Recent content on Dans Blog
I woke this morning in Caen after sleeping with no sheets in the smelly oven that was the hostel dormitory. Left at around 6:45am and cycled 15k or so to Ouistream for the ferry and was promptly boarded and was able to get breakfast. 6 hours were spent reading, working and dozing. The train in the UK was cancelled (unsurprisingly) but I was able to take a longer route back arriving in my hometown…
I booked the train from Lyon to Caen in my bed it cost around €100 or so and would leave at 11am. I passed to sleep quickly having drunk what was probably a little bit too much. The dormitory was good - the beds were solid and compartmentalised. Breakfast “comment ca marche, le machine de pancake” I asked and it was demonstrated to me. There was a hotplate with 6 small pancake sized…
Sitting in a bar in Lyon there is rock music playing and it’s busy. All the outside seating is taken. Both the staff I have spoken to switched to English. My hands a burning due to heat exposure today. I have a Choufre beer and am ordering a pizza which is appropriate as this is almost certainly my last cycling day. I didn’t sleep great last night in the dormitory. It wasn’t…
Today has been both extremely long and extremely “hilly”. I’m sitting in the Auberge de Jeunesse in Grenoble. It’s the second time I’ve been here. The first time was in 2010 and that was the first ever time I’d stayed in a hostel. So here I am 16 years later. It hasn’t changed. I have a beer and a pizza which the kind English lady at the reception supplied…
My stomach is churning. I’m sitting in a lonely bar that is the only place to eat in the village. The bar is 100m above my accomodation and my accomodation is 200m above the town that, when I saw this was 2.7km from the center, I thought I could walk to for dinner and to resupply at a supermarket. I’m perhaps past the point of no return as I’ve already started climbing a mountain…
The “B&B” I’m staying at is a cosy, small converted ground floor appartment. I share it with the cars that I can hear passing loudly at regular intervals and I had to walk 40 minutes to the supermarket to get some food to cook (no more cycling thanks) and forgot to buy a power adapter as this appartment has no sockets that accept an EU plug and I’m concious of my power…
I’m now sitting in the bar of the camping with an artisanal IPA beer. The camping is, I think, run by nuns. And I’m probably sitting with four nuns who are playing cards and passively watching Italy’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”. The campsite has an amazing view and is very peaceful and the weather is fine. I’m wearing my thermal…
I’m now sitting in a religious property owned by the church that is rented out as a hotel. It’s a grand place with decorative stucco walls, ceilings painted with cherubs and jesus and stately staircases. The room is spartan however and somewhat like a polite prison cell with only an unreachable window in the corner of the room - I like it. I’m now sat in a large, richly decorated…
I am arrived at the Hotel San Marco in Verona. It’s a beautiful day and I’m eating a toasted cheese sandwich and drinking a cold beer in the familiar surroudings of the hotel which is and has been the venue for the PHPDay conference. I’m here two days early and have plenty of time to rehearse and refine my talk After finishing my blog post last night I sat down and started to…
Both my dorm partners snored heavily last night and both woke early and one of them started watching youtube videos on his mobile phone with the speaker on at 6:00am. It turns out he speaks French and was originally from Italy but works in Lyon and is going to Tunisia for a holiday in the next days. “Et toi? Travail? C’est la crise!” he said “Oui, je travail, comme normale.…
“Vegetarian pizza”, “So this is the Ortolano pizza, it has augergine, zucchini, mozeralla, artichoke and pepperoni” “Peppeoni is meat” “Without the peperonni then”. I’ve been wandering through historical Rovereto for about an hour and a half. It’s damp and incredibly quiet. It’s Sunday but it’s a stark contrast to Innsbruck.…
I left my universal power adapter in Konstanz because it electrocutes people and falls out of the wall socket. For some reason I thought the replacement was also “universal” but as it only had the EU two pin male connector it seems I was wrong. “Do you have a UK to Italy power adapter?” I asked the hotel receptionist. He looked at me, understood and said “No”. I…
My head isn’t aching nor is my neck, but they’re not not aching either. The table I’m sat on slants slightly down towards the pedestrianised road and there is a big menu pinned to the wall next to my head. “Can I have a grosses bier” nods “and ein Pizza Vegeterienne” puzzled “Veg-gee-tarian” puzzled “Vegetariana” smiles and walks…
