bikes

I�m sitting in a hotel room in St Malo, Brittany. The room has far too much brocade and chintzy maroon and white wallpaper, but the velour chair is comfortable and the double windows open out to a view of the stone church and a tree with glossy green leaves providing shade for two old blokes having an apertif.  It�s the last day of summer. Tomorrow, Cathie and I will begin our autumn cycle from this ancient seaside town, former home of pirates and profiteers which is now overrun with tourists scoffing bowls of mussels and frites or galettes oozing jambon and fromage washed down with local cider.  We are planning to cycle a large portion of Euro Velo 4 - the Central Europe route. We hope our trip will take us gently north-east along the ragged Channel coast-line; past the WW2 battlefields of Omaha Beach and Dunkirk; the port towns of Le Harve and Calais; the beau villages of Honfleur and Deauville, former haunts of Eric Satie and Coco Chanel respectively before we creak into B...