ANNUAL NEWSLETTER 1991

CYCLING IN SPAIN, ITALY, SARDINIA, CORSICA, SCOTLAND, IRELAND & FRANCE. A CAR JOURNEY TO THE BLACK SEA.

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR IN ANDALUCIA: A charter flight from Manchester took us to Malaga, in Spain's south-east, from where we cycled eastwards along the coast via El Morche, turning inland into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada along the cutting of the River Guadalfeo. We climbed steadily to the market town of Orjiva (1550 ft), in the Low Alpujarras, with views of snow on the high ridges of the Sierra. Clear sunny days were followed by bitterly cold nights and Christmas Eve saw us climbing the highest road in Europe, out from Orjiva through Pampaneira, Bubion, Capileira, until 4 miles further on and at about 5,000 ft. we were turned back by snow. The road eventually rises to over 10,000 ft but, we discovered, it's only open for a few weeks in summer all the way to Granada. Turning round, we freewheeled for 17 miles!

We reached Granada on Boxing Day by the all-weather route, climbing to only 2,800 ft at the Pass of the Sigh of the Moor (Suspiro del Moro), 10 miles before Granada. From here the last Moorish ruler, Boabdil, looked back and sighed after handing over the keys of his city to Ferdinand & Isabel in 1492 on his way to exile in the Alpujarras. The Alhambra Palace covered a hillside above the town and still impresses with its gardens, pools and fountains.

Heading south, the weather was much colder in the mountains, and the bars with their huge log fires, coffee and bocadillos (sandwiches) of bacon or omelette were very welcome. Priego de Cordoba (at 2,100 ft) had a splendid Castillo and church at the top of the town, a whitewashed historico-artistico quarter with alleys so narrow that the opposite gutters overlap and a stunning view across the olive- grove-dotted hill slopes around. On, to La Roda de Andalucia and to Ronda, through rocky canyons. We met very few people - shepherds and goatherds took care of their flocks and olive-gatherers spread nets below their trees.

Ronda (2,300 ft) was built on both sides of a huge river gorge with sheer 400 ft sides and an 18th century bridge across the ravine, linking the old Moorish city with the modern town. One of the oldest bullrings in Spain (1781) is still in use in this spectacular setting. Then to Algeciras, over a 3,300 ft pass, up and down and across the mountain range, past the picturesque White Towns, with views over the top of the cloud across the Mediterranean to the mountains of Africa beyond. Dropping down through the clouds to sea level, we saw the olive trees give way to cork and orange groves as the temperature rose. Algeciras, on the southern coast of Spain and on the opposite side of the bay to Gibraltar, is the port for North Africa, the waterfront lined with ticket offices.

A 2.5 hour ferry crossing (in a German built ship which had been working in Finland and was now sailing under the Moroccan flag with a captain from Newcastle) took us to Tangier in Morocco, for our first bicycle ride in Africa. Most of the passengers were Moroccan migrant workers, their cars and vans piled high with their European booty. Tangier has a fine long curve of beach, busy with football matches and camel rides, separated from the road and hotels by a railway line. On New Year's Eve, a full moon was reflected in the bay in a setting that is an intriguing mixture of Arabic and French in language and culture. We spent New Year's Day in the Kasbah (negotiating with brassmongers) and on the beach (negotiating on a camel).

A gruelling ride of 50 miles into a strong head wind over a 2,500 ft pass, took us east along the cost of Morocco to Ceuta, a small Spanish enclave, for the ferry back to Algeciras. On the right were the beginnings of desert; on the left, the shores of Europe seen across the narrow Straits of Gibraltar.

From Algeciras, a ride on the hard shoulder of the Autopista took us round the Bay and into Gibraltar, across the runway of its tiny airport. We circumnavigated the Rock and watched the Army drilling just below Europa Lighthouse. However, finding the Main Street packed with English shops, we quickly headed north again into Spain.

'North' meant the coast road back to Malaga along the worst (or best, depending on your age and point of view) stretch of the Costa del Sol with its new and unfinished Urbanizacions - holiday, time-share and retirement complexes. Marbella - Torremolinos - Malaga, the very names ring in the Halls of High Street Travel Agents.

A relaxing 560 miles in 2 weeks.

