is a Bath Wyfe and rather nice. But that's jumping ahead.

and red peppers stuffed with feta

My morning coffee has become such a habit that I start to get a headache mid-morning if I havn't had my fix. Just down from the station in Bradford-in-Avon I spot this little place. I'm not exactly aware of it yet because I have not read this article, but I am SOOO cool that I have been deliberately trying to avoid the hipster factor without even knowing it, but for whatever reason, this looks like the perfect place to stop.

The garden courtyard behind
is rather nice too, but let's
sit in the Coffee Room

 He only does filter coffee and he was wearing a yeoman's shirt which I thought was just normal until he pointed out that his dress was in keeping with the period, as are the fittings, made by himself after a lot of research. Coffee parlours like this, with little booths, were all the rage in London in the seventeenth century.

The digital fire is a nice touch!

Roses on the table, table cloth,
this place is a gem

My yeoman is a pensioner and has been serving coffee here for 18 years. He makes a living from it, but only because he has lived in the house above for so long that he is not paying a mortgage. He bakes his own cakes, scones and shortbread and does soups for lunch. And he has a subscription to Wallpaper magazine because he likes to keep his mind open to new ideas.




This man is the only other customer while I'm there. He has dementia and doesn't speak most days now because half way into a sentence he forgets what he was saying. But he's wily enough to regularly escape from his carer to have a coffee out. Check out that suit. Yes, I did ask him could I take his picture. I think he was chuffed.

Maybe co-incidence, but I come across two Australian connections today.

In Bradford there's an old mill that has been made into posh retirement apartments but at one stage it was the headquarters of the Australian Cycling Corps.

"The cyclist battalions were organised like the infantry, and were mainly used as despatch riders. Later, during the periods of semi-open warfare in 1917 and 1918 they operated in a manner similar to cavalry, conducting reconnaissance and patrolling."

In fact this proved to be pretty much impossible on the ground, and I believe they ended up spending a lot of time doing burials.

Then in the afternoon I happen to be riding through a little town called Bathampton where I spot an old church with a lovely graveyard.

It is St Nicholas's and it is where Admiral Arthur Phillips, founder of Sydney, is buried.

Various bits of the church have been gifted by Australian states.

I imagine this is a very nice lurk for the Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downing (Hon.)













Back in Bradford-on-Thames though. It's a lovely town climbing up hills either side of the Avon. Unfortunately a busy road goes through the centre of town.

Lovely grey stone buildings

Waiting to cross the road I get into conversation with an even more dapper old man - this one is wearing a cream blazer, pink shirt and bow tie, and he's struggling a bit walking up the hill.  He's had two electric bikes in the last six years, one was stolen, the first one kept breaking down (a common complaint). "Have you been to the new bike shop up the hill?" he says. "I've been looking, The electric bikes are so much better now. The new batteries add about 30 miles. I'm thinking about shouting myself one." "Do it!" I urge him. I hope he does.

The Town Bridge and Lock Up is hard to miss. Two of the bridge arches are from when it was first built in the 13th century but the lock up is a modern addition from the 17th century. wouldn't it be fascinating to be able to see what traffic will be crossing in another 500 years. Or passing under.

There's also a Saxon Church thought to have built for the nuns in the eleventh century - the nuns who were given the village of Bradford-on Avon by King Ethelred in 1001.


Must be my day for talking to people on the street. Next thing I'm chatting to a man called Alan who insists I have a look at the Buddhist temple in a 17th century building that used to be a hotel. I wonder briefly whether he also has some etchings to show me, but no, inside he introduces me to Chinese monk from Sydney who is too busy chatting to a man with a huge head of rasta dreads to talk to me. I admire the temple appropriately and wander on.

These Tea Rooms would be surely be worthy of a visit, but the sun is shining and what could be nicer that to spend the afternoon cycling along the Kennet and Avon Canal to Bath?



It's school holidays and there are plenty of hire boats pottering along.

