Friday 12 August 2016

What's new, Leroy Gauthier?

Ello vriends, wëllkomm, hallo, hi there, what's new. I'm back! I'm in London. I did a surprise. It went really well. But there are days to catch up on, knees to peruse, whatevers to catch before getting on to that. 

So, here is where I will detail a few of the things that I noticed in the days leading up to the time when I decided I was going to bite the sodding bullet, get a train back from Brussels and whistle 'surprise' at these chaps before settling into a barmy evening of being back in London town. Boy did Stella never taste so homey. 

First of all, I noticed that all of the hairs on my body have gone white. No not quite, gone yellow. My knobblies look like that bloke Rutgar Hauer's out of Blade Runner. Would you look at that!


This is the tan-line that I have grown most fond of. Really I am just putting it here to fill space but would you look at that!


This is what happens when you wear cycling gloves almost all day almost every day for almost five weeks, in countries which are almost always sunny as you like in the midsummer months. Maybe the contrast is less than expected, considering. I suppose my hands are just that way. Would you look at that.


This following snap is definitely the least remarkable of the Corporeal Series, as it's a pretty bog standard farmer's tan, which you don't have to go very far to find.


So I got into Luxembourg! Another teeny tiny country with rather a lot to say for itself. And what language does it say what it has to say in? IN LUXEMBOURGISH, of course. I'd been here once before, on my trip three years ago, and vaguely knew the route back to Brussels. I was on familiar territory, and boy did I celebrate. I ate a luncheon of double soups - one which was wholesome and warming and necessary, and a second which was a dessert soup! Sweet soup is the bomb. It was a cold strawberry soup with a mound of ground Speculoos in the middle and it BLEW ME RIGHT AWAY.


Luxembourg City is a city with some customs. Just look at this crowd of marble marvellers, encircling one bloke on a pedestal. They don't know what they're doing, but they're stuck like that.


Alongside, or despite, or in spite of such customs, Luxembourg is a country which tells it how it is. Indeed, one must concede that, undeniably, trop vite, vite mort. Go too fast, and your skin will slide from its seams and reveal the true you - an angular, toothy gawping buffoon with no sense of up nor down.


Thanks, let's see that again, but a bit more zoomed in.


That's fabulous, says Darth Vader, who's sucking on a humbug and breathing heavily.


If you do vite mort in a pulp of undoing, it may soothe your spirits to know that Leroy's Gauthier back, come what may.


At the time I thought these may have been Belgian Blues, in actual Belgium. I was thrilled. Subsequently, all at once, I heard the voice of bovine taxonomic reason wailing in my ear. Of course these aren't Belgian Blues. Google the BB and you'll see quite another beast. They were pretty nonetheless, and in reverence I doffed my helmet to them.


When I arrived into Namur it was a crisp golden bloomer of an afternoon, and I discovered it to be guarded by a hoard of polar bears, waiting with bated breath for an intruder to look at them sideways. After a minor scuffle, Chief bear granted me passage, and I cycled merrily on through to the other side.


Namur was also vaguely familiar, but these umbrellas were new. Aren't they just the prettiest, I can hear you exclaim.


For me, Namur's cathedral is one giant building which just does not give a damn. It don't serve nobody, so you can take your waffle business elsewhere.


My favourite part of the city is the honking great citadel which overlooks the whole ruddy ting. I read a little about the history of it from those boards which stand here and there whose purpose it is to let passers-by know a little about the history and that, but the dates, nations and details have got all muxed ip in my noggin and I don't want to feed you any misinformation. So, let's just say someone chucked some rocks at it once and, in return, were fed to the bees.

Dinner was hearty; I ate bare hummus.


Here's a shot of my tent, pitched, with my bike next to it. They get on so fine. This is about a quarter of the way up the citadel, on one of its many grassy shelves. Each overlooks the city at a greater vantage point. This one suited me fine - the climate was perfect there.


I indulged a little as the sun set, and got a bit emotional.


I watched it get proper dark from higher up the citadel, atop a stone wall which looked right out over the whole city. It was right gorgeous, and THEN I was pleasantly surprised to hear a troupe of horn-honkers up the way, running through a series of fanfares, presumably in preparation for a concert. Their instruments were bizarre, concentric brass bugle horns, and reverberated in astonishing harmony throughout the citadel's citadellian, cobbled alleyways. Quite remarkable. I clapped.