EASTER IN ITALY, SARDINIA AND CORSICA: Pilgrim Tours provided us with a return flight to Rome, the airport 5 miles from our first bed in the ancient Roman port of Ostia Antica. We had landed with no plans and no map so we weren't surprised to find ourselves riding north up the coast to Civitavecchia, on the hard shoulder of the Autostrada. Fortunately the police weren't surprised either, although the man on the tollbooth was! We took an overnight ferry to Olbia, in the north of Sardinia and rode up to 2,750 ft through quiet mountains among wild flowers, cork trees, sheep, goats and the smell of wild garlic. Huge stacks of cork bark were drying in the sun, conveniently located next to the vineyards. From Santa Teresa Gallura, a ferry crosses in one hour, twice daily, to Bonifacio, in the south of Corsica, with its impressive natural harbour set in limestone cliffs.

We rode north up the east coast of Corsica past white sandy coves, cork trees and vines, hills and mountains. It was not as wild as Sardinia, but this was balanced by the French language, culture and food. In riding to the top of the Col de Sorba at 4,200 feet, we made the transition from sunshine and shorts at sea level to a blizzard and overtrousers at the top. Descending to Vivario, the Patron of a closed and shuttered hotel took pity on us and provided a log fire for warmth and trout from the local stream for sustenance. Next day, we reached the ancient capital of Corte, over the 2,400 ft Col de Bellagranajo and then on to Bastia and a ferry back to the Italian mainland at Livorno (which, for some reason, we call Leghorn).

For 3 days and 220 miles, we followed the coastal Via Aurelia which, like all good roads, led to Rome, and the Hotel St Pietro, with the Vatican in full view. The bicycle proved to be the ideal way to see the sites of the Eternal City. First, St Peter's, where the Pope was due to take a Mass, then the Castell San Angelo, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and the Forums on the Palatine with their colonies of feral cats, the prison cell of St Peter and St Paul and the massively splendid Colosseum, the Caracalla Baths and the Sistine Chapel; Barry found his way to them all, weaving through the traffic of Rome.

We left Rome along the Via Appia Antica (Old Appian Way), following its tree-lined splendour, past the tomb of Scipio and the early Christian Catacombs, to its ignominious end, the most important road out of ancient Rome now sliced through by a motorway with a central steel barrier. We crossed the motorway, with great difficulty, to find that the Via petered out into a rubbish dump. But, we pressed on, past Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence, to Anzio on the coast, south and west of Rome.

8,000 War Graves from the British landings on the Anzio Beachhead in 1944 were huddled together in a suburban setting; each with its personal inscription: "And in his young eyes, a sudden glory shone, and he was gone', "He leaves a white unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, a width, a shining peace, under the night", "To the world just one, to me the world", "On foreign soil he did his best, now in a hero's grave he lies at rest" and "Wife Daisy and Baby Margaret, struggling to understand" - but who could? Further on, a huge American Military Cemetery, much grander, had photographs of President Bush's visit in 1989, but lacked the personal inscriptions.

676 hard miles in 2 weeks.

SPRING BANK WEEKEND IN THE SCOTTISH BORDERS: A 3-day, 180-mile circular ride started from Bellingham in Northumberland, close to Hadrian's Wall and went through the Kielder Forest and the Cheviots into Scotland, for a night in Kelso. On the second day, we rode through Kirk Yethoim, the northern end of the Pennine Way, and back into Northumberland to the site of the Battle of Flodden near Branxton, and the nearby curious Concrete Menagerie garden commemorating a local philosopher ("On the runaway of life, you never know what's coming off next"), through Bamburgh, with its much-restored castle, to a night in Seahouses, with views of the Farne Islands. The final day passed with Dunstanburgh Castle, a superb cliff-top-sited ruin accessible only on foot (or bicycle), and back to Bellingham through Ainwick on quiet Cheviot roads far from Bank Holiday's Madding Crowds.

A SPRINGTIME JOURNEY ACROSS IRELAND: Leaving the car in Holyhead, we sailed to Dun Laoghaire and rode into Dublin to catch the train to Mallow (buy a family return ticket on Irish trains, it's less than 2 single fares) and cycled along the River Blackwater for a night in Killarney. Past Kate Kearney's Cottage, we overtook horse-drawn carts on the climb through the Gap of Dunloe, a track closed to motors. The day was spent in and among the mountains of Macgillycuddy's Reeks, in the peaceful shadow of Ireland's highest peak (Carrauntoohill at 3,414 feet), enjoying lakes, sheep, peat cutting and a heatwave which was to last all week (not a drop of rain in eight days in Ireland!).

