Just in time for Christmas and our (involuntary) change of plans (details to come in the now published blog entry!), we want to share with you a little recap of our journey so far! Every new day in December you will find a new (previously unpublished) picture with a short anecdote of our journey in this blog entry. Have fun and enjoy the pre-Christmas season!
Tilman and Ida
24. December
We wish you all a Merry Christmas! Enjoy the holidays with your loved ones and take some time for yourself. Maybe you will also find a minute or two to plan a short cycling tour for the coming year. We can only recommend the offers of the ADFC (Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad Club). If it may be a little longer, then also the Germany routes or the Eurovelos (these are to be enjoyed however with some caution!). Nevertheless you can use them as inspiration). Here are a few links for you:
ADFC Radtourismus - routes and regions
ADFC Radtourismus - quality routes
Between the holidays there will also be a new blog entry from the adventurous story after the break of our frame and how it will go on now.
23. December
The passes in the Pyrenees were quite a challenge! Especially the Col du Soulor - Ida's first Pyrenean pass ever. We were all the happier when we finally made it up :-) In general, the Pyrenees are a very beautiful touring area. However, you should take it a little slow with the passes and not shoot through one after the other - so you have more of the beautiful landscape anyway! On our next visit to the Pyrenees, we will try to climb the famous Col du Tourmalet - a promise that Ida Tilman had to make.
22. December
As a coffee person Ida had to take a back seat during the bike tour. We have a stove with us, but in the morning in the cold first sit in front of the tent and bring the stove to run is really not so cozy. So she takes every chance she gets to get a coffee. For example, in Spain, after the night when our tent first got a little waterlogged... We used the morning sun in the first village to dry our tent a little bit and claimed the whole market place for it (which by the way wasn't that big). And then already a nice woman came out of the Ayuntamiento with the offer of a fresh coffee.
21. December
The man behind most of the photos on this blog: Tilman. This photo was taken in Gijón and behind this photo are hundreds of photos of how the waves mix up the sand. We are really glad that we took the camera with us, so we can enjoy beautiful photos even when we are not allowed to sit on the bike!
20. December
A very special guest today in the Advent calendar: Felicette! Felicette found her new parents this summer: Marguerite and Simon. She came to them in Lille as a little kitten and has been thriving ever since. We were even allowed to be present during Felicette's first days in her new home and have already taken the little fuzzy kitten into our hearts. Thanks to a broken carrier we were able to enjoy the company of Felicette and her parents in Lille a little longer. If you wonder what happened to Felicette, you can follow her on Instagram: felicettelabgette
19. December
Quite in contrast to the picture from December 18, here we are wrapped up a bit thicker and enjoy our warm tea. Together with Andre we have made a trip from Domenico to the palace of Mafra, in front of whose gates this photo was taken. Afterwards we picked up Lena, from the Santiago WG, at the coast and escorted her to her farm, where she will spend the next weeks. In the evening there was a small meeting at the best pizzaria in the area :-)
18. December
On the photo you can see one of our favorite sleeping places and it is certainly not difficult for you to guess in which country we spent the night... About welcome to my garden we were allowed to put up our tent directly under a historic mill, which is still in operation today. When the mill was actually in motion the next morning, we knocked and were shown around by a nice gentleman who was thrilled to be able to tell us a few technical details when he heard that we had learned a rather technical profession. So it's worth asking every now and then - most of the time, people are really eager to share their knowledge and enthusiasm.
17. December
With the freezing cold here in Germany, we do think back to sunnier days from time to time. When we were with Sylvie and her family at Gujan Mestras, we made a day trip to the Dune du Pilat. This is the largest sand dune in Europe and we were lucky to be able to visit it. Only a few weeks and months before, there were still large forest fires nearby and access to the dune was closed. On the way there we made a small place exchange - Tilman in front and Ida behind. We can only recommend this tactic to everyone in everyday life to swap his "ancestral places". This opens up completely new perspectives - like the possibility to take selfies during a ride :-)
16. December
A more or less meaningful picture. But for anyone who has ever had to fight their way up a decent mountain under their own steam - like we did here in Galicia/Northern Spain - they certainly know the dilemma of every bend looking like the last one.... "For sure we'll be at the top soon!" - "Behind this curve it must be so far!" - "But this is surely the last hill" - only to realize that it is probably not the last curve or the last hill after all. Daniel, came up with a pretty decent rule of thumb for this: the top is where there are antenna masts or wind turbines. And he was right! Not 200m after this picture we enjoyed together with Florian - another cyclist a wonderful descent! You can read more about the Galician hills in the following blog entry: Buen camino
15. December
During a bike tour you are not always only on the bike, but also take a break from time to time... For our bike tour it was actually a little more often times to take a longer break. One of these longer breaks we spent with Barbara, Dominique and Emi - a whole week! We were greeted by Barbara and Dominique at 22:00 at night after our 190km day - both stood with flashlights in front of the driveway and cheered us as we drove in. That's a nice way to be received! We really enjoyed getting to know all three of them a little better over the week. Thanks to Barbara's love of Brittany, we gained a deeper insight into this region and learned to love it. Even though the weather alone isn't quite suitable for bike rides, the scenery and people are all worth getting wet for. One dish we will take with us from Brittany is: gallette! Our friends and family will have to accept that there will be a little more gallette in the next few years :-) Here again a big thank you to the three that they have welcomed us so warmly!