Maybe not a hire boat,
this man really looks the part

 At The Widcombe Locks the Sweet Shop is doing well.  Jars of old-fashioned sweets are set out along both sides of a moored narrowboat, with a sign inviting passing boats to tie up alongside. Likewise a boat that offers teas and icecreams - this one has some little tables set up under a tree for the walkers and cyclists.

Plenty of boat owners are making the most of the fine weather to catch up with maintenance and there are lots of power tools and paintbrushes in use.

The water in the canal is disgustingly brown and when I tangle with a rope across the towpath and nearly fall off, it is fear of ending up in the water that somehow keeps me upright. Also, I'm over the idea of living on a narrowboat. Often as I ride by there is this miasma of dank and mouldy air emanating from a moored boat. Plus I travel faster and get to see much more.

Though a boat would be better for taking advantage of those canal-side beer gardens, like this one.

Hmmm, that blur of white?
A bunch of people in the beer garden.

I get into Bath after 6.00, it's a Friday evening, and there are groups of people sitting and  lying around on a carpet of green plastic grass that has been laid down the centre of the main shopping mall.

The bridge has to be wound open with an alan key 

England - Then and Now

Fifteen years ago it was, that I lived in England for a year. Here are some impressions about what's changed, and what hasn't.

New
⦁ A woman Prime Minister!
⦁ Cycle mania. London is being overtaken by cyclists. Rural train lines are being closed down and replaced with cycle ways. Bike shops are big business
⦁ Smart phones - and the mobile networks are running slow, slow, and even slower; down to no reception at all at times in London
⦁ Fewer obvious homeless and not so many people begging. Where have they gone?
⦁ Pop-up food, south american street food, food market revival, cheap and cheerful eating outside (BYO umbrella)
⦁ Self-checkout machines - in Boots, W H Smith, every supermarket. Banks and banks of them
⦁ Flat Whites. Everyone's favorite coffee.
⦁ The London skyline. Very Dubai with all those new high-rise.
⦁ Train destination boards at Waterloo were actually working every time I was there!
⦁ Public libraries staffed by volunteers
⦁ Falling house prices - well, so they say. Having risen astronomically over the past 15 years, does this small decrease post-Brexit really count?


Same old
⦁ Traffic congestion (but this time I don't have to take a thermos with me on the M2 because I'm one of those cyclists getting in the way of fast cars and slow
⦁ Queues
⦁ Crisps or chips with everything
⦁ Young overweight girls smoking while pushing prams around dismal council estates.
⦁ Sandwiches made with tasteless, soft and textureless bread (they might call it ciabatta or granary but it's all the same pap)
⦁ The English love of Englishness
⦁ Familiar favorites in every high street; Boots, Costa, Nero, Pret-A-Manger, Waterstones
⦁ Family-friendly pubs that serve teas, coffee, and meals (compulsory chips and mushy peas)
⦁ Charity shops full of decent cheap books and clothes - why would you bother to shop for new anything?
⦁ Travelling by Tube - convenient but overcrowded, stuffy, with broken escalators. And heaven forbid that you might TALK to someone.
⦁ London Eye
⦁ Finding an unsigned, uncelebrated 12th century church in the middle of ugly suburbia
⦁ Huge baskets of flowering plants brightening up the streets (especially around any ye olde pub)
⦁ Pharmacies chock-a-block with sweeties and crisps


But I have to say, it's great to be back.

Amboise to Angers - and places in between

So my last post ended with Tours. Oh yes, I remember, that was the town with the cathedral (basilica, actually) where over a quiet Sunday lunch I talked to the American girl doing the same thing as me - sitting in the cafe reading a novel in French and consulting a dictionary every few sentences. And there was that older French man who joined in the conversation to tell us about how he was helping with the Cathedral's 700-hundredth year celebrations for Saint Martin and how so many countries were participating but not England. Mais je suis Australienne. Except when I bump into kiwis, and at the Musee des Beaux Arts in Tours that afternoon there was a Chinese couple from Auckland who were amazed that I would be travelling by bike and sleeping in a tent. I amaze myself too I have to say. But I have my very own Betty-bien-etre. The massages are a bit rough and she leaves my muscles a bit sore some days, but what a workout she gives.

