Day 8 : still 1000 km to go...

Day 8 : still 1000 km to go..., originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

We woke up that day under a dark gray sky with menacing rain clouds - that didn't bode well... Strong winds were blowing eastwards from the ocean - that was the good news, since in the morning we had to bike eastwards as well, moving away from the sea.



To get effectively started we first enjoyed a short boat trip to cross the Bay of Arcachon, famous for its oysters - there are a few less by now since we had them for dinner last night - yummy, yummy. The boat was barely three times longer than our tandem bike and while other bicycles would go on the roof, ours was too long to fit. But the skipper found a solution laying our bike down to cover the entire front deck.



The wind made the pedaling a lot easier and we could pick up a decent speed for the first hour. As we got used to by now, some car drivers would wave and blow their horn as a salute. When we stopped to have a reinforcing espresso an old man walked enthusiastically up to our table telling that it was he who sounded his horn a while ago - he said that he had biked a lot when he was much younger but never was able to make it to Santiago de Compostela. Therefore he asked us to think of him and pray for him when we arrived there. He really shook our hands firmly and with strong emotions and he embraced Magic Maggie and gave her two kisses. Such touching moments give you extra power to continue to confront the elements...



A bit further when going down into a tunnel, a car with an open roof top, coming from the opposite direction, flashed its lights, blew its horn and a backseat passenger stood straight up and clapped his hands. Wow... We felt like the king and queen of Belgium, maybe even better since I'm not quite sure whether a Frenchman would do like that to our Belgian royal highness.



After biking through heavy car traffic for over an hour we finally hit a bike trail that was a former rail road. The trail let us cross the Landes in an almost straight line. This rather flat and sandy landscape offered us a never-ending scenery of old oak and chestnut trees amid patches of evergreen fern on which the morning raindrops glittered like pearls - and not to forget the omnipresent pine trees. This was a very enjoyable ride. But - as many other things in life - it didn't last forever, we had to leave the bike path to drive southwest against the wind again. And after a while the menacing clouds lived up to their promise and brought us... rain - and lots of it.



Every little village that we passed we looked for a pub or any other place where we could have a warm coffee and some temporary shelter, but either there weren't any facilities or they were all closed... Even the churches were closed... At one of those medieval churches we found a stone signpost telling us that we still had a 1000 km to go before reaching Santiago. That was encouraging news :-)



By late afternoon our legs were getting sore and we were soaking wet (again); tired we decide to take the shortest road to the hotel, which meant biking on heavy traffic roads with a lot of big trucks racing by and that for another 19 km - these turned out to be the longest 19 km of our biking life. Half dead we reached our charming hotel after 91 km of pedaling.



Before going to bed my lovely queen noticed that the king had a red biking butt - as red as a monkey's. After taking a closer look at the queen's butt as well, it turned out that hers was aching but(t) not red, while his was red but(t) not aching... Would that indicate - according to Darwin's evolutionary theory - that long time gone some mutant monkeys must have adapted to a biking life or maybe even invented it?

Day 7 : the magic shell

Day 7 : the magic shell, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

The scallop, or St.James' shell, is the symbol of the Saint and the pilgrimage. For over a thousand years pilgrims carried a shell, the symbol of St James, since it was said that an early pilgrim who fled to the sea to escape vagabonds returned to land covered in shells…



A relatively short day of just 50 km but nevertheless with a 236 m total ascent despite the fact that we are cruising along the beaches. The temperature is rising but the sky is still heavily clouded.



The long and winding bike trail continues along the coastline behind the dunes protecting us from the strong winds. Unfortunately, these high dunes cannot protect us from rain - oh yeah, rain again for about one third of the ride, but since it is not such a stressful distance and the weather got warmer, we can stand the rain - or did we learn to accept this inevitable part of life?



Again, and at the risk of getting boring, wherever we park our tandem or stop to buy drinks, have a coffee or simply look at the map, people come to admire our two-wheeler - and when they see the GPS they go ballistic :-)



But as soon as people spot the shell in front of our bycicle or when they hear what our end destination is, many people take a step back and look at us if we're half saints , but I reassure them that we're rather half crazy :-)

Several people even asked us to say a prayer upon our arrival at Santiago de Compostela - it starts to look like we'll need a full day at the St. James cathedral to fulfill all those prayer wishes :-)

Day 6

Day 6, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

This morning my sweetheart was still wondering why the heck she was doing this - but doubts were also creeping into my own mind. Indeed, there are much easier and more comfortable ways of traveling to Santiago. But once again the weather forecast was announcing improvements and once again it gave us hope, and yes, we saw patches of blue sky that seemed to be spreading the good news.



