The Idea

Over the years I have cycled a small number of long distance tours.

• 1965 – Chesterfield to Lands End and back
• 1990 – Lands End to Stirling (fell off and broke my shoulder)
• 1991 – Stirling to John O’Groats (well, I finished!)
• 1993 – Barcelona to Bordeaux
• 2001 – Prague to Hamburg (along the Elbe)
• 2003 – St David’s to Kessingland (400 miles)

That’s nothing compared with some cyclist’s achievements, nothing to write home about, but the bug was there to do something much longer when I retired. All my previous rides were done with one or more other cyclists and all were camping tours. As I came up to retirement the thought became ever more pressing of doing something that was simply not possible while still working and constrained by the limitations of annual leave. Various options came to mind, but gradually the idea of cycling the length of France and Spain began to take hold. The logistics of getting to the start or back from the finish became an extended discussion around the breakfast table and Liz made a suggestion that we ought to have a holiday driving down to Gibraltar and I could then cycle back while she drove back with another passenger for company. And so it worked out.

I have always enjoyed boat journeys but have never been on a cruise longer than 24 hours. One day maybe I’ll go on a real cruise when I get to my dotage, but I’m not there yet. We sailed from Portsmouth to Bilbao with my bicycle standing up on the roof of our car along side a narrow roof box. We ate leisurely in the restaurant and slept soundly, taking the opportunity to relax before the strenuous part began. The boat came to a standstill in the middle of Bilbao harbour with an announcement that there was a problem with the bow propellers preventing us from manoeuvering into the dock. As we waited, leaning on the rail, we got into conversation with a lorry driver who was taking a refrigerated tanker of milk from Manchester to Benedorm for the English to have with their corn flakes, there being no cows on the Costa del Sol. He does this twice a week, handing over the tanker to another driver at Bilbao. Why, when we go abroad, do we have to take little England with us? Well, anyway, it provides a lot of people with an occupation, which can’t be bad.

Eventually we managed to dock and used our new satellite navigation device to get us from the port to the city, at one point apparently driving through blue water where a wharf had been built and the electronic map had not yet registered it. Negotiating the new motorway system around Bilbao was interesting, but in the end we got there and dropped the car into an underground car park. We had to get the bicycle off the roof first, and put it back on in the car park, locking it in place.

We spent Palm Sunday looking round Bilbao, visiting the cathedral and seeing the blessing of the Semana Santa costumes and later seeing processions of people marching and drumming round Bilbao from different churches each with different colours for their costumes. The pointed hats are centuries old and cover the face as a sign of mourning for the death of Jesus. On Easter Sunday the hats are taken off in jubilation for the resurrection.

We visited the Guggenheim Museum where we had a most excellent lunch. We walked back along the river to the Teatro Arriaga where we bought tickets for a performance by a modern ballet company from Madrid. Their performance culminated in a mesmerising dance sequence to the music of Carl Jenkins’ second string quartet, ending with the principal ballerina under a spot light and a steam of white sand falling over her head onto a heap around her. It was compelling.

A week later we were in Granada on Easter Sunday and saw the extraordinary Easter processions circulating round the cathedral. We had got up early and walked up to the Alhambra, queuing for tickets that allowed us into the Royal complex in the late afternoon. We killed time sitting in a restaurant in the old city watching jugglers and listening to buskers, and then spent several hours walking round the Alhambra with our audio guides. The following day Eva flew down to Mallagar and we picked her up from the airport, drove to Tarifa, and spent the night in a delightful hostal.