Then north via Killorglin to revisit the Dingle Peninsula and out to Slea Head (Europe's most westerly point), with its magical atmosphere, beehive huts and view of the Blasket Islands. This was the beginning of our 315 mile coast-to-coast ride. We rode east and slightly north all the way back to Dublin, over the Connor Pass, through countryside like the Kerrygold butter ads, through Tipperary and Cashel (with its wonderful castle and round tower), Kilkenny (where we made our first ascent of a round tower) and Athy from where, on the last day, we followed the Grand Canal for the 80 miles to Dublin, catching Sunday's last ferry for Holyhead, the waiting car, the drive back to Huddersfield and work on Monday morning. Phew.

470 Irish miles in 8 days.

A SUMMER'S WANDERINGS IN EUROPE: Well, we had planned to ride across America, along the US/Canadian border. We had visas, a flight out to Vancouver with a return from Toronto and an American/English dictionary. All set to go, but it wasn't to be. 2 days before the flight, we had to change our plans and so, lacking an alternative inspiration, we just took the car across to Zeebrugge on the North Seas Ferry from Hull, and headed south and east to see what would happen. And this is what did happen:

Belgium - Luxembourg - Germany - France - Germany. We drove via Bruges, Brussels and Luxembourg to camp on the River Mosel on the German/French/Luxembourg border. In Trier, we fulfilled a long-held ambition to visit Karl Marx's birthplace, now a museum (be spent his first 21 years in Trier). The town was once the capital of the Roman Province of Germany and we found the baths and amphitheatre open, though not for business.

On to Germany's Black Forest (Schwarzwald), via the north east corner of France including Strasbourg and the European Parliament. All the campsites round Baden Baden were full, so we turned, not for the first time, to a Zimmer Frei with full German breakfast. Basing ourselves in Bad Herrenalb, we toured the lakes and forest including Nagold (where a teenage Margaret had been to school for a term), a walk round the Mummelsee, a paddle boat on the Titisee and a climb to the top of Germany's highest waterfall (a very unimpressive 550 ft) at Triberg, home of the cuckoo clock (yes, we bought a beauty!)

Switzerland. Travelling on via Freiburg into Switzerland, we bought a Motorway Permit and cruised in a sea of Mercs, BMWs and Porsches through Basel and Luzern to Interlaken. The Swiss lakes were incredibly blue from melted glacier water. A couple from Dewsbury ran the good, basic, wooden Pension Victoria (God Bless Her) in Wilderswil on the road from Interlaken to Grindelwald. Many years in Switzerland had almost removed the Yorkshire accent from their German! We settled in for 3 nights, going at once to Grindelwald at the foot of the Jungfrau and the Eiger. We walked to the bottom of a nearby glacier with its Eisgrotte of sculpted animals, the whole thing moving downhill at 5 cm a day.

Later in the day, we went over the Grimsel Pass and the Furka Pass (each around 8,000 ft) to Täsch and then up to Zermatt for a view of the Matterhorn. Returning over the Grimsel Pass after midnight, our only company was 2 foxes, lurking in the dark and the low cloud.

Next day we took the first train to the Jungfraujoch which is the highest railway station in Europe at 11,333 feet. We left Wilderswil at 0639 hrs and arrived at 0855, after giddy views over the Lauterbrunnen Valley and Kleine Scheidegg. The highlight of the journey was the 4-mile long tunnel which climbs at a gradient of 1 in 4 inside the North Face of the Eiger. The train stops at the Eigerwand Station where a window looks out on the North Face at about 8,500 ft - memories for Barry of a rock climbing adolescence and stories of rescues from the North Face through these windows. At the top awaited an amazing world of snow, glaciers, dazzling light, thin air and husky sleigh rides, our only company a train full of young Japanese.

Liechtenstein to Bavaria (Germany again) On and on over 3 more Swiss passes: Susten (snowing hard at the top); St Gotthard (descending into the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, with very different people and buildings) and San Bernardino (avoiding the free tunnel). Through Liechtenstein (its capital Vaduz like a huge duty-free shop) and briefly through a corner of Austria, to arrive at the German resort of Lindau on the Bavarian Bodensee (which, for some reason, we call Lake Constance).

Along the Deutsche Alpenstrajie route, we visited Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle (a Gothic folly, packed with members of the Master Race) and the Wieskirche which is the best example of a Bavarian Baroque church, near Oberammergau. Next came Garmisch-Partenkirchen (ski resort and once host to the winter Olympics, dominated still by a huge ski-jump), at the foot of the Zugspitze which is Germany's highest mountain at just over 9,000 feet. From the Eibsee station a cog-train went up and through a tunnel to the Schneefernerhaus station, and a cable car (Seilbahn) took another 4 minutes to reach the summit. With a temperature of -1 °C, snow, a German flag and baby ravens, the cloud-enveloped top had everything but a view. Margaret braved the descent by Seilbahn all the way (10 minutes) - stunningly out of the cloud, over the trees and the lake and down to the station laid out below - fantastic!