I woke up this morning and went to the inclusive breakfast. I then sat down and pondered. Shall I stay? Shall I go? I checked the weather and it said “rain” but none of the hourly reports said “rain” and as it turned out it did not rain but nonetheless this factored into my decision to stay - as did having “too much” time to get to Verona and the possibility…
Sitting in the Oberstdorf hostel - a large, modern, ski hostel which is out of season but it’s noisy as there are a very large number of kids here with a small number of teachers and I think I’m the only “adult” that’s staying here. I seem to have a three bed room all to myself. It’s raining outside and I’m in the Alps. The hostel is situated in a little…
I’m hungry and sitting in a pizzeria in Konstanz, which is in Germany and not in Switzerland although it is rather close. The hotel is expensive for the tiny room that I have and the fact that my bike is in the “innerhof” (backyard) with nothing but my flimsy lock and an unlocked door to protect it from anybody that felt like taking it. The hotelier sounded snooty when I looked…
I am now sitting in a very minimal but cosy wooden cabin that I’ve paid for at Naturcamp Schluchsee. It cost €35 for the night and has electricity and insulation benches and smells of wood and that’s it. I’ve just made a coffee and eaten the inadequately sized sandwich that I purcahsed at Lidl in Nancy two days ago. There’s a supermarket 5k away but I’m going to make…
Sitting in a Buffalo Grill. Ordered a vegetarian Ranch Burger and a large Grimburgen beer. I decided to book a Budget Ibis Hotel at around €50 but the hotel is about 1k from the center of town and I probably should have done a camping day - although it’s threatening to rain so perhaps I made the right decision. Today was 20% off road with that 20% being employed in traversing the Vosges…
Now sitting on an exposed table of a pizzeria on a street in Nancy. Kids are rolling in the street and there is a spattering of other customers but it’s not busy. I’m waiting to order. I think I’m hungry, I’m certainly thirsty as I just about ran out of the water that I was rationing today not having found a convenient place to top the bottles up and the day was longer than…
Sun blasted, lips cracking, tired, but otherwise feel good sitting at a makeshift desk in a large, modern, youth hostel with a chair propping up the charger which is connected to an EU power adapter which is prone to fall out of the socket (and, on occasion, electrocute people 1 ) that’s propped up by a chair and the USB cable is too short so that’s going via. my portable charger. I…
Today has been a a great ride with plenty of challenging off road sections. I’ve just been served a large pizza vegetarian 5 minutes after ordering it and I’m camping in the town of Troisvierges in Luxembourg. Now sitting in a Brasserie where people don’t seem to understand English but French seems very popular but the signs are in German. I have not done any research.. A group…
Achen is a vibrant city. I didn’t expect that. Unfortunately I’m now in a hotel 1.5k from the vibrant center and the pizzas located therein. The nearest pizza is a 20 minute walk over a hill. I’d leave now but the laptop is dead and needs charging. I had a restless night in the tent and it became cold in the early hours necessitating me climbing into my trousers, socks and…
Now sitting in my tent on a pleasantly vacant campsite typing this blog post with 57% battery knowing that I won’t be able to charge it today. I’ve been to the supermarket and have a Duvel beer (€1.60 vs. what would be around €3 in the UK) and some baked beans and some cheese and a half a baguette. It would have been an entire baguette bit I strapped it onyo my bag and half it seems to…
I’m at Bram’s house sitting on a bed feeling the familiar exhaustion of a long day in the saddle. At some point within the next hour we’ll go in to Ghent city and find pizza and I’m going to find some Belgium Beer. Today started off in the Campernile hotel after a undisturbed by adolescents but it wasn;t a good sleep. I paid €11 for breakfast and made the most of the…
Went to bed late and slept badly in my own bed waking up without any particular excitement and not really wanting to get out of bed. It was 7:30am and I knew that if I were to leave today I would need to get the train in the next hours and I still had to pack everything. Yesterday I did make a list of everything and where it should be located on the bike and so after a too-leisurely breakfast,…