France (all)

A record of my progress from Alkmaar to Aix; by pedal power. From Netherlands to France via Belgium.

Most important is perhaps to point out that this for me was a most enjoyable thing to do. It was also an easy thing to do, and required remarkably little advance planning. I checked the bike and did the necessary repairs and changes, I drafted a route though the low countries and through France, estimated how long it would take me to do it, and with the minimum physical preparations I set off from Alkmaar on the 5th June.

I benefited of course from previous bicycling experience, I was aware of possible (physical) problems that might turn up, and was very careful not to let minor problems develop into more serious ones. Also extensive travel experience over the years (not much of it on bicycle) has taught me that there is always accommodation, there is food and drink to be found on the way. I climbed from Bonnieux up the hill [...] there was the most fantastic ride down the narrow valley towards Lourmarin, narrow hairpin bends, and again a downhill ride that seemed to go on forever.

We are 2 18 year old students. We made a tour across Europe from Holland to Sweden and Great Britain. After this we took the boat to Holland and set off to the south of Portugal.

In the spring (2006) we are going to make a trip from Anataly Turkey to Holland.

In September 2003 I organised and led a charity ride in the Pyrenees. A group of 14 braved the elements, and gravity, to raise £12,000 for Intermediate Technology Development Group. The two-week trip involved tears and blood, food and wine, 2000m cols and 50 mph descents. What follows is the record of that trip.

A self supported relaxed bike tour along the beautiful Loire valley. Pretty villages, nature, castles, delicious food, nice hotels - a report of a nearly perfect tour.

Additional infos about travel by train in France.

A tour of the French Alps, from Geneva to Nice, returning via the Piemont plains of Italy, followed by a visit to various climbs in Switzerland.

In September 2005 my wife Carol and I returned to France with our bikes for our 17th cycling trip in that wonderful country where the food is great, the wine is great, the cycling is varied and interesting, the roads are good and the weather is warm and sunny ..... normalement! Because we have criss-crossed the southern half of the country so often it had become difficult to find a route that we had not traveled before. But the Auvergne was an area as yet undiscovered by us so I planned a route that would take us through this lightly populated rugged region that makes up a large part of the Massif Central. Although we had done little training for this trip I was not concerned because I assumed, from the map at left, here, that we were essentially starting at the top and going to the bottom so it should be basically downhill all the way. It turns out that there is absolutely no correlation between north/south and up/down. As usual this trip report is far too wordy, dull, uninteresting. I need to develop a more concise, readable, enjoyable writing style. And you will find interspersed in the travelogue asides in which I attempt to educate the reader, my career in the classroom forcing me to seize every ``teachable moment''. Finally, I wrote much of this as we were experiencing it. I have tried to make the verb tenses coherent but there will be times, I'm sure, when ``rode'' slips into ``ride''. Please accept my apologies for all the above.

>Viewing the Pyrénées stages of the 2003 Tour de France inspired me to choose this itinerary. I knew that replicating the actual TDF stages would be much too long (as the stages are not interconnected) but at the end of the day, I rode 2,488 km which is more than 2/3 of the actual length of the Tour: 3427 km! Having said this, my general average was 82.7 km/cycling day, a very small number by TDF standards.

The general game plan for the demi tour was sketched on a map of France (1/2,000,000). The trajectory chosen as I rode was varied, never dull, grandiose in the Pyrenean cols and valleys, and sprinkled with a number of spectacular towns and cities (Bourges, Toulouse, Poitiers, Chinon, Blois, Chartres, Versailles to name only a few).

Stayed in hotels (generally 2* which is admittedly pricy!), B&B’s and in a Youth hostel (10 Euros/night). Travel can be cheap in France, even without camping. I carried 17 kg of gear.

This trip, our 16th in France en vélo, was quite different from our usual. My wife Carol and I shared a gîte (a fully equipped lodging that can be rented by the week) with three other couples for the first week in l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue near Avignon. After our stay at the gîte we all headed by train to Italy. We left our bikes in Nice where we picked them up after our Italian experience to finish the trip with 9 days of cycling in the Alpes-Maritimes and the Lubéron. The others, who had not brought their bikes to Europe, did not come back to France with us. We had some glitches getting to the gîte due to incompatible flight schedules. I won't bore you with the details. Typically, as in all my other cycle trip reports, there'll be plenty in this report to bore you without adding travel difficulties.