The dream of every skier is to stay at a ski-in-ski-out hotel - similar goes for the biker. We enjoyed the luxury having our hotels for the next three nights really ON the bike trial.



When preparing our bicycle in the morning for another 72 km ride we had an enthusiastic supporter to wave us out. Uli, a nice German guy who stayed at the same hotel was full of admiration of our bike and of our plan to cover such a long distance to Santiago - he thought I was a younger brother of Eddy Merckx. I love German people :-)



The magnificent bike trail - our first of this kind in a lifetime - that we commenced on last night would continue for another 120 kms. Accompanied by the relaxing sound of the ocean waves this lovely trail meandered through the dunes, along beaches and through pine tree forests...



A seaside resort bathing in the sunlight seduced us successfully to make a stop and enjoy the scenery while having a hearty café chantilly. Watching the smooth rolling ocean from the shadow of a colorful umbrella ma chérie commented with a broad smile: "La vie est belle..." and like a fully-qualified Don Juan I perfected "...avec toi" :-)



With our bike always in sight we could watch how numerous people would stop and marvel at our tandem. If we had received only half a Euro from every person gazing at our bike during this trip so far, our entire journey would already be completely paid for... and if this would continue till Santiago, I might retire by then ;-)



But the best was still to come. A group walked up to our bike and one of them started singing on the tunes of a famous French tango: "Le plus beau, c'est le plus beau vélo du monde..." Fabulous :-))



"Isn't it delightful having friends coming from distant quarters" Confucius said. Today, about 2500 years later we were able to comprehend to the full extent what he might have meant... Good friends of ours traveling to the eastern part of Spain drove via the western part of France (i.e. way out of their way) to come and visit us - and encourage us. We lubricated this special get together with plenty of 'pastis', a French aperitif with aniseed. That night we double checked our luggage for all unnecessary items (e.g. like a tripod - who takes a tripod on a trip like this anyway???) so that our visitors could take all those burdensome kilograms with them by car. And so we finally realized another eternal law of biking that "less is more" - indeed, we've never been that happy for having less than we had before :-)

Day 4 & 5 : enduring the elements

Day 4 & 5 : enduring the elements, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

As the weather forecast had accurately predicted: the sun was gone, the blue sky was gone... Here we are again with our two wheels on the ground and in misty rainy weather, believing that our high-tech Goretex clothing will also protect our positive spirits.



From Poitiers we would smoothly work our way down to the seaside in two days of nearly flat terrain. At least, that was the picture that I had pre-programmed in Maggie's mind. Oops... The roads we traveled weren't as flat as I had anticipated, worse, they were not flat at all: up and down, up and down, up and down and on and on for the full 108 km of that day. Tandem plus luggage and two people made a total of over 200 kg, which is great when you go downhill but when going up it is as if you're grinding to a complete standstill... Countless hills... And after the initial drizzle we got some light rain for a change. "Who'll stop the rain?" this CCR song kept echoing through our empty brains. It kept raining till early afternoon and although our Goretex jackets and trousers might have kept the rain on the outside, we were nevertheless as wet on the inside from all the uphill sweating. At the end of our fourth day the GPS indicated a total ascent of 654 m !!

Not only were it the hills, the weight and the rain that wore us physically and mentally down, this distance of 108 km seemed endlessly. And when the rain stopped, we played another song: "Against the wind." Here the winds typically come from the southwest and guess where we were heading to?

Hallelujah, now we know what is too much... Although this seemed more than we could chew we finished the day with one more song "Our way" (with permission from the author to sing it in plural).

Our B&B was in a huge old farm from the 1600's - in the middle of nowhere, even no mobile phone connectivity... The old lady of the house welcomed us with hot chocolate - after everything we endured today this tasted like the best hot chocolate of our entire life.

After taking a hot shower we were regaining our mental strength and all we needed was a nice dinner. Haven't seen any kind or type of restaurant on our way to or in this remote village we asked the lady where we could find some food. Goodness gracious... We would have to continue pedaling to the next village, many kilometers further. I asked again with a faint hope that either she or me hadn't understood either the question or the answer - apparently not. Silence and a long sigh followed. And with even a fainter hope I asked whether she could call us a taxi? She looked at me as if I came from a different planet. A taxi? Here? You must be kidding? Actually

I wasn't. OK then... I volunteered to play for taxi... with my honey just sitting on the bike, refusing to pedal - the few people we met on the road smiled with amusement. Lucky me, it was a very fine restaurant... :-)

By the time we managed it back to our old farm, we had biked our longest trip ever on our tandem: almost 120 km. And don't forget to add the rain, the countless hills, our heavy load and the headwinds...