14. December
Sometimes timing is everything. Like this day, when we caught the ferry from Royan to Le-Verdon-sur-Mer just in the last minutes. But the day was also quite packed with nice and not so nice memories. After our first night in a caravan we woke up at Bernard and his wife in La Rochelle and had a nice breakfast with them. Afterwards we found out that the closest and all beloved Lild was closed (we were a bit surprised by the fact that it was Sunday) and rushed to the last open supermarket and arrived there 10 minutes before closing time. We also managed to visit three of the "most beautiful villages in France" that day - and even on the Journee du Patrimoine. So we enjoyed Brouage, Mornac-sur-Seudre and Talmont-sur-Gironde. In addition, the first - and toi toi so far only - accident of our trip occurred on this day. This time Ida escaped with only a scraped knee. The last hurdle of the day was to catch the ferry, which we assumed would leave 30 minutes later (due to different schedules for high and low season). Luckily Tilman checked again and we found out that it was going to be a pretty tight squeeze. And so we jetted along the beach promenade and arrived full of sweat but in time at the ferry and enjoyed another beautiful sunset. You can read all the details about this exciting day here: It's beautiful everywhere
13. December
Our view of a cycling companion near Bordeaux, whom we would now call a friend: Daniel. We can still remember the boring route from Bordeaux to Dax. One long and straight road followed another. Pine forests on the left, pine forests on the right. The highlight of the day was then Daniel, who with his bike and his unmistakable yellow panniers turned out of a side street in front of us onto the main road. We got to talking, stopped for lunch together and a few kilometers later we parted ways. Behind Logroño they were then led together again. We camped together and also drove 1.5 days through the Spanish pampas. After that Daniel continued on the Camino, while we drove towards Gijón over the Cantabrian Mountains. But we can't get rid of us that fast! In Santiago we met again after heavy rain showers, because Daniel, Marvin and Lena offered us a dry roof over our heads. Then Domenico joined us and we had a lot of fun in our "Santiago-WG". As you know, we all met again about a month later at Domenico's place near Sintra in Portugal and revived the "Santiago-WG" with new members. We have taken all WG members into our hearts and will definitely stay in touch with them! By the way, you can follow Daniel on Instragram under the name "daniel.doebele".
12. December
So today a "behind-the-scences" Puschel photo. Sometimes it is not so easy to get Puschel reasonably in a photo. Many factors play a role here. For example the timing (sometimes Puschel flies faster than expected!) or the focus. By the way, Puschel comes from Tilman's old solo tour times. For those who don't know yet: The winged rhinoceros is the mascot of the Dortmund Theaterhaus. Tilman's circle of friends has made it a tradition that everyone has a little mascot that always comes along on trips. So the original Puschel also came along on Tilman's European tour four years ago and unfortunately decided to go his own way on the last day and explore the world alone. Malte, who was also present during this tragedy, learned crochet for Tilman and gave the new Puschel to Tilman during a talk about their Neukirchentour in Neukirchen-Vlyn.
11. December
One has just not always only sunshine on bike tour! Especially not if you are approaching Brittany... We lead along the canal and had found a halfway covered place under a wooden house. While Tilman went on foot up the steep slope into town to search Pan au chocolate (here a big thanks to Lena!), Ida used the time to stretch the tent something to dry which lead to a few amused looks from passing people, but we are used to it.
10. December
As we drove slowly through Spain, a friend of Tilman was on vacation in Portugal. And as it happens when you vacation in front of a friend, you hide puzzles in the city. Unfortunately Ida got sick in northern Spain and so we needed a little more time than planned before we arrived in Lisboa. The hidden paper suffered a bit accordingly, but we still had fun searching.
9. December
Today comes again a picture from Spain - the last time wild camping there. On the day we left Santiago and took the road towards Portugal we were caught up in the evening by Marvin (another German from the Santiago WG). Since this area had many steep mountain slopes, it was not so easy to find a good wildcamping place and so we asked at a horse farm. We were told that we could pitch our tent next to the one house a bit next to the farm. This came us in the first moment quite convenient, storm and rain for the night was announced and so we would have been protected at least from one side. When Marvin arrived at our place, he had already gotten wet once and we had to realize that the rainwater drains (which we had not seen at all before in the twilight) were so impractically placed that the rain ran directly onto the side wall of our tent. We moved the tent a little further forward (where it dripped less) and invited Marvin to sleep in our tent with us. After all, a wet tent is enough. And so Marvin became the first sleeping guest in our tent.