That being said, I must report an end of trip occurrence that had, in retrospect, a significant bearing on this report. As we were leaving Aix-en-Provence for the Marseille-Provence airport on the last day of the trip I got a puncture in my rear tire just outside the city. We stopped at a bus stop where I could lean my bike and I set about removing the rear wheel and the delinquent inner tube, replacing the latter with a new tube. I pumped it full of air and then prepared to re-install the wheel. Carol held the bike frame while I negotiated the chain, the derailleur and the rear cassette. Surprisingly, it went in easily, but then Carol let go of the bike. I reacted, of course, but she was yelling ``MY BIKE IS GONE!!'' Sure enough, in the 60 seconds we were focused on the installation of the wheel, some jackal had seized the opportunity to make off with her bike, including her purse which was in the handlebar bag. Within the purse were her credit cards, some cash, her driver's license, her birth certificate, some other identification papers and a vehicle registration - AND HER PASSPORT!!

It's 2004, and my dream came true: to go on an extended cycling trip of Europe, taking in Portugal, Spain, France and the UK. I left Brisbane on January 22 for a Tasmanian ``warm-up'' trip before my BIG trip, which started on 27 February. Here are my favourite photos and some thoughts I had along the way. I hope you enjoy them...

In June 2003 my wife, Andrea and I took our hybrid bikes to Frankfurt. Leaving Frankfurt on the Main cycle path we rode to the Rhine where essentially we turned left and rode up the Rhine cycle path till we came to Bodensee (Lake Constance) in Switzerland. On the way we took short detours by riding into Karlsruhe and later into Alsace Lorraine. Once we arrived at Bodensee we cycled secondary roads to the Neckar Valley then rode down the Neckar radweg (cycle path) to Heidelberg. All told we rode some 1260 km. Undoubtedly the highlight was riding the Route de Vin (wine route) in Alsace.

Qu'est-ce que le cyclotourisme? C'est de l'amour ambulant dont la nature est l'objet. Nous devons cette définition à Henri de la Tombelle , dans son manuel du cyclotourisme édité en 1943, et je n'en connais pas de plus satisfaisante.

Pour ma part, même si le cyclotourisme demeure une activité ayant ses exigences d'effort et d'endurance, il n'est pas question de devenir esclave de la moyenne kilométrique. Dans la pratique du vélo, je vois essentiellement une façon agréable de se déplacer dans la nature, de découvrir des paysages, des régions, de réviser sa géographie en allant sur place ressentir la profondeur d'une belle vallée ou l'altitude d'une montagne.

Le Pyrénées, lorsqu'on habite Toulouse, sont l'objet de nombreuses conversations entre amoureux de la nature. Très nombreux sont les adeptes des randonnées durant l'été, et du ski durant l'hiver. Pour notre part, peu attirés par le ski et occupés à bien d'autres activités en été (du vélo par exemple), ces montagnes, pourtant si proches, demeuraient étrangères à nos pérégrinations et du coup globalement méconnues.

We encountered not one hint of anti-American feeling or negativity. Just as last year, the French people were wonderful. People repeatedly went out of their way to help us. One small example: Early in the trip, we were passing through a very small town with almost no signposting on the various intersections. On our third pass through the downtown trying to find the right road, we stopped to ask directions of two ladies talking in to main square. After some discussion, one of them went and got her car and drove to the edge of town just to show us the right way.

Summing up the trip, we had a wonderful time, ate lots of really great food and rode enogh miles not to gain weight in the process. What more can one ask from a vacation?

We descended to Selva di Cadore (1336m) and headed east to Passo Staulanza (1773m) along the Torrente Fiorentina all the while heading straight for Monte Pelmo (3168m). The Staulanza is an easy pass and comes as a surprise because there is no apparent gap past Monte Pelmo. After a hairpin turn just before the mountain, the pass shows up unexpectedly.

Typical of the Dolomites, this route is a scenic wonder. We rode to Longarone (472m), notorious for the dam disaster at 22:42 on 09 October 1963 when the town was destroyed by a ``tidal wave'', that a landslide from Monte Toc (1921m) had forced over a dam and through a narrow gulch across from the town, to claim 1909 lives. Our hotel as, most in that area, had many before and after pictures on its walls.

[The following day] we started out under blue skies that gradually turned cloudy as the day passed. We crossed the valley and rode up the granite wall through tunnels as we headed to the gap of death for Longarone. Below, carved into the vertical wall, we saw the old road notched and tunneled into the gorge as we passed tunnel openings in our road. Then we saw the hollow arch of the dam, still intact, with only a bit of the rim cracked of on the far side. It is less than 50m across but at least three times that high, narrowing to almost nothing at its bottom.