Austria - Bavaria - Austria. Driving on through the Alps, we travelled via Mittenwald (with its Violin Museum) into Austria, and on to Innsbruck, turning back into Bavaria heading for Berchtesgaden. En route we encountered our first on-the-spot fine - this time for speeding in Austria (100 schillings, or £5). Berchtesgaden was Hitler's mountain hideaway where Himmler built for him a café on the narrow top of the nearby Kehistein mountain (5,960 ft), It was called the Eagle's Nest but it is now a restaurant, open to the Plebs and called the Kehisteinhaus. We took a bus ride up from Obersalzberg, and entered the eerie airy eyrie via a tunnel and a lift. Echoes of long black open-topped Mercedes roaring up the tortuous road and the ring of jackboots in the long dark tunnel reverberated round the world and the sound will never die away.

We walked the 5 miles back down and Barry tore his trousers and his leg when he was tripped by someone's ghost(?) But it was clear and sunny at last, after Swiss thunderstorms and Bavarian mist and rain. Berchtesgaden is also famous for salt mines but we avoided these (others hadn't been so lucky) and drove on to Salzburg (too crowded to stop, with the Mozart festivities) and St Wolfgang (home to the original White Horse Inn) and the Austrian Lake District (lakes we last saw frozen over, returning from Romania in 1990).

Moving on, we came to Graz (the second largest city and former capital of Austria) where we climbed up to the castle above the river. However, Napolean had got there before us and, being selfish, he had left very little for anyone else. Then back to Passau, on the German/Austrian border, packed with cyclists following the new cycle path from Regensburg to Vienna along the Danube. It's hoped that the path will eventually stretch to Budapest (and, perhaps one day, Belgrade, Bulgaria, Romania and the Danube's final destination - the Black Sea). Passau, in fact, lies at the confluence of the Danube, the Inn and the smaller river Izl but we moved on to Vienna and then the road out East - the one signposted Bratislava and Budapest, the one we remembered so well from previous cycle rides and from driving lorries to Romania. But this time we headed for Bratislava, turning north to cross the border into Czechoslovakia. This is now an easy crossing, no visas, no formalities, no hassle (although they haven't actually learned to smile yet and wish you a nice day); the crossing took 10 minutes and all we had to declare was a silent cuckoo clock.

Czechoslovakia. Bratislava offered us a Cedok-Tourist Hotel, and a visit to a castle which felt like it had been Secret Police Headquarters until very recently. Now, it was being restored and turned into a museum/art gallery and tea room. A jumble of artefacts, deriving from the Hapsburgs and the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, struggled to find a context as they helped to create a history in the vacuum left by the demise of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism and Communism. Come back Feudalism, Imperialism and Revisionism - all is nearly forgotten! More in touch with concrete (sic) realities, on a hill above the town, was a huge Russian war memorial with heroic statues and memories of the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945.

Then North into the Tatra Mountains (the next highest range of mountains in Europe after the Alps) accompanied by torrential rain. News on the TV told us of floods in Bavaria and Salzburg, with 2 drowned! For a time, we followed our earlier cycle route through Zilina and Martin, Liptovsky Hradok and Stara Smokovec, and on to the Polish border. The village of Kezmarok had a folk festival with craft stalls round the restored mediaeval castle. Women in national costume, ankle deep in mud, painted eggs under plastic awnings.

South past Banska Bystrica, heading towards Hungary, was the site of an abandoned village burnt out by the Nazis in 1945, with a strikingly massive bronze statue of the victims' entwined arms and legs and anguished faces. Just before the border we had our second brush with the Poliski; this time it seemed to be for stopping in a no stopping area going the wrong way down a one-way street which was closed to cars. We were confused. However, we were excused the 100 Kcs (about £2) fine on the grounds of not having any money and completely failing to communicate with the law.

Hungary. Over the border into Hungary next and down to Vac on the Danube, and a Hungarian Zimmer (a damp, cramped room and bathroom, complete with mozzies and a noisy dog called Rastoff in the yard, but all for DM 20 (£7) a day, with use of kitchen) just down the road from the infamous political prison. We went up Hungary's highest mountain at Kekesteto, which, at 3,300 ft, is comparable with Snowdon but a lot warmer. Surprisingly, in Winter, there are ski runs. In the village of Gyongyospata was a superb little 12th century church, with a fresco from 1500 and a carved altarpiece of the Tree of Jesse (1610), all lovingly explained in sign language and pictures by a proud old man in carpet slippers.

