16th of August after six hours of sleep I woke up at 3:30 am and needed to climb down the ladder from the bunk bed to go to the toilet. It was at the end of the long corridor passing by all the bunk beds of other pilgrims. I wanted to use the door handle carefully to not make any noise. But someone before me hadn’t closed the door properly and by pushing down the handle the door snapped into the frame and caused a loud bang. Back in bed I tried to find sleep again, but even through my ear plugs the different sounds of snoring drew my attention.…

15th of August the loud music of the festival stopped by five o’clock in the morning. So we were still sleepy at breakfast. Robert had found two Dutch bikers to talk to. Yvonne and her husband who biked all the way from Utrecht. They were not sure if they could make the pass to Roncesvalles with their batteries because it was a climb of more than up to 1.000m of altitude. So they started early to avoid the heat. We were fairly early for our standards to start and say goodbye to Janis from the pilgrim hostel and get out of town just after sunrise. Her name gave me a…

14th of August looked already like autumn. The fog had spread over night in the river valley of the Gave d’Oloron and made it look like a November day. Even the temperatures had dropped a lot overnight. After breakfast the fog had lifted a bit, but stayed still so low that the Pyrenees couldn’t be seen. Normally you can have a beautiful view from Sauveterre-de-Béarn as the terrace at the tower of Monréal is high above the valley. Down by the river a beautiful towered bridge mirrors in the river. There was the story that in medieval times a lady was thrown off the bridge to show that she was…

13th of August Hanneke and Jurriaan picked us up by the hotel at a quarter past nine. The bags were quickly put in the trunk and the bikes were secured with some elastic bands before we started on the road. Once we were on a highway and reached 130km/h Robert and I were after six weeks on bike suddenly under a speed shock. It felt really extremely fast to move within such a short matter of time four to five times as we were used to. You suddenly get aware what our last week’s reality of feasible distances by bike was compared to what our mind gets used to everyday…

12th of August we took it slow after a good breakfast at the hotel. I found a place to work in a climatized conference room to update my Blog. We had lunch at the hotel restaurant and I continued my website while Robert took a siesta. Later in the afternoon we joined again the Cramer family at Hannekes’s house. After a short jump into the pool I got my little office at the nice dining table inside again organized. But this time compared to yesterday I needed have paper towels under my arms, because I would have left stains from my sweat as the humidity of the hot air had…

11th of August Olivier had already set up the breakfast table by the pool and it smelled of fresh Croissants. Even after a good sleep in the cool room downstairs I still had this headache from the lack of hydration yesterday. So I was back to drinking a lot. At least the heat shock for the Garmin was over and it came back to life. Olivier helped us with his garden hose to clean our bikes from all the dust they collected yesterday. We took a good bye selfie and left a bit late by 8:20. We were heading a bit further east to join the Way of Saint James…

10th of August we started early in Barbezieux to be ahead of the heat. The Garmin was completely dead and must have not supported the heat from yesterday. At least we could still use the cellphone with komoot, because today we were depending on finding the shortest and most direct route as there were no more official bike ways leading us to where we wanted. Still alone in town it was the perfect picture time for a selfie at the castle. As it was a Sunday morning we still had a little detour planned to find a church being not directly on the way of Saint James but part of…

9th of August we took a photo of us in the two arches of the Roman gate as a souvenir from Saintes. On the way out of town we still stopped by a bike shop because the clear rubber envelope for my biking maps ripped a triangle hole yesterday by the heat. I had repaired it provisionally with duck-tape but wanted to find out if there is something old-fashioned like this still available. His answer was clear, that no one uses paper anymore. I could explain him that Garmin and Komoot are discussing all day long which is the best route while I am reading faster on a paper map…

8th of August we got up really early to be on the road before the heat would start boiling us. We were by 8:30 saying good bye to Daniel and Günther who spoiled us for the last days with “living like God in France” as we say in German (which is “living the life of Riley” in English). But by now all these languages are mixing up in my head anyways and the funniest misunderstandings create the best laughter for all of us. One example happened to Robert at Chateauroux where Marie-Hélène walked into the isle and tried to turn on the light, but the bulb was dead. She said…

4th of August is the calculated date on which Robert and I count together 120 years. It’s exactly ten years ago that I celebrated our 100th birthday in Starnberg with a surprise party during the Five Lake Filmfestival, where I showed my first movie called “Ohne Du kein ich” (Without you no me). Matthias Helwig director of the filmfestival supported me to show this shortcut in a morning session in the city hall of Starnberg where family and friends from all different countries joined to be the surprise guests for Robert who did not have a clue of what was going on. Just to remember this declaration of love to…