3rd of October – we are already a month behind with our blog, but our Way of Saint James is not ending in Santiago. There is not this mysterious black hole, where all the pilgrims are walking to the end of their pilgrimage and then they disappear. We promised not to take an airplane back from Santiago as most of the pilgrims probably do once they’ve arrived at this destination. We continued our trip to show you can travel ten countries within Europe on bikes without stepping on an aircraft. But being already ahead of the readers I can tell you that this project is more demanding than we could…

Today we would make a distance of round about 60-70km, which was most of the time following former railway lines. The first destination was Radstock, which was surrounded by green fields with old oak trees and pheasants jumping out of the brown ferns and shrubbery. More and more autumn colours appeared in the leaves. From Radstock on we followed the Wellow Brook. Just before the name-giving village Wellow we were asked by a nice young lady if we were willing to take part in a research they were doing for the National Cycle Network. We followed her questionnaire step by step, and gave her some comments on how difficult it…

We woke up our metal horses where we had left them overnight in one of the dining rooms and they had charged enough energy from the electronic oat-meal the sockets offered them. When we rolled them down the hallway we could see Andy Rhind-Tutt through a glass door holding a meeting. He was really a busy man, but nevertheless offered us some of his private time to meet around noon. We saddled up our horses and rode over to the medieval gothic architecture of Salisbury Cathedral, where we had a guided tour. The laying of the foundation stone was in 1220 on a ground which was so close to groundwater…

This morning everything had to be packed on our bikes again and we had to say goodbye to Tracy (Iain had already left) and thank her for the last lovely days. Our next destination was the “Fareham Live”, a theatre in Osborne Street, where I thought we would get a big stage, but the meeting room of the Fareham Rotary Club was up on a gallery in the foyer. We met with the President Malcolm Nicholls, also present were President Maria Jewitt and Caroline Gwatkin from the Rotary Club Portsmouth and Southsea as guests. We were able to exchange the pennants of two clubs and hand over our Saint James…

Today was Robert’s 66th birthday and the greatest gift he made himself was achieving more than 4.000km on this adventurous “Less-is-more-Tour” trip healthy and without any accident. He never imagined he would be able to get this far, but now he was celebrating in England. I had a very easily transportable gift for him, which I originally wanted to hand over with an unfolding 3D-papercard of two bikers in the mountains, but in the hustle of packing at home I had forgotten to put it in the right place. So I only had a red envelope with a small surprise for him. It was a ticket to the concert of…

The first beings that got active in the house were the Labradors Star and Edna. We were told not to leave the bedroom door open because they would probably have jumped on the bed. But very early in the morning a neighbour was picking them up for a morning walk and that got them really excited. Whenever people say England is famous for its rainy weather, they never travelled with us because we always bring the sunshine along. It was already shining through the window in the morning and it was time to get up for an easy breakfast outside on the garden sofa with Tracy. We had tea, granola…

The sea was still moving the ferry heavily and some waves created such high spray, that it even was blown over the bow. But the sky looked already more friendly and had some blue patches within white clouds. The ferry ride would not be finished before the late afternoon, we were due to arrive at 16:00. So enough time to update my blog and get into a conversation with some people. There was for example a father with his two adventurous sons, who had motorbiked through Spain. It sounded like a great trip. Us with our two bikes and all the heavy bags we were carrying with us made me…

When we started with our packed bikes downhill the steep road of Calle Lope de Vega we saw the escalators going up on the right hand again and the Bay of Santander and the Centro Botin in the sunshine in front of us. We expected to reach the ferry easily  because we didn’t expect any traffic on a Sunday, but there was a marathon for which they had closed the bay side promenade. Somehow we had to explain to the policemen that we had to reach the ferry, and they let us pass through against the direction of the sportive marathon runners. When we reached the check in of the…

Already the Romans new the advantages of the huge bay protected by a long stretched peninsula with wild cliffs and beautiful sand beaches. They called their harbour city Portus Victoriae Iuliobrigensium, which became after Christianisation a place for  the relics of the martyr Saint Emeterius, and its name turned into Santander. The city completely lost its historic centre in a great fire in 1941 which destroyed, due to a strong southern wind, even the cathedral, and lasted for two days. Being rebuilt in the years after the second world war the urban concept was designed to be car friendly and the town was cut off from its harbour front by…

In the early morning dense fog moved between the buildings of Santillana del Mar and reminded us that in a few days the sun will be at the autumnal equinox. Before we left Santillana del Mar we still visited the Collegiata de Santa Juliana with its beautiful cloister. Slowly the sun burned through the fog and we continued with our bikes to the cave of Altamira. It’s one of the most incredible places. It was inhabited since 36.000 BC and discovered for the first time by the weaver Modesto Cubillas by coincidence in 1868, when he was searching his hunting dog. The original entrance had collapsed 11.000 BC. Years later…