Our first motoring problem - a puncture - led to an awareness of how worn the tyres were. This in turn led to a second search for tyres that fitted - 3 years ago we had scoured Budapest for 2 new metric cycle tyres. Again, after a day, we were successful thanks to the magical properties of foreign currency.

Our options for onward travel from Hungary were Romania or Yugoslavia then Bulgaria and/or Turkey. We visited the British Embassy, off Vorosmarty Square, for advice and they recommended Austria! An English lorry driver told us it had taken him 2 days to get a (now essential) visa for Turkey, and Romania was very violent. Balkan Tourist, the Bulgarian Travel Agency, gave us the best advice: they said that Yugoslavia had only one problem, which we could avoid, while Romania had many and Bulgaria had none! So we would go to Bulgaria, via Yugoslavia. A morning at the Bulgarian Embassy produced visas for a 7-day stay for only $44 each, US dollars only, in cash. We prised the photographs off our International Driving Licences to stick on the visa, half a dozen blows with the Embassy rubber stamp and we were ready to go! We were glad to leave Budapest - the Danube was starting to flood its banks.

But, first, we went into the Real Hungary of storks (though there didn't seem to be as many as in previous years), roadside blue water pumps (indicating safe to drink), horses and carts and cottage gardens. En route to Satoraljaujhely in North East Hungary, we visited the Aggtelek Caves which are up to 15 miles deep, coming out, reportedly, in Czechoslovakia. The eaves of the ticket office at the Caves were crammed with swallows' nests full of small gaping beaks. Souvenir stalls, a campsite, a hostel and hotel near the caves were all being enjoyed by Hungarians on holiday.

Then to Sarospatak (and a night at the Hotel Bodrog), where the castle was being renovated and given a display of peasant life which looked no different from the way of life in the villages we'd just been through. We followed our old cycle route south, over the long wooden bridge at Cigand, with a detour to see the Russian border at Zahony with its sad little sex shop in a wooden hut. Through the villages of the Great Hungarian Plain to Debrecen (its Polish Market a depressing den of thieves). We looked at our old border crossing points into Romania - Oradea, Gyula, Nagylak - looked but didn't cross. Long queues were the backdrop for weary figures trudging into Hungary on foot. Our last night in Hungary was spent in Szeged.

Yugoslavia. In Yugoslavia there is much to fear - expensive road tolls every few miles; extreme overcharging at motorway restaurants; professional windscreen wiper boys with minders who swindle anyone not used to the relative value of the old and new currencies (ie all foreigners!); driving close to anyone (especially Turks) in the long convoy of Gastarbeiter on their annual migration home; trying to cross into Bulgaria at Vraska Cuka, which is for East Europeans only, whatever the Rough Guide might say; and trying to pay hotel bills in anything but dollars. Having survived all these hazards, we crossed into Bulgaria, with some relief, near Negotin.

Bulgaria. The Bulgarian border guard recognised his initials in our passport from the last time we'd crossed, by bicycle, 2 years before on our ride to Istanbul - a good omen? The faded blue hoarding still proclaims Peace in 5 languages, welcoming you, after going through a trough of disinfectant, into the world of donkey carts and basic subsistence. We followed the Danube from Vidin to Lom, and on to the old town of Veliko Turnovo.

At nearby Arbanasi, we bought 3 icons from a gentle limited-German-speaking artist, who showed us the churches of Michael and Gabriel, and the Nativity, and the old Konstantine House, and gave us a long-playing record of monastery music as a present. We drove into the Balkan Mountains and over the Shipka Pass (famous in Bulgarian History as the place where the Russians defeated the Turks in 1867), along the Valley of the Roses (all picked in May, for Parisian perfume), and back over the Trojan Pass (we couldn't find the Trojanski Monastery - no signposts at all, not even in Cyril's alphabet).

East, then, to the Black Sea, driving through a cornfield to bypass a horrific car crash (half an ancient BMW was embedded in a lorry, the other half was 60 yards up the road and between the two was the naked body of a man). Arriving in one piece at Varna, with its naval museum and aquarium, we went north to Albena (for a first paddle in the Black Sea) and then to Kavarna, on the coast just below the Romanian border. Another on-the-spot fine was gathered en route - the second in Bulgaria, the fourth on the journey. This was again for speeding but this time it was Margaret who got fined - serves her right for sitting in what should have been the driver's seat according to the policeman. At 20 leva (about 60 pence) we were able to grin and bear it.

