Saturday May 6, Coronation Day back home, finds us in Lippstadt in the German Sauerland just short of Bielefeld, having visited (for the second time on our tandem) the Moehne dam of Dambusters memory in 1943. For Germany, even though at least 1500 people died, mostly forced labourers from then Nazi-occupied territories to the East … Read more …
For this post, rather than writing a whole load of text, let the images tell the story. I ‘ll try to position in them in the right order, so for our tandem journey Tuesday May 2-Wednesday May 3, follow the pictures and the captions, and we’ll hope to raise a smile. Read more …
In England when Jutta and I pedal past on our tandem Daisy2, the all-too-common cry from onlookers hoping to be enormously amusing is that “She’s Not Pedalling On The Back!” Ho ho. (It’s not). It’s indeed such a universal tandem experience that a couple of fellow cyclists used that cry as the website address for … Read more …
Ah well, Vermeer went so well that a price had to be paid. Today, Day 1 of Week 2 of Daisy’s 12-week odyssey around Germany and Northern Europe, saw us repairing two further rear punctures and having to hammer the arms of our Bob trailer straight after our heavy rear panniers knocked one side off … Read more …
With thanks again to Tiffany and Greg for hosting us in Amsterdam, their massive and special gift as Friends of the Rijksmuseum was to be able to take us both, one at a time, to see perhaps the best art exhibition I for one have ever experienced. I may not know much about art etc … Read more …
Yes, our first puncture. Albeit in the UK before the Harwich ferry (the surfaces and roads here in NL are already dramatically cleaner and safer). Sorted in 20 minutes, which is a good augury – and reminder that while for the next three months to Gdansk and back, scenery, history, people, countries, cultures and conversations … Read more …
Shaft of light just short of Orford in Suffolk (itself 30 miles short of our immediate destination today, the port of Harwich) almost illuminating one of the silliest routing decisions we’ve ever taken on a tandem tour, taking us through fields, grass and narrowest of footpath gates after narrrowest of gates round the Alde estuary. … Read more …
First pix of Daisy2 road-ready, with Bob Yak trailer connected and Pendix battery in place (second one on 3 the Ortlieb sideways barrel bag). This on Saturday afternoon, ready for departure Monday morning with Beccles our first overnight. Then plan to camp Tuesday near Sutton Hoo (hoping for visit to the site of that extraordinary … Read more …
As Ralph McTell (and I, in my late 60s/early 70s folk-singing Uni days) used to put it, finally the moment has come and here we stand, as Jutta and I (fresh from our winter break in Grenada, revisiting where we honeymooned in 1997) are very shortly off on our VERY-long-planned cycling sabbatical around Europe. Daughter … Read more …
It’s been extraordinarily good fun to talk to Ian Sanders of the Cold War Conversations podcast about my times as student and reporter in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe through the 70s and 80s, and here’s the final episode, focusing on Romania. As Ian writes on the shownotes, Mark Brayne worked as a Reuters … Read more …