Avoided any travel today and instead visited the covered market, went on a short canal walk and had a nice lunch out at Premier Edition - three very nice sensibly sized courses.
Lunchtime train to Orange (delay 50 minutes) and a wander to the Roman Theatre the main site in the town. Very impressive scale and condition. The audio tour was pretty good.
A river cruise on the Rhone today. Arrival in the boat at midday. Departure at 12.30. Three course meal and music. The weather was a bit rubbish throughout and apart from around Avignon the views were pretty poor with not much around the banks of the very wide river. Got back around 4 pm.
A short train ride of about 20 minutes to Arles and a nice wander around the lovely town. We visited the Roman Arena and the Theatre plus the L'Espace Van Gogh and the Van Gogh Foundation. Lots of lovely old buildings everywhere.
An excellent pizza or salad at Colloseo.
A day for exploring Avignon. A lovely town which is very quiet at this time of year. Visited the Bridge, Musee Angladon and the Musee Lapidaire but otherwise just wander the lovely streets of the city.
Lunch at La Civette Bar Brasserie.
An unrushed start to the day and a wander to the Gare de Lyon to catch the TGV to Avignon. Taxi to the apartment. Shopping. Cheese, ham, eggs and bread for dinner.
The morning Eurostar to Paris and then a walk to the hotel. We stayed at Le Boudoir des Muses which was very nice especially with our upgraded room. Recommended if we are in Paris again as a very nice central area.
We walked from the hotel to Notre Dame and quickly got inside with our free reserved tickets although queues were pretty small.
The first day of a holiday in Avignon with Colin, Cherry & Hannah with eco travel by rail. Colin & Cherry travelled first class LNER from Edinburgh to London whilst Hannah took the train from Manchester. We all arrived just after 3 pm and checked into the Pullman Hotel.
Dinner at the Brasserie Zedel with its fabulous 1930's era decor. Nice food and good service.
Then just across the road to the Piccadily Theatre for Moulin Rouge which we all enjoyed.
We said hello to Caitlin on the walk back to the hotel.
What felt like the first sunny day of the year and went out for a walk round the planned sponsored walk route for TES at the end of March. Start and finish in Gracemount Walled Garden. Very nice route especially on such a sunny day. Lunch at Bridgend Farmhouse. Around 11 miles over 4 hours.
A long overdue refresh of the oven with a similar model of AEG oven and a new Collingwood Security Lamp for the front garden which seems to be working well.
Oops no photos this year. Hannah visited us from 21 to 28 Decembers sleeping over at Max and Kasia's place. Max and Kasia were away for Christmas in Poland returning for the New Year.
On Christmas Day we were Colin, Cherry, Hannah and Les. Les is much deteriorated now with very little mental or physical capability remaining. Just getting as far as the car is a struggle for him. After previous years organic turkeys arriving with a little bit too much still attached we went for a pre-prepared 5 person chicken with stuffing from Sainsbury which proved to be very nice and just the right size.
Colin had a cold from Christmas Eve for about a week and Cherry picked it up after Christmas and through the New Year.
Overall a quiet period and Colin had to drop out of any running events due to his cold.
A late year escape for a relaxing time in the south of Spain with Hannah. I hired a bike for the week and did some cycles along the coast and one big mountain climb up to Penas Blancas. Generally a lazy time with short walks and meals out in the evenings.
Estepona was very nice and relatively lively with most places open. Stayed at an AirBNB fairly centrally.
We booked two evening shows at the poetry festival this year. The first evening was at The Pleasance Theatre and featured a series of short work in progress style plays or as the brochure says:
Join us for performances of a series of newly commissioned theatre shorts written by playwrights Hannah Lavery, Zinnie Harris and William Letford, which offer an urgent response to the geopolitical cultural moment we’re living through. With spoken word from Anthony Anaxagorou and music by Carla J. Easton.
The short plays were very good. The spoken word by Anthony Anaxagorou was not for us. The music by Carla J Easton was very good.