Out to Cape Kaliakra, with its 12th century castle ruins and a restaurant in a cave which was as full of atmosphere as the restaurant was empty of provisions. Another cave was a museum of Roman, Greek and mediaeval finds, and off the Cape swam a school of dolphins.

Going South again, the resorts of Golden Sands and Sunny Beach offered cheap package holidays to Brits and Germans. The rain that day caused enough flooding to turn us back at Varna although we did eventually manage to get down to the Turkish Border near Sozopol, but we didn't cross. Then from Coastal Package Land to Ski-ing Package Land - we drove from the Black Sea to Bulgaria's ski capital of Borovets, near Mt Musala (9,506 ft), just South of Sofia. However, en route, the filling station just before Stara Zagora could have been the end of this journey - a less than fully aware Barry put 8 gallons of diesel into the tank already holding 5 gallons of petrol. 13 gallons of useless fuel in a tank with no drain plug! Luckily, we noticed the difference within a few yards of leaving the filling station - the engine coughed and stopped! Half a day of Balkan ingenuity, some US dollars and 3 packets of Kent cigarettes can and did solve any problem.

Then we joined the Turks-in-Mercs convoy again, from Stara Zagora to Plovdiv. This time they were heading West. Up to 2 million Turks are on the move in the summer and it's very fortunate that those going East never seem to meet the ones going West - it would be nasty!

Rila Monastery, at the end of a valley growing tobacco, is beautifully placed in the mountains. Foreign visitors now stay at the Rilets Hotel rather than in the cells of the monastery which are reserved for natives only. A long walk took us up to John of Rila's tomb and the Miracle Hole (a small, steep cave where John lived for many years), which pilgrims still trek to see. We were blessed quite a few times on this walk.

Getting hotter all the time, we went South along Tobacco Roads to Melnik, set in a lunar sandstone landscape. The very strange (even by Bulgarian standards) Hotel Melnik, which looked impressive from a distance, had no hot water, barely any food, and a porter who tried to make us sleep at his house!

By this time we had used all the petrol coupons we had bought a week before on entering Bulgaria and no-one else seemed to sell them. The coupons are a way of making foreigners pay more for petrol - it's a lot cheaper to buy petrol for money and we had a lot of that left over. So, a Sunday morning was spent trying to buy petrol and otherwise dispose of the remains of our Bulgarian money, but no shops were open. We gave the last of the Kent cigarettes to some tobacco pickers (!) and the money to the women lace-makers at the border, in exchange for crochet work. However, before we could leave the country, Barry had to pay 20 leva for another speeding offence which had been marked on his visa. The Policeman had tried to extract 20 US dollars at the time and we had refused to pay! And so to Greece, with its chaotic traffic and tin God-boxes.

Greece. Thessaloniki (the country's second largest city) was hot, brash, airless, noisy and blatantly capitalist. The youth were all make-up and motorbikes, so near to where Bulgarian peasants toiled with their bare hands to provide the wine and tobacco. One day of this was enough.

Yugoslavia - Hungary. Another speeding fine (22 dinar or £6), a motel at Vranje and problems finding petrol were our introduction, but Yugoslavia is beautiful and we decided to return a vélo when peace returns. This time, we covered 493 miles in 24 hours, just to get through and out on the motorway past Belgrade, crossing into Hungary at Tampa, the next crossing west of Szeged. This was a very busy crossing with the ubiquitous Gastarbeiter now nipping through Hungary into Austria to avoid Croatia. The Pope was also expected any moment. The Turx 'n 'Merx were a new problem for Hungary and special transit stickers and route cards were being given out at the border. Despite being what we thought to be rather obviously Brits 'n 'Nissan, a large sticker went on the right-hand side of our windscreen.

On to Pecs (pronounced Paysh, apparently) in western Hungary, a university town with ancient town walls and Roman and Turkish remains. The hotel TV told of the tanks out in Moscow, the day after the attempted Gorbachev Coup. We felt a bit near to all that and the Hungarians themselves have solid memories of Russian tanks on their streets, tucked away in their collective unconscious.

Along the south bank of Lake Balaton (German Spoken), through Sumig (with its classic castle-on-a-hill), to Szomba with its 2nd century Roman Temple of Isis in the middle of town.