In Belgium, it was the diddy things which made me smile inside.


And then I saw the sign for Brussels and I was in! I was there!


When I'd worked my way into the middle, they were just setting up the Brussels Flower Carpet 2016, which this year celebrates Japan, for the 150th anniversary of positive relations between the two countries. Unfortunately, I left before they'd made much headway, but never mind that - they gots waffles! I ate my fill of these, with Nutella, Speculoos and also plain they are delicious. I also had a Greek kebab which made me feel right good, and then---came another fantastic highlight!

I'd been accepted by a Warmshowers host called Tine earlier on in the day, so things were already coming up roses. When I arrived at the house, a little way out of the centre, I was welcomed fabulously and wonderfully by a group of happy, shining individuals. They're all eco, super friendly, idiosyncratic, warm and real people. I had a lovely evening and a lovely night's sleep and also a lovely morning, during which I read some of Peter Spencer's charming book, The X Tractor: Cornwall's Culling Plan. He has a go on a lot of wordplay, internal half-rhymes and that. Sometimes it's witty, sometimes it's trite, but it doesn't really matter, because it's fun for a jaunt.


I left Brussels on a dismally rainy day on a Eurostar which no one knew about except my mum and Tine & the gang whom I told because I was so excited about the SURPRISE I was going to land on my brethren here in the smoke. I sat chortling to myself for the duration of the journey, much to the chagrin of my neighbour, who was trying breathlessly to get some shlep. Oh well, I thought, I'm going to blow their ruddy socks off, I can giggle as much as I please.

My arrival was as merry as can be. Everyone was home. George's ears fell to the floor and flapped furiously about collecting dust, Tash jumped eight feet into the air and flattened herself on the ceiling like a big beautiful pancake, all the balls fell out of Toby's ball-and-socket joints and rolled around in frantic disarray, and Liam stood aghast, gawping at the terrible scene in a state of panic, wondering how to put everything back together again, then noticed the source of all the confusion and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. What an event!


And now I'm BACK and I've had a BALL and a BLAST and it's been a big adventure. Big love to you all for sticking with me; writing this blog's been a pleasure, even better knowing there are folk actually reading it. If anyone wants to do a similar trip and wants advice and thinks my advice might help them (god forbid), hit me up because I'd be more than happy to talk about the ins and outs with anyone. I recommend it highly. Good bash. Get yer wheels on.

Ciao, peace, all the very best. Bru out!

Saturday 6 August 2016

Bronzolo's Going Solo


Bonjour indeed, I'm in sunny old France. It has been a long journey. I'm only just in France, mind - Germany's but a stone's throw away. Strasbourg is delightful, but more on that in a minute. Thank you all for reading, by the way. It makes it all the more worthwhile. Let me know how you're doing in the comments below!!! if you like. Whatever happens, I'll be here. Though not for long, as I'm leaving for Luxembourg this afternoon. They have delicious ice cream there, of all kknds of flavours, so that's a real draw.

If anyone's at a loss for a nickname for me, search no further: Bronzolo is fine. In fact, it's better than fine. Bronzolo rocks, and that's a thing you can't deny, like the fact that there are nine million bicycles in Beijing.

When I last posted here I was in Italy. Since then (it's been a long while) I have been through Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Germany, and now find myself among tourist trains and endless croissants in Strasbourg.

Going over the Alps was ridiculous. It was perhaps a ridiculous idea to begin with, but that it might be one of the most difficult legs of the trip, nay, of my entire life (tres grandiose, TJ), didn't even cross my mind.

I followed the Adige river upstream for three days. Obviously going upstream means going uphill, and going uphill for three days is always going to be fairly tough going. Well, it was. But, as one might expect, it was also superb. The views were spectacular, the scenery humbling, and the passing cyclists tended to engage in at least a mild form of comraderie.

The first two Adige days were relatively easy: the river flowed softly, widely, like a momentous, indolent snake, winding its massive way through giant rocks jutting up towards largely cloudless skies. Byootiful, sí. I hopped from Trento up to Bozen and then to Merano without much trouble, and drank in the mountains as I went. At each stop I gorged on locally grown apples, plums, peaches and nectarines, and felt the juices of each imbue my sense of self with all manner of loveliness. I also ate other things.