After the last tunnel we emerged just above the dam that still has a bit of water between it and the mountain that slid into the former lake. A memorial chapel by Corbusier stands vigil over this disaster.

I cycled for 16 days and climbed 58624 m (which is 3664 m on average per day). It was 2381 km (which is 148.8 km on average per day). These figures are a bit lower than for the previous year, mainly because I visited more unpaved mountain roads (otherwise they would likely had been higher). It was between 10 (first day at the race it was much cooler in the morning) and 41° Celsius. The maximum speed was down the Kühtai pass at 91 km/h (new record for me). Steepest road I cycled was Ischgl-Viderjoch with several kilometres above 20%. Steepest road I did not cycle was down to Switzerland from Viderjoch, with ramps at 45% on average. I had thunderstorms, I had three punctures (one on asphalt and two on gravel), and a car incident in Schwaz, Austria (early on day 17 out of 21 planned days of cycling) where I got a fracture in the back and was hospitalized. (Fortunately, I fully recovered after 3-4 months.) I visited around 119 passes (106 new passes, with perhaps 100 officially recognized ones).

We are David and Suzette Welch, a nurse and librarian living in Chico California. Even though we are longtime cyclists and tandemists, and took a two week tour for our honeymoon thirty years ago, neither of us had been to Europe before and our total touring experience over the years has been pretty modest. But with age advancing upon us (total team age at the time of this trip was 111 years) we decided it was time to start doing some of those trips we had dreamed of for years.

With an eye to this trip, we had acquired a coupled tandem, which makes the non-cycling parts of the travel ever so much easier. Determined not to be more gauche than necessary, we put a certain amount of time into the study of French. Suzette, with more background and more free time did rather better at that than David. We did lots of pre-trip research online. Particularly helpful were the trip reports posted on the Trento Bike Pages and the generous and expert advice of many of the folks on the Tandem@Hobbes listserve. We dedicate this journal to all those people whose advice helped us, in the hope that this information may help someone else and encourage others to make similar trips.

The route follows the northern rim of the Mediterranean Sea, along the coast of Spain, France, across north Italy, the coast of Croatia, Greece, and Turkey. Powered by pastry, we pedaled and pushed our bikes from the sandy beaches of Spain to the sandy beaches of southern Turkey, over hills, over mountains, and across rivers of all sizes. Along the way, we found helpful people, stunning scenery, and great food.

I rode along the Vermenagna River below the Tenda rail line, famous for being either in a tunnel or on a bridge most of the 80km from Borgo San Dalmazzo to Ventimiglia and Nice. The river and its tributaries had ripped out bridges and carried away parts of the road in recent floods. While the railway gained altitude in looping tunnels and bridges and vanished in the mountain for long stretches, I cruised up the 4% grade to Limone (990m), where the climb to the highway tunnel begins and the 8090m-long Tenda Railway Tunnel, completed in 1913, bores through the mountain to Vievola. [...]

I am a child of 67 summers who enjoys cycle touring. My ride is a 1999 Litespeed Blue Ridge fitted with 46-36-24 chainrings and 12-25 cluster. I have largely abandoned camping, and use small hotels and restaurants. I carry a [credit] card, a set of bike clothes (shorts, jersey, shoes with Frog cleats, helmet, tights, a capilene long sleeve shirt and Gore-Tex jacket) and a set of dinner clothes (running shoes, nylon long pants and shirt and a polypro sweater). A small bottle of CampSuds for the evening clothes wash keeps me social. Rear panniers (now with rain covers) carry the clothes and a handlebar bag carries maps and camera. All together bike plus gear comes to about 35 lbs.

From Carsten's Cycling Web. While it's still high summer I begin three weeks of mountain bike holidays together with a couple of friends. Ten days later we ride through a snow-covered scenery on our way across Bielerhöhe. Forced by the cold weather we change our plans to avoid the highest summits. Even the cattle have had enough and return from the green summer pastures to the warm cow houses. Nevertheless, we have some nice days off-road. One of the attractions is Val d'Uina with a just 1.5 m wide hiking track blasted into the rock wall over a of 600 m distance. As a prelude to the tour we participate in Ötztaler Radmarathon.

With many nice pictures, and a detailed list of all the passes.