And what came next? Well that would be Villandry. I missed a turn and had to ride back 5 k but it was worth every spin of the pedals. There is some thing magical about cycling right up to the front gate of some magnificent site, not having to find a car park miles away, never having to pay for parking, Just tie up the bike, and wander in. Oh, best to take off the high-vis vest though.

In case you havn't guessed, by this time I had fallen deeply in love with France. And now my time was running out and that made my visit to Villandry even more heart-wrenching. I don't know what it is about France that brings emotions to the surface. I was a bit raw all of that last week and a bit numb for the first week in England. At Villandry it was the elegance of the chateau itself, the fresh flower arrangements in every grand room that set off the decor, the superb formal gardens, and the landscape all around - wooded hills and green valleys and a little village nestled up against the chateau grounds, looking as if it had been there as long as the hills themselves. I wasn't expecting to but I loved the geometric gardens.

Villandry is one of the most-visited tourist attractions in France and I absolutely know why. A huge percentage of visitors are French and I love that too, the respect for their own heritage.









A bit of a misty grey day, matching my mood perfectly, and suiting a gorgeous silent ride on smooth trails.

Ending up with the romantic Château d'Ussé with its turrets round and square, cream stone and grey tile roofs and a matching medieval chapel in the trees nearby.

 The Château dates to around 1462, but most of what remains today is what happens when a fairy tale castle is adapted to become the country mansion for the aristocracy. It still has the fairy tale air though - in fact this is the castle that inspired Charles Perrault to write Sleeping Beauty. The approach road is stunning, a quiet little side road that runs straight towards the mansion, across a small bridge with a pond alive with the sounds of frogs. The municipal camping area was not far away, a short ride through the village of Reigny-Ussé.



There over 300 châteaux in the Loire Valley. But for the next couple of days my big excitement was reserved for.....

I knew it was around this time, but I wasn't getting much news. Keeping my phone charged was a constant challenge and I was conserving battery time for all map look-ups. So it was a 15 km gentle uphill ride the next morning before I arrived in a tiny little village with a tabac. A not-so-historic village, with a block of very modern mixed residential/commercial buildings facing the town square, all with green roofs and solar panels.  In the middle of the countryside. I'm skimming the local paper and I realised that the Tour and I would be in the same place this very day. The excitement!

I rode into Saumur that afternoon, the very place the riders had left from that morning. No, I didn't see them, just the remains of the media circus that had moved on with the riders, but I was close enough. I chatted with a man from the north of England who had stopped to eat a sandwich at a bus stop and as a result accidentally found himself inside the restricted area on the first day, sitting right there where the vans pulled up and the riders themselves got out and got on their bikes.

But before Saumur, Candes-Saint-Martin 

As well as being one of the most beautiful villages in Frances, it is the place where Saint Martin lived and died.

He was the man who cut his cape in two to share it with a beggar. The piece of cape he kept then became an object of worship and is the origin of the word chapel. You can visit the Saint-Martin collegiate church where his house once stood. This is where the legend of “Saint Martin’s summer” was born. Legend has it that the flowers bloom along the Loire in November to accompany Martin's remains which were transported by boat to the cathedral in Tours.

The village marks the confluence of two rivers, the Loire and the Vienne. I hiked up to the Panoramique, which has grand views across the Loire valley.

Quite a hilly afternoon ride through vineyards, hilltops marked by church spires and crosses, and then through a stretch of troglodyte caves. Some are studios and holiday homes now, others are just garages or store rooms. Some look just as they probably did in the 12th century when they were first inhabited.

And into Saumur itself, 'home' for two days. And finally, some sunshine.