PS: It turned out to be impossible to keep up the schedule of daily sending a new update. Mainly it is a connectivity issue, either we had no signal at all or the GPRS service seemed not operating in a dependable way. We only met something like a city a day and when you are soaking wet finding an internet café is not immediately your highest priority...



Day 5 brought the same story as yesterday. We "only" had to bike 95 km - which under the current conditions was still way more than we could enjoy - and another 595 m of accumulated ascent was waiting for us...

Rain again till afternoon. People applauding and admiring us when we arrived in a city or a small village - or did they have pity on us?

After the rain, the wind. We're approaching the Atlantic coast and the wind is hammering us down or trying to knock us off our bike. Especially with all those packs we take A LOT of wind. When - on a flat road and with a lot of hard work - you manage only to develop a speed of 12 km/hour and your leg muscles seem to be ready to explode any moment and your back is about to break in two, than all kind of thoughts flash through your brain (if you have any left): why am I doing this; we must be crazy; we cannot go on like this; we're quitting; we're going home... But for some reason we kept going, we kept pushing, both of us, but maybe each of us for different reasons... :-)

If a pilgrimage needs to encompass some suffering then this is a pilgrimage with a capital P.



Finally, at last, the harbor of Royan where we'll take the ferry to cross the estuary of the river Gironde. Long lines of cars are cueing up, and then being able to coast along them and get in front of such a long line made us already forget some of the ordeal that we just went through :-)

The smell of the pine trees and the salty Atlantic ocean surpassed the best perfume by far, and things got even better when we reached a long smooth bike trail through the dunes along the coast line. The weather all of a sudden turned sunny and we forgot for a moment our sore legs and aching butt and we enjoyed a 200% - this was pure joy!

Our day ended with a touch of eternal beauty :-)

Day 3 : confronting history

Day 3 : confronting history, originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

At the end of the second day I impressed my wife by checking us in at the "Grand Hotel Moderne". Although I'm generally sceptic when businesses emphasize their qualities too obviously I had to give them the benefit of the doubt since the building had quite an impressing appearance from the outside. However, the inside brought us back with our two feet on the ground : our room was neither grand and worse it was a far cry from modern and it was equipped with a completely antiquated shower where the temperature of the water seemed to be controlled by a malicious neighbour.



Not that our rooms were better the day after when we stayed in one of the oldest monasteries of the world, but the monastery didn't make any claims, nor did we expect any either. Or, how a pilgrimage can remind you of the common wisdom that contentment is inverse prortional to your expectations...



Indeed, on day 3 we stayed at the Abbey of Saint Martin at Liguge, which was founded in 361!



On our way we also passed another historical place: the battlefield of the famous "battle of Poitiers". On October 10, 732, the Frankish forces under Charles Martel defeated a massive invading Muslim army that outnumbered the Franks by far. This battle seems surprisingly known as the Battle of Tours in English-speaking countries.

The battle followed twenty years of Muslim conquests in Europe, beginning with the invasion of the Visigoth Christian Kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula in 711 and progressing into the Frankish territories of Gaul, former provinces of the Roman Empire. Martel's victory is believed by many historians to have stopped the northward advance of Muslims from the Iberian peninsula, and is therefore also considered of macrohistorical importance in that it halted the Muslim conquests and preserved Christianity as the controlling faith in Europe during a period when Muslim rule was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Camino has always been linked to this confrontation of two cultures and religions in so much that by the 10th century St. James was regarded as the protector of Christian Europe against the Muslim Moors.

Unfortunately, more than one millenium later these battles still seem to continue in different forms and different places... As if history likes to repeat itself or is it human nature that hasn't changed that much?

The current memorial on those ancient battlegrounds had several wise words carved into the tiles of a giant checkerboard. One of them said: "I believe in the religion of love..." and another one: "People make ennemies of what they are ignorant of." When reading those words we smiled at each other since - albeit on a much much smaller scale - we experienced by ourselves that it takes love and respect to overcome the separation between two different cultures. And one has to start by taking an interest in each other, since confrontation with a foreign culture can be a very enriching experience - but true, it requires an effort on both sides. And Maggie (Wei Wen) summed it all up by reflecting that she cannot make a white calligraphy on white paper - white paper needs as much the black ink as the black ink needs the white paper. Food for thought indeed - it must have been the influence of this 1600 year old abbey :-)



By now it is exactly midnight and tomorrow the monks will wake us up at six :-( Our longest day trip is impatiently waiting for us, 108km, and to make it a real pilgrimage, we might be singing in the rain tomorrow - but saint Goretex will protect us :-)

Have a great weekend and check out on us again next Monday, we'll go on a weekend as well and guess what we will be doing...

Day 2: at last no longer lost :-)

Day 2: at last no longer lost :-), originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

The morning of day two we woke up by the gentle sound of a slow turning water mill, but what made us actually jump out of bed was the quacking of the ducks - subconsciously but undoubtedly this must have influenced our choice of dinner that night, guess what... duck indeed.