8. December
This picture was taken when we changed from the Camino francés to the Camino de norte. On this day, we started from Burgos and left Daniel behind, who wanted to spend another day there. The first kilometers were quite flat, but as you can see in the distance, the Cantabrian mountains are not long in coming! Since we had crossed the Pyrenees only a few weeks before, our muscles were prepared for constant climbs. From the driving point of view, we have to say that the climbs were much more pleasant (but still exhausting!) and the landscape is not inferior to that of the Pyrenees. The Cantabrian mountains are home to two separate populations of brown bears, but they stay very far away from humans. Which gave us a better night's sleep - if you ignore the sudden chill that came over us during the night. For the first time during our tour I had to close my mummy sleeping bag and not just use it as a blanket. In the morning we were then greeted with a good climb to the last pass and fog - very mystical and certainly unforgettable for us!
7. December
Today we present you a photo of Henk Olthof. He is the genius behind the Achterhoek Planetarium - the first planetarium of our trip and in the middle of fields. His life's work is super impressive and you can only imagine the passion he has implemented the planetarium and his sculptures. Since we had the show only at 14:00 and did not know how long it will go, we had also not yet organized a place to sleep. After the great and impressive impressions from the planetarium we decided for try welcome to my garden for the first time. After we drove for about 2 hours in the direction of the wtmg, we got a call, we should please come over, they would be happy to host us. And so we pedaled to still arrive in time at those. We chatted super well into the evening and learned that it was also his first host experience with wtmg.
6. December
We hope you all had a little something in your shoe today (assuming of course you were busy cleaning!). Today's picture was taken in Belgium on the way to the first Warmshowers, where we stayed longer than one night (namely two). With Wim and Jenny we felt super comfortable and somehow the connection between us was there immediately! If they are back in China, we would definitely love to visit them there. Westmalle is a place outside Antwerp and reminded us of the German outpost on the Spanish islands. By the way, this is also where one of the many beers from Belgium comes from - highly recommended!
5. December
Aside from pedaling, eating is probably one of the most important things on a bike tour. During the last 5 months we have developed special eating habits. On the one hand we have to consume a relatively large amount of protein (to get proper cyclist's legs) and on the other hand a lot of sugar and carbohydrates. This results, for example, in the fact that we are sometimes seen in the supermarket parking lot in the morning with a kilo of quark, which we happily devour. On the other hand, we always have salty snacks and lots of chocolate in our luggage to fill up our energy level in small portions throughout the day. Another weird quirk is where we snack. Often people imagine romantic picnic spots or sea views. But reality can be very different, as today's photo shows. Sometimes it's the slipstream of a hay bale, sometimes just the entrance to a field and often the parking lot itself.
4. December
On our trip we had to change to another vehicle with Fermi once or twice. There were quite a few ferries involved (now even a plane) but the Dutch do it their own way. To get over the "Afsluitdijk", Fermi had premiere and was allowed to ride on a bus. We were totally enthusiastic about the idea of the closing dyke! A 32 km long dam with the goal of land reclamation - the Dutch have even created their own sea with it: the IJsselmeer. Unfortunately, at the time we were there, construction work was going on and the bike lane was closed, so we were taken over by bus. Since it wasn't quite sure that day whether we would be allowed on the bus with our tandem (which made it possible to have a nice chat with a bus driver), we hadn't organized a place to sleep. Two warm showerers spontaneously picked us up shortly before Alkmaar. The two had a deaf cat, which was also a very interesting experience!
3. December
We present: Assi-Ida! Sometimes you just have to adapt to the habits of others. Have you ever seen a big car just blocking a parking space? Or a long bike that only needs a bike stand? When you think about it, we don't park that badly, do we?
2. December
We always had one item with us during our tour so far and definitely don't want to miss it: our first home together - the tent. In the photo, it even has company from Toralf's tent. We picked up Toralf and his tent in the Pyrenees in front of the supermarket in Laruns - the need for food often brings tourers together! Together we went in search of a campsite, as the weather didn't look promising for the night (as you can see in the photo). Toralf is also from Germany and spent his holiday cycling, hiking and climbing in the Pyrenees. Together we wanted to drink some warm tea and our camping neighbours offered us to use their fast cooker. So Toralf became our first guest in the tent with a warm cup of tea. The next morning we went our separate ways. While Toralf conquered the Col d'Aubisque and the Col de Soulour in the fog, we struggled up the Pourtalet, on the other side of which Spain awaited us with sunshine. Even after getting to know each other, we still have contact with Toralf from time to time and are happy that he is part of our journey!
1. December
Despite all the hardships we have experienced lately, we haven't lost our laughter! Here you can see a picture from 28.07., pretty much at the beginning of our journey. Fortunately, we decided at that time that our route would take us a little longer through the Netherlands in order to reach the regions of the forest fires in France later! On this day, we were about to cross the "Afsluitdijk". We did not yet have a fixed overnight stay for the evening. We only knew that we wanted to get as close as possible to the dike. Luckily for us, Lys and David promised to come to Warmshowers in the evening. And so we gathered all our strength and covered a fair distance (108km!) to arrive at their place on time. We still remember that we had a great chat with them and felt right at home. Tilman was a huge fan of the "hidden bed closets" that some of the old houses here in the Netherlands had. Lys even wrote in Fries in our "travelling guest book"!