I travelled for 14 days and climbed 53173 m (which is 3798 m on average per day). It was 2277,75 km (which is 162,7 km on average per day). It was between 4 and 38 Celsius. The maximum speed was (probably) down the Nufenen Pass at 79 km/h. The maximum inclination up a pass road was probably at around 19% (Col du St. Bernard). I had rain on several days, I had a wheel damaged, and a rib fractured. I visited around 75 passes.

I took a photo at Croce de la Roley [...] and I thought it looked rather steep down there - I had to go down this steep part on a zig-zagging steep path. It did not seeem very difficult apart from that I now had to lift the bicycle for most of the time. I suddenly lost my balance and fell together with my bicycle without control down the steepest part of the mountainside! I happily stopped at the next lace in the path, which was lucky as I felt like I was gaining speed down there...

Total Kilometers/Miles Cycling: 3849/2392 - Total Kilometers/Miles by Train: 435/270.5 - Total kilometers/Miles by car (rushing to Kirkenes to catch the plane to Chicago: 519/322.5 - Average distance per day 167/104.

Welcome to the diary and pics from our July 2002 trip to Amsterdam, Brussels, and mostly France. Amsterdam and Brussels were explorered on foot, but for France we took our bikes with all the way from South Africa. For friends, enjoy the pics and diary. For others, we hope that our experiences and info we've given here help to make planning your trip a little easier.

We were originally planning a conventional holiday overseas, until I had the good fortune to spot the Lonely Planet Cycling France book in a bookshop, which really got the planning juices going. We had bikes, a reasonable level of fitness, France sounded great for riding, we could get to see some of the Tour de France, ... it sounded like the perfect holiday!

After watching Lance and the Tour de France peleton zoom through the Alps in the 2002 Tour, me and my clubmates Neil and Chris started to plan a quick four day dash to the Alps to sample the famous climbs, and get a late season fitness boost. Chris was the organizer and did a superb job of finding accomodation and booking flights. We flew to Grenoble [and stayed] in Venosc.

Venosc is a charming, quiet mountain village with narrow, cobbled alleys, craft shops, bars and restaurants. I recommend ``Le Petit Pub'' just below the church, and the Pizzeria just round the corner where they make your pizzas right in front of you on a wood fired oven.

The only snag about staying there is that every day begins with a cold descent back to the N91 in the Romanche Valley, and ends with a tough climb back to Venosc. The redeeming features of the return climb are the fact that it isn't very long, and that you can also visit the Dutch cycling pub on the way back. This is marked by a red bicycle at the side of the road and is worth a visit for the friendly, English-speaking service, and good Pelforth beer served. They do afternoon pasta too!

On the first day we decided to warm up on the Col de Sarenne approach to the village of Alped'Huez. We climbed towards the Lautaret on the N91 to Freney d'Oisans, crossed the dam, and turned left on the D25 towards Mizoen. Follow the left fork above the village through Clavans le Bas and Clavans le Haut. The road above the villages is a tremendous, quiet climb in an open valley with great views. The surface is very poor, but it's not too much of a problem when climbing. [In the picture at right you see] Chris climbing towards the col. The small village at the right of the picture is Clavans le Haut, only about half way up the climb.

This is a log of a month long cycle tour in France that I took with my wife Carol and (for the first ten days) two friends in the summer of 1997. [...] This was my 11th cycling tour in France (9th for Carol) and my 13th in Europe. We are what many cycle tourists disparagingly refer to as credit card tourists.

We headed north over the rolling hills of the Beaujolais, vineyards everywhere, stopping at Salles-Arbuissonas-en-Beaujolais. [...] We passed Côte de Brouilly and Brouilly vineyards - we had planned to pass through all ten Beaujolais cru's on that day. (Quick trivia question for you oenophiles out there: Can you name the ten? Bonus question: Which one is the most recently included? Answers at the bottom of this trip log.)

This site is about our cycling adventure to the southwest of France in the fall of 2002. We loved our trip so much, we decided to put up this site to share our photos, share our stories and hopefully inspire fellow cyclists to visit this stunning part of France. Enchanting medieval towns, quiet back roads, breathtaking landscapes, friendly people, and of course, great food and wine await you in this beautiful country. We have traveled in many areas of France by bike: Normandy, Brittany, Loire Valley, Alsace, Provence, The Alps, Corsica and Paris. In our humble opinion, there is no better way to see France then on the seat of your bike, with a baguette and fine bottle of wine strapped to your panniers.

