Our last blog entry, although a little hurriedly written was at least not too tardy, coming after only seven weeks of travelling. But that was three months ago, sorry!

So what the hell have we been up to? When we last spoke we’d just ridden to the Pyrenees from Bordeaux. We set up camp in Argeles-Gazost, a nice little town surrounded by foothills. That was our base while we watched two more stages of the Tour de France, and rode up the Col du Tourmalet, which was amazing and amazingly hard work!

From there we rode up to 900m and stayed a while in Cauterets, which we used as a base to do an an amazing two day walk through the surrounding mountains, including hiking up to 3000m, which is high!

We also rode up the Col d’Aubisque while we we’re in the mountains, another spectacular pass from the Tour de France.

A couple of trains took us from the Pyrenees up to Limoges, where we spent a great week with Jana and Pato and their crazy bunch of friends. While there we visited Oradour-sur-Glanne, site of a Nazi massacre, terrible but an amazing historical experience.

There was also much eating thanks to Pato’s amazing cooking skills, a wee bit of drinking, some climbing at the wall in town, and a great mountain bike ride around Limoges with Fred & Joanne.

After Limoges we headed off east into the Massif Central for some great riding. Never a flat metre but beautiful country, we spent about a week getting to Clermont-Ferrand, including a day walking up the Puy de Sancy.

Another train ferried us to Paris from Clermont-Ferrand, where we spent an awesome week. Our home was a little sixth floor apartment north of the river, which was just so perfect. We did some of the typical touristy things, but skipped some, like the Louvre, owing to the crowds. Great city, go there sometime.

Although by then we’d spent almost two months in France, we would have happily spent another six. Unfortunately I had to skedaddle because my visa was running out, so a TGV deposited us in Strasbourg from where we could ride into Germany. More details of the ensuing adventures in our next instalment, hopefully sooner than three months time!