Final stretch of the trip for me was into Angers. I camped the first night just outside the city at Les Ponts du Ce. In a bogan bar where I stopped in desperate need of water in the middle of a particularly hot afternoon, the barman filled my water bottle without being asked. He gave me directions for a short cut to the island where the camping resort, and told me that the name of the place was meant to be the Bridges of Caesar, but a painter making a sign got interrupted in his work and the short version just stuck. 

The only other cyclist I saw here was a girl from Whanagarei on the second day of a two-month ride she hoped would eventually take her up to the Rhine, north through Germany and around into Holland.

But for me this was the end of my bit of the Loire. I crossed the river for the last time and rode into Angers in the morning traffic, and spent the next two nights in a quiet youth hostel where I had my own ensuite room. From there I took the train to St Malo and a ferry to Portsmouth. Damn that Schengen Agreement that means I now have to stay out of France for 90 days.  

Stunning riding along the river down from Saumur on quiet roads

The chateau in Angers is well fortified with a moat and these walls

Inside the walls

More of the castle and a view over Angers

Loire a Velo; Chaumont-Sur-Loire to Savonnieres

My usual early start from Chaumont-sur-Loire and not an open cafe to be found in the town. I skipped the chateau visit but it was a nice place to camp.

So now it is Saturday, and I'm cycling through these small villages and some stretches where there are modern housing developments, and I decide it must be Saint Cut-the-Hedges Day because that's what everyone seems to be doing. I'd be quite happy cutting my hedge if I lived here, and I'd offer cold water to the passing cyclists and give them vegetables from my garden.

Wait, I want to live HERE

No, forget the hedges, I want a house with dormer windows

Amboise is the next biggish town. Leonardo da Vinci spent the last years of his life here at Le Clos Lucé. The Royal Chateau of Amboise is an expensive one to visit, 12 euros. I opted for lunch in a tiny restaurant and tea rooms on the side of the hill.

The camp ground is on an island in the river. At the office - this conversation all in French - I learned that there was a music festival over the weekend.

She said the music would be going until maybe 3.00 am. In fact it was still going when I had my morning coffee and croissant in the campground cafe on my way off on Sunday morning. After days like these I'd sleep through anything.

Sundays in France can be a bit dreary with everything closed up, but Amboise has a wonderful market along the riverbanks. Farm produce, ethnic foods, even a bit of brocantes (antiques and junk).

Amboise, views from where I had lunch

Arriving on the island where the camp is.

From the island, looking back to the Chateau Amboise

Only 28 km to Tours, and I was there by lunch time. Some images from the route follow.

In the midst of acres of vineyards, a church on a small hill

And now Tours.

The Tours Cathedral. Bits go back to the 4th century 

Cathedral built during 12th to 15th centuries

Just the Tours Prefecture 

I got to see quite a bit of the suburbs of Tours, more than I wanted to actually. I missed a Velo Route pointer somewhere. Followed marked cycle paths through a large park, past the university, over a couple of bridges that might have crossed the Loire, or was it some other river? and through another park past a lake or two. An hour later and lots of google maps look-ups, getting more and more confused about which way my location pointer on the map was pointing and how that correlated to the way I was heading, I came to the realisation that I here I was going through the same carpark with this same children's playground that I'd ridden past ages earlier. You could say, well, I wasn't exactly lost. The maps told me exactly where I was, only thing is they did not tell me where to go next.

I just didn't know which way to go. Cycle paths in all directions, but where WAS that Velo Route? Google doesn't show it at all. I gave up on cycle paths and took to the roads where at least there were some signs reassuring me that I would be heading towards Saumur. I asked a few people and enjoyed being able to ask and get directions in French, and followed a bit of a shortcut past a gypsy camp. Not so reassuring. But after about 5 km I finally picked up the route again. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Camped in a tiny little place at Savonnieres where there are caves that you can visit, though I didn't. But there was an interesting deli attached to the caves visitor centre, and I made the best picnic meal ever - chorizo and olive bread, with salty tapenade and feta in herby garlic oil and a bag of mixed salad greens.