Our trip was an 18-day tour of the Southwest, encompassing the regions of Perigord and Quercy. We cycled along the beautiful Dordogne, Vézère, Lot and Célé rivers. The months of September and October are an excellent time to bike tour in this region. The fall colors, grape harvests and cooler temperatures made the cycling very enjoyable and we avoided the hordes of tourists who flock here during the summer months. With the exception of the huge thunderstorm we experienced in Bordeaux the first day, the rest of the trip broughtnothing but sunny, clear skies. We cycled 11 out of the 18 days covering 660km, staying at campgrounds and budget hotels along the way. It was a fantastic tour and we highly recommend it to anyone.

The slow pace of cycle touring allows you to truly see andappreciate a country. You have the opportunity to see small villages and meet local people that you would otherwise not experience. Imagine riding along the banks of a gentle flowing river, with fairy tail castles in the distance, visiting medieval towns and lunching on fresh bread, great cheese and some of the best wine in the world. Most tours can be tailored to fit all levels of fitness; you don't have to be an athlete to enjoy riding your bike along the French countryside. By touring on a bike, your vacation becomes an adventure; you experience the real country, not just the tourist sites. Fresh air, exercise, beautiful scenery and let's not forget guilt-free indulging. Bike touring is the way to go.

This is a trip I took in 2002, starting in Dinan in Brittany and biking northeast along the coast through Mont-St-Michel, across the Cotentin penninsula and the D-Day invasion beaches in Normandy, ending in Honfleur. There are nine pages here, each with about a dozen pictures and detailed description.

My wife and I recently returned from our cycling trip through the UK, France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland and Italy, roughly 4,500kms. It would be of special interest to any Jewish readers, as we observed all the Kosher and Sabbath ``constraints'' while cycling.

Welcome to the website for our cycling tour in France, including a bit of Germany. [We are] Ed James, Bob Parry[,] Greg James, Gayle Swan, Marty Cooperman and Bonnie Vargo.

We are all from Cleveland, Ohio, USA, and have enjoyed previous European bike tours so much that it appears to have become an annual event. We're sharing our experiences for all who enjoy travel, especially those on bicycles.

This year's journey begins in Heidelberg, Germany, where we traveled south through the Rhine Valley to Strasbourg, France. We explored the beautiful wine villages of the Alsace along the Route du Vin to Colmar. Entering the province of Franche-Comté at Montbéliard we followed the Doubs River to Besançon. Leaving the Doubs valley we biked to Arbois and eventually rejoined the river at Dole. Our journey ended in Beaune, the wine center of Burgundy.

Some friend's weather horrors of last year prompted us to 1) go somewhere with good weather and 2) hire a car to introduce more off-bike possibilities. Provence fitted the weather bill [...] So: Just drive carefully, and expect every blind corner to have someone in a battered 106 coming too fast the other way in the middle of the road, and you won't go far wrong.

Eine anspruchsvolle Radtour in 8 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 620 km durch die französischen Alpen; Tagesetappen zwischen 64 und 95 Kilometer.

That's an itinerary used by a lot of people. It's a route for hardcore bikers. That's the reason why so many reports are published about this famous route though the Alpes. It is a part of 'Le Tour de France' with all its fascination.

My wife and I recently returned from our cycling trip through the UK, France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland and Italy, roughly 4,500kms. It would be of special interest to any Jewish readers, as we observed all the Kosher and Sabbath ``constraints'' while cycling.

My wife and I recently returned from our cycling trip through the UK, France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland and Italy, roughly 4,500kms. It would be of special interest to any Jewish readers, as we observed all the Kosher and Sabbath ``constraints'' while cycling.

My wife and I recently returned from our cycling trip through the UK, France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland and Italy, roughly 4,500kms. It would be of special interest to any Jewish readers, as we observed all the Kosher and Sabbath ``constraints'' while cycling.

Alès is a quiet town at the southern edge of the Massif Central, France's central mountains. We stayed the night in Alès and entered the mountains the next morning. The ride from Alès to Le Puy on D906 was clearly the highlight of the entire tour. (Also, as it happens, my birthday.) The road winds its way through the deep narrow valleys of the mountains. There is very little traffic, and gorgeous views at every bend of the road.

This is my account of a trip to France to ride the Paris Roubaix race route. Being an ex- amateur racing cyclist and a devoted fan of cycle racing it has always been an ambition of mine and having spent many years watching the race on Eurosport I finally decided to give it a go. The route was plotted on a map from Internet race route details and constant study of video coverage. My brother Jong agreed to join me and my girlfriend Allison agreed to act as our `back up' vehicle. We rode standard race bikes with 700c x 23 tyres (Kevlar). Mine is equipped with carbon forks and Jong's with steel straight forks and apart from routine maintenance we set off with no special precautions.

