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…

3rd of August we had the room until noon and could still discover the historic monuments of Poitiers which are going back to a celtic opidum which was turned by the Romans into a city called Pictavium. Since the second century Poitiers is known as a christian community which gained importance under the bishop Hilarius in the 4th century. 558 Radegundis of Thuringia founded the first monastery. 732 the Arabs and Moors were stopped at Poitiers by Karl Matell. We were lucky to find a lady from the historian society of Poitiers how was willing to explain us all these contexts in the Baptistery Saint-Jean which is the oldest exiting…

2nd of August we started really slow and enjoyed the silence within the 15th century rock walls. We had our sandwiches as breakfast in our pyjamas in the sunshine in front of the tower. As the last days were completely charged with fixing the bikes and regaining distance we needed some good sleep. To exchange some updates, I called my dad as I had no chance to write on my journal blog. He had sad news for us as he knew already that one of our best friends had passed away this morning. It turns your mind-set in a complete different direction and the thoughts were with him and the…

1st of August we could enjoy our breakfast together with Michel and Marie-Hélène because he had a day off and didn’t have to go to his laboratory this Friday morning. Before we left I still wanted to write some good old postcards to my family and to Matthias Helwig who runs the cinemas we had designed for him, including the restaurant which is called “Tati”. So he had definitely to get a souvenir from the film location, also for the Rotarian friends from Starnberg. When we said goodbye to our new friends, who were so helpful and hospitable it just started to rain. Reaching the tourism office everything was already…