Austria - Italy. We crossed into Austria not too far from Graz and then followed the Autobahn south and west - lots of hills and tunnels as we skirted the southern edge of the Austrian Alps. Over the border into Italy and onto the Autostrada, we returned unwillingly to tolls. Turning off at Carnia we drove up into the eastern end of the Dolomites where we stayed in Lauco at a mountain Albergo (5 miles along and 1 mile up from the Tourist Information Office). On to Cortina and into an area that was more like Austria than Italy - the houses and the language date from the time (before 1919) when this was the Austrian Tyrol. The Dolomites are spectacular, a landscape of snow-capped vertical limestone and dry river beds which fill with melted snow in the spring. One after the other, we crossed the Falzarego Pass (7,000 ft), the Pordoi Pass (7,300 ft) and the Sella Pass (7,400 ft), with views of Mt Marmolada, the highest peak in the Dolomites at about 11,000 ft. We were disappointed to learn that Marmolada means Marble and not Marmalade.

We had a good night in Selva di Val Gardena, a German speaking ski resort, in one of its claimed 8,000 bedrooms. Returning to the top of the Pordoi Pass, we spent 4 minutes on the Sellbahn going up to just under 10,000 ft for amazing views of Marmolada and its glacier. Astonishingly, the cable car passed within feet of climbers on the dizzying vertical limestone faces of the mountain. Then to Lake Fedaio over the Costa Lungo Pass (6,000 ft), through the Ega Gorge to Boizano, Merano and Spondigna, to cross the second highest road pass in Europe, the Stelvio, at 2,767 m or 9,000 feet! We lost count of the hairpins as we met macho Italian man on macho Italian bicycle, sweating his way up to the waiting wife-and-car at the top.

Down through Bornio, we travelled into a very different Italy, no longer Tyrolean, but industrial. At one time, Milan was only 30 miles over the murky horizon. But this was the route, via Tirano and Sondrio, to the Romantic Italian Lakes. From Colico at the top, we journeyed down the east side of Lake Como, took the car ferry to Bellagio, saving a drive round the bottom leg to Lecco. By this time it was very hot indeed and a picnic in Como was followed by a cooling drive round Lake Lugano, crossing briefly into Switzerland. Lake Maggiore followed (the largest of the lakes), then back we went into Italy and down the west side of little Lake d'Orta.

We made a detour to Cervinia, at the head of the Valle del Cervino, the Italian ski resort, right on the Swiss border and giving a superb view of the Matterhorn from the South. It had taken a long time to travel here from Zermatt, a few miles away on the north side of the Matterhorn (or Monte Cervino, as the Italians insist on calling it - who climbed it first, anyway?). But it would have taken even longer on the direct route! Then via Aosta, the French-speaking part of Italy, and over the top of the Great St Bernard Pass, avoiding the impressive all-weather tunnel underneath. There is a Swiss border post at the top (8,024 ft), just before the famous large dog kennels sporting a notice in French warning that these dogs can murder!

We spent the night at the Hotel du Hospice St Bernard, built in 1946 and linked by a covered bridge to the monastery. The hotel had a special atmosphere of peace, as night fell. In winter, when the site lies amid 12-foot snowdrifts and the monks carry all the supplies up thousands of feet from the tunnel entrance on the Swiss side, the seclusion must be complete. All the monks are also qualified ski instructors!

France. Next day we descended into French-speaking France, past the dramatic Aiguilles and fought our way through the tourists into Chamonix, world capital of Alpinism and Ski-ing, and out again through the Mont Blanc Tunnel and back into Italy. The 11.5 km tunnel, built in 1965, burrows right through Europe's highest mountain (15,781 ft), takes about 15 minutes and costs just over £10. We never actually saw Mont Blanc; probably we were too close to it (there must be an epigram there, somewhere).

Then, back again into France over the Little St Bernard (or Col di Piccolo St Bernardino). This Pass also had its Monastery and Hospice but it had been bombed and shot up in World War 2 and stands gaunt and empty by the roadside. A statue of St Bernard (the patron Saint of Alpinists) looks down on the desolate scene with an air of sadness and despair.

Down now to the Rhone valley, Grenoble and into the Pilat National Park. This is a lovely, uncrowded area with sunshine, heather, bilberry-picking and superb little towns like St Bonnet-le-Chateau. From here, we moved into the Parc Regional des Volcans on the edge of the Auvergne, complete with a trip up the Puys de Dome (4,806 ft), the summit of an extinct volcano overlooking Clermont-Ferrand, Another vicarious thrill was experienced by watching colourful French persons jumping off the top with their parapentes. A training school offered a 2-person parapente with dual controls; we rapidly lost interest when we saw that it had no brakes.

