Peter Stenhouse’s Cycling Journal
Summer in Europe 2009

Stange day broken into parts of riding, divided by hours spent using the internet to arrange my life. I am in Zamora famous for its festival in Santa Semana. I buy new shorts, and the old ones get tossed in the bin. They have embarrasing holes, worn through, at the point of contact between me…

I wake up stretched out on the ground in the sun. My first nights sleep in the open. I was too tired to put up my tent when I found my campsite at 3:00am  it was a warm night, and I could still hear the singing and music of the fiesta I had left. I…

A good day, and an early rise, considering I didn’t get up from my city wander, and slight drunk scribbles unting about 1:30 and then reading till 3:30. I finish the Kite Runner and teh n leave it at the hostal. Its a hollywood book. well written enough, but too full of coincidence and fate…

My week in the Extramadura, in Pareles Del Puerto, was fantastic. There was a simple and beautiful routine to everyday. Before dawn breakfast or porridle miexed with the preserved figs of last year, biscuits broken into it, coffee brewed like gypsys, grains stirred in a pot. And all in the low light of the gas…

I leave Pareles at 7:15. I am hurried out the door by a concerned Paco, he is convinced that I will die in the storm of heat. He calls my trip to Sevilla “going into hell”.  I descend from Pareles, quickly arriving in Caceres 100km away.  Brush with death, as a SUV pulls out without…

Dawn is beautiful, and shortly after I ride over kilometre 5000. I am the only thing moving in the town of Merida. Even the air is still. Empty chairs line the plaza, the fountain is shut off. I am eager to leave this place, built upon roman ruins, and head towards a blue splotch on…

Make breakfast on my bed, the stone slab picnic table where I slept. I have a kinship with tractors, slow moving and heavy, we hold up traffic. I race one up a hill. From their high open seats the drivers wave. I find my swim late at night, the heat has left the day, but…

I arrive to Sevilla with an escort of Lycrsits, who surround me, and together we keep a pace of 35kmph, even up the hills, when they lend a hand to my heavy load. I eat the meal that I skipped the night before beneath a vine canopy in Sevillas gardens, musicians practice close by. Later…

I leave sevilla late. I linger too long in concerstaion over rich coffee with new friends. So i ride to the end of the day, and then decided to keep riding into the night. Its a fine thing to do, in the cool, and the quiet, relaxed, not sweating or squinting. I make a wrong…

Its been a long day. This morning lost in a network of farm roads, gravel and rocks, clouds of small insects like sand thrown into your face. and Dragonflys in such vast numbers that they cover the path. I cycle through the heat of the day, determined to make it to the beach, and a…

Its easy to leave Cadiz. It has been a pleasant two night stay, but when I heart the clock chime 8, I spring out of my bed, first awake in the hostel, climb donw from the terrace, and leave. And I have the relief of someone who has escaped a trap, a sweet trap. Because…

Steep hill climb through lush green. The Faro de Trafalgar, marks the point, where the Spanish Armada was defeated. Stumble bump slide down a shortcut/cliff to an isolated beach near Balonia, dotted with few encampments of naked people. So I spend the afternoon there, turning my white bits pink, practicing sommersaults in the waves. Push…

Fine coating of sea spray. Reprimanded by the Policia for sleeping on the beach. It is an exciting day. Today I reach Spains most southern point, Tarifa, before returning to Sevilla to meet Caroline again. And when we do meet it is terrific. The people fill the streets, we drink a cold beer on church…

Within 15 minutes of cycling I have left Cordoba behind, wide open fields have quickly replaced the tight streets, clumps of eucalyptus in place of plazas and patios. The avenues are of olive trees, uniform rows of dark green dots on the hill. Climb to the hilltop curch of Espejo to earn my dinner, to…

Restless night, flashes of headlights through trees and mosquito whine, too strong moonlight and a heat that doesn’t abate until the sky begins to lighten. But I wake happy and excited. Cycle to a castle on a thumb of rock, friendly people sell me my days fruit. take water from the plaza fountain, old men…

The sun creeps over  torn paper hill edge to wake me. I follow rail tracks to Granada, perhaps spains most picturesque city, the Sierra nevada rises up behind and around it. I stay with Luna, in her tall narrow house, orange tree courtyard, and a terrace view over the city, and to the fluttering flag…

Trudged the long road to Alhambra early, to join the queue into the palace. It didn’t fail to impress. The incredible intricacy of design really pays homage to craftsmanship, and the glory of Allah. It evokes the harmony of nature withour being a direct copy of it. The christen chapel within the grounds looks gaudy…

Leaning against the windmills that Don Quioxte fought, as sun sets over Castilla y La Mancha, where Cervantes set his story. I didn’t expect this. Bus and train travel deposited me in some unknown town on my way to Barcelona, but I soon discover its the centre for Quioxtes adventures. I like to think that…

I wake up often in the night. The windmills collect sounds with their giant sails. Distant sirens, discoteques, planes, and birds. A few cars pull up to admire the view. They don’t see me.  Morning wind hums through the cables that restrain the windmills arms. Make my breakfast on the steps of the train station.…

four hours later. I am woken by drunks come to watch the sunrise. So I leave and pedal to the beach, where the party is still going at half six. People swim naked in the dawn, stroll along the promenade, or lying where they have fallen in the sand. I make coffee, and share it…

I pitch my tent beside the Danube to protect me from the mosquitos. They are waiting for me when I wake, so that I have to pack inside my tent, then make a dash for my bike. I decide to leave Bratislava, and cycle to the Czech Republic, to a small town that houses the…

The sun rises early here. It is high and warm by the time I have packed up and am cycling at 7:30. I make great time  and am in the Czech Republic quickly. I pick not quite ripe apricots, tart but good, I cycle away with a dozen in my front pannier, within easy reach…

Thunder storm approaches, I have my soap and towel ready to wash in the downpour. Its been a hot sweaty day, cycling through the heat to Slovakia where I can spend Euro again on beer and icecream.  I close my eye for a long time at the table. Bowls, buckets, boxes and crates filled with…

I cycle hard over the hills to Trencin, and the Pohoda music festical. Rose’s bottom bracket begins to grind, what little lubricant it had, washed out by the rain. At first I hate it here, at the festival, on this sprawling tent city, on an airport runway. The hoardes of people, the commercialism, the beer…