The 2001 edition of the race was run off the previous weekend in absolute hellish conditions and we were afraid that we would encounter the same. The week before we went was accompanied with strong cold Northerly winds and constant downpours of hail and sleet so I was very nervous. The race is steeped in legend, `Hell of the North' etc but in fact is a very pleasant and interesting route (when dry!) and is virtually untouched by traffic beyond Bohain. We enjoyed it immensely and I would recommend it but unless you are a real purist like me then don't bother with the Compiegne - St Quentin leg.

[Titus is the bike] - 12195 km in 8 months through France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and Greece - includes travelogue and many fine pictures

I've travelled quite a bit through the years, hiking on foot, by car, bus, plane... But cycling is just the right speed. Fast enough to actually get someplace, yet slow enough to smell the flowers as you go... Plus, it's the only mode of transportation where the engine actually improves with usage... Anyways, a friend lent me this book about a couple who spent a couple of years cycling around the world and I thought to myself that I wanted to do that ! So, off I went ! Well, I didn't quite make it... After 8 months on the road, I came back... Mostly due to homesickness, but I should have expected that, particularly on a solo trip...

Mid-morning after leaving Santillana [in Northern Spain], I take a break after a long cycle uphill and watch the progress of this little fellow... That's exactly how I felt... slow... but steady!

[...] We crossed the to the north side of the Lenta and climbed above the clouds into a brilliantly clear blue sky as we broke out of this box canyon through cliffs and bare rock tunnels, above the high waterfall into the Gorge de la Lenta. Here we entered a wintry scene with empty chair lifts running in anticipation of skiers from Val d'Isere on the other side of the pass. In one more zigzag, similar to the lower climb, brought us to the summit. Although we were in summer clothing, our leather gloves came in handy.

At the summit we took pictures sitting on the large concrete and stone Col del l'Iseran (2770m) sign, something I first did in 1960. We found a photographer, a guy from Colorado, who had slept in his car at the summit that he had reached in the heightof the snow storm late at night. Without chains, he thought the next day would be safer, and it was.

From Barcelona to Venezia (including [among others] Provence and the Dolomites).

Erik had spent the winter looking at pictures of famous Alpine passes, and that's where we were going. Languedoc and Provence also caught our attention, as did Costa Brava in Spain. We therefore decided to start our journey in Barcelona (which we passed through on our Iberia Tour 1999) and to finish in Venice (where we had been during the Touring Italia 1998).

We both signed up in the winter to participate in the ``Vätternrundan'' (a one-day 300k event in mid-June around the second largest lake in Sweden), and trained more than 1000 km during the spring. This training was absolutely necessary, not only for the ``Vätternrundan'', but also for the very hilly tour. In the end, after five weeks, we saw that we had had no more than three days without mountains. The first day through Barcelona, one day along the coast in Southern France and the last day on the plains to Venice. We were also certain that it would not be our last tour in the Alps. The climbs were hard, but the views and encouragements from other cyclists and car-drivers made it all more than worth-while. You are hardly ever alone as a cyclist. Standing on the summit after an hour or more of climbing you feel just as great as when you sweep through the switchbacks, going downhill for tens of kilometers on end!

Elba hat eine wechselvolle Geschichte hinter sich: Griechen, Etrusker, Römer, Spanier, Engländer ständig wechselten die Herrscher. Mediterrane Flora und blau schimmernde Buchten erwarten uns. Aber auch für unsere Begriffe viel zu viel motorisierter Verkehr. Bei Aquaviva treffe ich meine Schwester, die hier ihren Urlaub verbringt und schon sind wir Tagesgespräch im Hotel. Wir nehmen unser erstes und letztes Bad im Meer und uns wird langsam bewußt, daß wir am Endpunkt unserer Reise angekommen sind. Wir wollen noch einmal die Ruhe und Stille genießen und fahren deshalb hoch in die Berge.

Eine erlebnisreiche Reise und 1750 Km mit dem Rad liegen hinter uns. Interessant auch die Tatsache, daß wir uns trotz des Altersunterschiedes (40 62) gut zusammen arrangiert haben. Ein gemeinsames Ziel verbindet eben und schweißt zusammen. Etwas, was in unserer heutigen Zeit zunehmend verloren zu gehen scheint.