French coast I took a ferry from Dover to Dunkerque. Dunkerque greeted me with its inhospitable face at first – docks, refineries and a large migrant camp. But the city centre improved the impression and after some tasting of French instead of English cuisine I continued across a pleasant coastal resort area and grassy coastal dunes, a flat route and with a helpful tailwind, to Belgium. Belgium The route in northwestern Belgium was flat, on exemplary cycle paths around drainage and navigation canals, with a stop in the beautifully preserved historic center of Bruges. My destination was Brussels, from where I wanted to return home by train via Germany. And since I have already been to Brussels on a cycling trip, instead of going to see the little pissing boy…

Edinburgh In Edinburgh I was lucky with the weather for a change and could walk around the city in pleasant sunshine. There was a lot to see, even though the city is full of tourists, so for example tickets for the castle were already sold out long in advance. I often had to look both up and down, because some streets are here in two levels above each other. From Edinburgh I proceeded southeast along the coastal cycle paths and in the town of Berwick I crossed the river Tweed from Scotland back into England. Northern England Beyond Berwick I went over the coastal dunes and stopped by at the Holy Island, accessible only at low tide, with the mighty Lindisfarne castle, and from there turned inland to the southwest,…

England By a ferry from Guernsey I arrived to the port of Poole in south-western England. At arrival I was greeted by English grey sky, driving on the left side and Victorian architecture. From the port I went straight north. However, it took a long time to find any open country – the coast is thickly settled, then follows an area of suburbs, then village countryside, but even there is every narrow road surrounded by a high hedge, so it is often difficult to even look around, and every field is behind a hedge and a fence. Only by the evening I arrived to what is here the remote countryside: rolling sheep pastures. I continued further north to Bristol and from there across the wide estuary of Severn river to…

Arrival to France When I check the map of Europe searching for places I haven’t yet cycled to, I see the whole of the British Isles in front of me. They say there are some beautiful places there, but they also say cyclists can get quite soaked by rain there. I set out to check it out. And to avoid packing my bike on for a plain, I decided to approach it discreetly through France. First by train to Offenburg in Germany, a short bike ride over the border to Strasbourg, by TGV to Paris and by another train to Le Havre. From there, it’s along the coast until I catch some ship across the Channel. Normandie and Bretagne When I got off the train in Le Havre, I was…