I discovered that the north of Italy, the region which borders Austria, is a land of two languages. Up in the hills, the people speak German as well as Italian, but it's a twisted, embellished sort of German, which is nigh on incomprehensible to a passing English novice. It was, however, refreshing to be understood and to vaguely understand those with whom I spoke.


Meran(o) sits right in amongst it all, at the meeting point of two waterways. It's an alpine spa town, with hot springs and pools which are forbidden to anyone who doesn't waltz up with a wad of euros and lay them at the elephantine feet of the township's mascot - a bloodthirsty beast of a bison which stands at 35ft and billows black smoke on passers-by. That's not true, but the spa and wellness centre is expensive.

In Meran(o) I spent a dodgy night in a dodgy spot in a dodgy park. It was a night that I'd rather not relive, but if you ask me about it in person I might tell you.


At some point after Meran(o) I took a wrong turn and climbed ridonkulously for what felt like an age. 5km later I saw a sign for a place I didn't intend on visiting, nor passing, and turned my sorry self around. However, I did pass this beaut of an art-house on the way up (and on the way down), so I made my pointless excursion a little less pointless by immortalising it with a photograph.


The day I spent cycling up to the Reschen-pass was the most steepest and gruelling of all, and was made all the more comically exhausting by the hoards of happy-go-lucky alpine families mountain-biking their way DOWN the neverending hill I was hating on. Hating is a strong word. No okay I wasn't hating, but I did feel a tiny bit destroyed.


Very near the top, I saw with my own eyes the sacrificing pools of Reschen. Here, I was informed by a loquacious local, children are fed to the giant and unrelentingly voracious mountain gods, once a week, in order to appease them and consequently ensure fine weather. The children are first marinated in these pools of saline solution and paprika, and are then gobbled up by those with the huge teeth. Strange customs ere, methought.


When at last I reached the summit, I was delighted to find a descent. This was my payout, and I enjoyed it stupendously. On the way down, I whipped through numerous alpine ski towns, whose wooden lodgings looked just to die for, nestled in amongst the hills.


I camped this night just outside a town called Pfunds, and in the morning met a German cyclist who very much looked the part. We followed the same route down to Landeck. There we parted, each with a whistle, and I sped on to the west.


On the way to Liechtenstein (still many a mountain to go...), my left knee gave up. Or, rather, it was defeated. I weighed my options and thought it best to respond to the wishes of my body, and so took a train 40km to Bludenz, on the edge of the hills. I cycled through a big valley, round one more mountain and arrived into Vaduz.

!

This capital city has just over 5000 residents, and actually, as a settlement, is fairly underwhelming. They use Swiss francs and sell local white wine for 2.50 a litre. I enjoyed them both, on the bank of the river.


In the morning I said tschüs to Liechtenstein and entered Switzerland! How many countries is that now? I don't even know!


Switzerland's great, probably for more reasons than I even found out, but --- it is hideously expensive. I saw the prices in supermarkets and thought I'd find the exchange rate to be between 1:3 and 1:1.5. In fact it's almost one to one. It's just a pricy place.


Zürich is actually very little like what I expected. The route there was almost entirely along three large lakes, the last of which forms Zürich's coastline. The city really is a delight - cobbled courtyards, Romanesque cathedrals and lovely parks. I visited a museum called something and saw an exhibition called Gardens of the World.



The last two days have been pretty nice. Pretty rainy - actually, pretty torrential. I've covered quite a lot of ground and am now content to chill in Stras for a while longer. Today is my 30th day, and my body is growing tired. My ankle tan lines are preposterous, my head perpetually grubby, my wisdom tooth aching, my cognitive capacity waning, my vocabulary wilting, my sense of self departing, my lists growing longer, my posts sparser, my blah blahher, blah blahher. Etc. My facial hair is starting to startle even me.

For financial reasons I have decided to continue to Calais after Brussels, in order to get a ferry back to UK. So, now, entering what appears to be my final week, the last stretch, I reflect on my travels and I think


French plums are the best so far. Very juicy!