From England to Istanbul

On my first full day in Greece, I was soaked through at 2am, struggled up a mountain, hit a puncture, got chased by angry dogs, rode for two hours in the dark, and was abandoned in the night in a tiny Greek village... and it was absolutely brilliant.   After crossing the border, I slept my first night at a campsite on a little penisula across the bay from Igoumenitsa. Pitching the hammock, the forecast looked clear, and the night sky and city lights across the water were beautiful, so I went without the rain tarp and slept under the stars. But I was in for a surprise. I was not the only resident of the tree At 2:17am I felt the first few drops of rain. I jumped out of my cocoon and quickly saved my electronics, then threw the rain tarp over the top of the hammock - but in about 60 seconds the rain went from nothing to a downpour!  As I worked with the tarp fastenings, I was soaked through, my mac powerless to save me. But I had done enough: a check inside my little shelte...

As I parked up my bike in Lens, I came across an elderly gentleman sitting alone on the only table outside a restaurant and quietly enjoying a cigarette in the evening air. He saw my teetering mound of strapped-on luggage and the GoPro fixed to my bike and said something in French that I didn't understand, but we both smiled. He mimed a camera shutter button and wobbling around on my bike. It was funny! A good joke, made without words. Using memorised stock phrases, I explained that I was travelling by bike to Istanbul; again, there were very few words in common, but I picked up 'bon courage', which I now know means 'Good luck', but also 'Good courage', or 'Hang in there, you can do it!'.  I was starving and utterly exhausted, and it turned out the place he was sat outside - 'Le Pain de la Bouche' - was pretty much everything you could hope for from a French restaurant, and beyond that unpretentious and affordable. So now, if ever, was the ti...

I left the hotel in the morning to find it raining gently on the square outside St Omer station. As I have mentioned before, in most circumstances I love the rain, and before I left for the day I took some time watching it patter on the cobblestones from under the station roof. Similar joys are so often available back home, in normal life, but being in a new place and a new situation helps you to notice them. St Omer is a waypoint on the Via Francigena pilgrimage route. We know this because in 990AD, Archibishop Sigeric the Serious of Canterbury travelled to Rome to collect his pallium (a fancy piece of cloth) and helpfully left an itinerary listing the places that he visited en route, alongside a mention of lunch with Pope John XV. I took a couple of hours to look round the town before I left for the next ride, and started at the cathedral, figuring that this was the place old Sigeric was most likely to have dropped in on the way. Inside a good cathedral, you can always count on a few...

  Goodbye England! Waking in the the hostel on the day of my ferry to Europe was an ugly experience. Between arriving wet, hungry and dirty just before midnight on the previous night, a sickly room-mate's coughs, snorts and sneezes in the bunk underneath me, and getting up at 5:30 to ensure I didn't miss the early morning ferry, I managed three hours of fitful sleep.  The First and Last has a practical attitude to cleanliness. Just-about alive, and sustained by adrenaline and instant coffee, I managed some toast and jam and left about 6:15 for the 8:25 ferry, having read warnings about the close of check-in, and wanting to be very cautious. Sunrise just outside the ferry port. To my surprise, being on a bike, I passed quickly by the entry queues. A frenchman stamped my passport to start the clock on my 82 days in the Schengen area, and I was told at the check-in desk that I could easily make the 6:55 ferry if I wanted. I rolled up the entry ramp, parked...