This secluded place was really a uniquely special place and worth more than the trouble finding it. ‘Les Moulins de Vontes’, our first overnight stop, are ancient water mills of medieval origin with foundations dating from the 12th century. They are idyllically located on three islands in the middle of the Indre river – a side river of the Loire. An extraordinary Bed & Breakfast with only three rooms, all having pieces of furniture from the 17th and 18th century. But it were our very friendly and well-traveled hosts who made our first night's stay even more memorable. Add to it that , a couple of years ago, they also biked to Santiago de Compostela...



It was hard to leave such an enchanting place and to say goodbye to such gracious hosts, but the sky was promising blue and the sun invited us to continue our journey.



So I explained one more last time to my beloved 75-year-young father how the GPS works. After we gave my parents a big hug, each party ser off in opposite directions. They headed north and we traveled south as if it were to prove that it was a far safer bet to continue our venture with one single GPS (in stead of two) in order to increase our chances of reaching our destination without too many unintended deviations :-)



It turned to be a great biking day. We pedaled along small scenic country roads with little or no traffic and the softly rolling landscape was decorated with a mosaic of sunflower fields.



Today we covered four times the distance of yesterday in only twice the time - a nice but welcome progress: arriving in Santiago on schedule becomes probable again :-)



Consequently, we arrived more than an hour in advance at our destination which gave us the opportunity to visit the local Saint James church in greater detail. This Romanesque church with its beautifully decorated façade dates from the 11th century. It was an important landmark and destination for the medieval pilgrims on their way to Santiago. Today this historic church still showcases a wooden statue of Saint James as a pilgrim (see picture).



The ‘Way of St James’, better known by its Spanish name ‘El Camino de Santiago’, is the pilgrimage to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in north-westernmost Spain. Legend has it that St. James the apostle fled persecution in the Holy Land and came to northern Spain. There he preached the gospel until his return to Jerusalem, where he was martyred in AD44. His remains were brought back and buried in Spain where in the 9th century they were discovered in a field indicated by a bright star – “Santiago de Compostela” means literally “St James of the star field”.



El Camino de Santiago has been one of the most important Christian pilgrimages since medieval times and it has existed for over a 1000 years. There is not a single path but a cobweb of routes threading throughout Europe to Santiago de Compostela. However a few of the routes are considered main ones, one of them is the Via Turonensis – starting in Tours, southwest of Paris, where many pilgrim routes from northwestern countries would come together. Although the spiritual significance of the Camino has been lost for many, there is little doubt that this is one of the most important, and exhilarating, long-distance paths in Europe.



PS: updating a weblog with a wireless PDA has proven so far to be a hurdles race... Not only is it a matter of connectivity issues, using different programs to get all the stuff uploaded, but it's a rather slow process before you have any feedback. It typically takes a couple of hours to verify the uploaded content, to find out then that your first picture with comments did not get through and neither your third. Next you reallize that the sent but not arriving information had not been stored in memory and one can start all over again... Then you get nervous and tired while your wife is already sleeping like a log, so you decide to do it over again on the next morning - while your wife still sleeps like a log :-) Obviously you're not as clear of mind yet and hours later you realize that you have made twice the same identical compliment of the French people being the most helpful on earth - well you see, THAT is a bridge too far and therefore I have to claim back one of the two compliments - one compliment in one day is more than enough :-)

Got lost...

Got lost..., originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

A French gentleman - no, this is not a typo - was so helpful that he drove his Vespa way out of his way to get us back on our way... Today we declared the French people as the most helpful on earth - no matter what the rest of the world might think of them :-)

Let's continue...

Let's continue..., originally uploaded by raoul_dewinne.

I must have pushed the send button too fast in the previous update - so let's continue: so there we arrived in Tours - our starting place - with the intention to still bike a short ride from the center of Tours to a small village just 20km outside of the city. My parents would stay with us for the first night, so they followed us by car - my car to be precise, and my GPS to be even more precise... On our bike we had also a GPS. That adds up to two GPS systems. Now, just like a man with two watches never knows how late it is, a man with two GPS's never knows how to get to his destination... The story is too long to tell here - although the distance was short - but we got lost at least five times, and we biked an additional 50% of the planned distance and if this journey continues as it got started we might not arrive in Santiago de Compostela before Christmas! Hallelujah:.. Despite two GPS's we arrived 2 hours late for dinner at our idyllic destination and the mere fact that we found this place in the middle of nowhere was due to the assistance of half of the population of France... As of this day, I consider the French people as the most helpful on earth no matter what the rest of the world might think :-))