Prologue

 “It’s a wee bit Hilly”said the elderly Scottish cyclist when we told him we had just cycled in from Berwick on Tweed and he wasn't joking... we had just climbed 1200ft over the Scottish border toward Dunbar. That was last year’s trip, 1500 miles from London to Taunton and then to Edinburgh and Glasgow. This was followed by a short spin through East Anglia. This summer, post-COVID panic, we are trying something a little longer. So we will begin again in London where we pick up our bikes and equipment. Then it’s the Avenue Verte to Paris. Then a visit to Fontainbleu and on to the Loire, finishing that bike path at the Atlantic. There we turn Southwards to Bordeaux and onto the canal des deux mers to the Med. From there up to Lyons  via the Rhône cycle path. Then onto Lake Constance and the Konigsee  cycle path to Salzburg. If there is still time we will head South and aim for lake Bled in Slovenia. Flying home from Venice.

As you can see from the map, it is an ambitious project. But we have decided that, as last year, we will be tourists on bikes rather than trying for maximum distance. We also have tickets to see Sting on July 4th in the amphitheater in Nimes. One way or another we will make the concert.