Tour diary

I wrote a brief daily update blog post for each day I travelled. You can view the blog entries in date order, or go straight to a specific post by following a link below.

Title Start Finish
Day 1 : Grand départ, prologue London Harwich
Day 2 : Water, water, everywhere… Hook of Holland Utrecht
Day 3 : Less rain, less flat Utrecht Arnhem
Day 4 : From campsite to campsite Arnhem Lochem
Day 5 : Into Germany Lochem Ammeloe
Day 6 : Es regnet Ammeloe Havixbeck
Day 7 : Laundry day Havixbeck Münster
Day 8 : Long day cycling Münster Bielefeld
Day 9 : Introducing hills Bielefeld Bad Meinberg
Day 10 : Changing tack Bad Meinberg Hemeln
Day 11 : Lumpy ending Hemeln Bad Hersfeld
Day 12 : Rolling hills Bad Hersfeld Motten
Day 13 : Levelling out Motten Karlstadt am Main
Day 14 : Going cross country Karlstadt am Main Market Taschendorf
Day 15 : Through Nürnberg Market Taschendorf Riedenburg
Day 16 : Laundry day 2 – this time it’s persil-nal Riedenburg Irfersdorf
Day 17 : Quickly to Landshut Irfersdorf Oberahrain
Day 18 : Made it to Munich Oberahrain Munich
Day 19 : Tourist / rest day Munich Munich
Day 20 : Mountains Munich Bad Tölz
Day 21 : Mountains beyond mountains Bad Tölz Bannwaldsee
Day 22 : Has anyone seen my glove? Bannwaldsee Großer Alpsee
Day 23 : To Bodensee (in the rain) Großer Alpsee Lindau
Day 24 : Along the Bodensee coast road Lindau Wahlwies
Day 25 : Do I smell yet? Wahlwies Waldshut-Tiengen
Day 26 : Je suis arrivé en France Waldshut-Tiengen Mulhouse
Day 27 : Taking a warm shower Mulhouse Besançon
Day 28 : Heading Ouest Besançon Saint-Usage
Day 29 : Running out of water Saint-Usage Montceau-les-Mines
Day 30 : Where is everybody? Montceau-les-Mines Digoin
Day 31 : It’s hot out here Digoin Decize
Day 32 : Val de Loire Decize Pouilly-sur-Loire
Day 33 : I could get used to this Pouilly-sur-Loire Sully-sur-Loire
Day 34 : Taking on the club ride Sully-sur-Loire Blois
Day 35 : More Loire Blois Langeais
Day 36 : Loire-de-dah Langeais Angers
Day 37 : Puncture! Angers Nantes
Day 38 : Loire valley? Tick. Nantes Pornichet
Day 39 : Long day in the saddle Pornichet Rennes
Day 40 : Scrabbling North Rennes Avranches
Day 41 : Normandy (is not flat) Avranches Mosles
Day 42 : Last day in France Mosles Ouisteham
Day 43 : Am I There (epilogue) Portsmouth London

 

Notes on blogging

In case anyone is wondering how the blogging stuff works, this site runs on an installation of WordPress at some space I have with a shared hosting company.

I have the WordPress app on my Android smartphone.

During the days I took photos using the phone. When I was ready to blog, I would create a new post on the app, and insert the photos onto the blog post. The photos then require resizing to 1000px on the maximum length which can be done on each photo individually using the app. I’d then use the app to upload the private blog post to my hosting space.

Once the photos were uploaded, I’d log into the WordPress Content Management System on my website and add the text for the website and captions to the images. I’d also embed the map from Garmin Connect for that days ride. Setting the post to ‘Public’ and publishing then made the blog post live.

It was a bit of a drag doing it all on the small phone – an iPad mini would have been ideal, but I couldn’t justify the expenditure.

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