North now, with thoughts of home beginning to hover on the horizon. There comes a moment in any journey when one senses that there is an end; this was the beginning of that moment. But the most moving experiences were yet to come. Vichy, an expensive spa town, came and went and we camped by the young Loire at Marzy, sharing the field with wool-gathering gypsies. Troyes, with its ancient cathedral, purported to lie on the infant Seine, but it appeared to have been channelled under the town, rather than through it. Reims and another cathedral lay across the vineyards of the Champagne region.

A solemn finale to the journey came with the World War One battlefields of the Somme in North Eastern France. Cambrai, scene of the world's first tank battle in 1915, yielded little, but the road to Bapaume was lined with many small cemeteries, crammed with the war graves of the fallen British. Each a small white-walled enclosure set in the quiet rolling fields of France, identical rows of crosses dressed smartly on parade, a book for visitors' comments and a register of the men.

The British and Commonwealth soldiers were buried where they fell, so each cemetery marks a battle. One or two hundred graves lie together on a small hilltop, in a shallow gully or on the banks of the canal; every cross marked with exactly the same date. The mind grows numb, time stops, mealtimes pass unnoticed; what more is there to write in the visitors' books? What is there to say? Now, 75 years on, borders are disappearing throughout western Europe, the French and the Germans draw ever closer together. Only Britain chooses isolation. What did they die for, exactly?

At Ginchy, the South African Memorial was hugely impressive and beautifully maintained, set in the woods that 8,000 died to capture (they failed). The trees have grown again, but the hummocks, trenches and unexploded missiles still remain. North of Albert is the Newfoundland Memorial Park at Beaumont Hamel. Trenches and dugouts furrow the grass, and out in No-Man's-Land (women can be relieved that no sexism is implied here) the skeleton of the Danger Tree still marks the point of no return for advancing Newfoundlanders. Nearby, at Thiepval, the Keeper of the Ulster Tower, Victor Sloane, painted us a vivid picture of July 1916 from the top of its ramparts. His own story, caught up in the current troubles in the north of Ireland, was barely less incredible.

On and on, past many more small graveyards, including one for Chinese and Indian members of the Labour Corps who died in 1919. The largest Battlefield Memorial we saw was for the Canadians on the Ridge at Vimy - a superbly dramatic monument of twin risers and sculpted figures, including women for once. Set in a large preserved area of the battlefield on the North side of the Ridge facing Belgium, it contains trenches, enormous mine craters and a tunnel. The park was very popular with Sunday morning joggers and walkers; mountain bikers particularly enjoyed riding the ridges and craters.

Travelling back into Arras, on our way to Boulogne, we saw our first German military cemetery. Young volunteers from the Fatherland maintain the 10,000 black iron crosses, each marking the final resting place of 4 soldiers; the Jewish dead are marked with stone.

In the aftermath of these 2 days, the visit to a hypermarket in Boulogne for cheap wine and the Sealink ferry to Folkestone seemed to belong to another time, another Europe. Never had England seemed to be more like what it is - an island off the coast of Europe.

To get from home to home (and all the best journeys are from home to home) we travelled 9,849 miles in 6 weeks.

AN AUTUMN RIDE TO THE LOIRE. The October half-term saw us back in the saddle, for a 500- mile, 8-day tour in Brittany and Normandy. St Malo was cold, damp and grey when the ferry docked at 7 am, but the first of many grands cafés au lait et croissants set us up for the coming hailstorm. But the rest of the week gave us almost perfectly crisp dry autumnal weather. The back roads were deserted, the pâtisseries, bars and hotels as welcoming as ever. We reached the Loire at Ancenis and followed its south bank to Angers, where an empty hotel was opened specially for us, for the second time on the ride.

North again to Granville on the Cherbourg Peninsula, and east to the cold grey line of the Normandy Beaches. First came Utah, with each stretch of the coastal road named after an American engineer killed in action in June '44. On the quiet of the beach, near La Madeleine, a War Museum showed us film of the landings, air bombing and sea battles which had once raged all round. Following the Voie de la Liberté, past Grandcamp Maisy (where 1 in 2 of the Allies were lost destroying the German base) we came to Omaha Beach with its huge American Military Cemetery. Finally to Arromanches (another War Museum) and along the British and Canadian Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches to Ouistreham for the ferry back to the car, waiting patiently as ever, this time in Portsmouth.