Evening 2 was at Potter Row and was a game of two halves:
Push the Boat Out’s Saturday night gig is back! Be transported into a sublime soundscape, as headliners Edinburgh DJ, producer and sound designer Lord Of The Isles and poet Ellen Renton combine poetry, pedals and synths. They’ll be supported by Acolyte, an Edinburgh-based poetic and psychedelic ensemble. Expect storytelling and synths, hypnotic loops and harmonic depth.
Acolyte on first were excellent. Very creative and with real presence. Part 2 was very poor with dull music, dull visuals and poor spoken delivery with the music dominating and not given any space for the poetry. We left early.
Another nice ride on tired legs back to Girona. Rough to start then very smooth in the latter part.
Bike returned to Eat, Sleep, Cycle and another night in the Hotel Carlemany.
Cycle Time: 4 hrs 4 min; 38.8 miles ; 427 m climb
As the route has some pretty unpleasant sections on the outward journey I took the train to Manlieu and cycled a shortened route back to the Parador.
Stopped in Manlieu for a coffee and short stroll around.
The section of the route that remained was pretty nice.
I got back to the Parador before check in time so did a hike out and back to the Monestir Sant Pere de Casserres.
Cycle Time: 1 hrs 40 min; 11.3 miles; +360 m
Hike Time: 1 hr 44 mins; 5.4 miles; + 290 m
A very easy day back to Ripoll from Camprodon on easy paths.
Cycle Time:1 hr 35 mins ; 16.7 miles ; +166 m climb
Big climbing day from Camprodon to the ski centre at Vallter 2000. Wasn't too sure what to expect when planning the trip in terms of snow and accessibility but it was all good on the day with a clear road to the top and just a little bit of snow in the centre car parks at the top. There was snow on the ski slopes but not enough to ski on. There were maybe a dozen cars at the top and the cafe was open and served me sandwich and coffee which was a bonus.
It was a hard climb and my form wasn't great requiring a fair bit of walking on steeper sections.
A second night at the Hotel Cims.
Cycle Time: 4 hrs 30 mins ; 29.5 miles ; + 1198 m climb
An easy day with a very nice bike path to follow from Ripoll to Camprodon. Camprodon was very busy on the Sunday morning when I arrived and a pretty little location that warranted a good what around.
Did get a bit lost on one section.
Stayed at the cycle friendly Hotel Cims.
Cycle Time: 1 hr 52 mins; 16.3 miles; +462 m climb.
Day 4 was quite a challenging day with a fair bit of quite rough trail and some unpleasant sections in the latter parts just before Ripoll. There were a few places where the route seemed to go onto fast roads and in other places needed to take a very convoluted route to avoid the motorway which dominated the valley.
Stayed at the Hotel Trobada Sport which was very basic but fine and offered a bike garage.
Cycle Time: 5 hrs 20 mins; 39 miles ; 1159 m climb
The ride today started in very nice flat allotment style agriculture landscape in the outskirts of Girona. A small steady climb followed along cycle path at the edge of roads and then onto only railway line cycle path.
The next phase moved to a quiet road heading into the wilds following a river towards much rougher paths along major lakes. It felt like a long and fairly hilly journey on these rougher tracks before finally getting to the Parador with stunning views from my room over the lakes.
A nice dinner at the Parador.
Cycle Time: 4 hrs 55 mins; 38.6 miles ; + 940 m climb
Today was meant to be a simple reversal of Day 1 - quite easy with a little bit more net climb. There was however a severe weather warning of flooding delivered late on the Wednesday night. I got up early for a quick breakfast and with the sky still clear and the weather looking fine headed off at my top speed to see how if I could complete the day before the rains came.
The first hour was good rapid progress with no rain. The second hour saw the rain start and ominous thunder and clouds in the distance. After around 2 hours the downpour finally came. I took shelter at a bus stop in Cervia del Ter and waited in the hope that a bus would take me and bike back to Girona. After a long wait and the bus not arriving on time decided to plough on with the cycle but that didn't work out as the path had disappeared under water as soon as I moved off the main road. Headed back to the village and stopped for a couple of coffees to warm up. Back to the bus stop and thankfully was able to take the bus back to Girona and another night at the Carlemany Hotel.
Cycle Time 2 hrs 4 mins; 24.66 miles; 175 m climb.
