Photos & Videos

Our bikes weighed 16kg each, and we were carrying 13kg of bags each.

We felt good after the first day's ride, and after Castellon took a detour to find some Sombras and another for a wedding party mascleta road closure,

Woke up to a flat tyre on Kat's back wheel, maybe a thorn or something tiny punctured it yesterday. She continued to have problems with a bumpy tyre so we planned to replace them in Vinaròs.

We started at a bike shop in Vinaròs, where Kat got two new anti-puncture tyres and two new anti-puncture inner tubes. The guy in the shop said he'd be surprised if she got another flat before we reached Turkey.

From Tarragona the EV8 took some weird turns, so we stayed on our old friend the N340 for 30km. We passed our first UNESCO world heritage site of the trip, a first century Roman arch.

Our first working day; on future days we always booked apartments for rest days to have enough space.

We changed our plans of cycling along the coast to head up to Girona via the N2 highway and a couple of big (for us) hills. We had lunch under a flowering wisteria archway in a lovely park while we waited to check in.

The ride was 66km of beautiful rolling landscapes, with the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees in the background. A deer dashed into the road in front of Mat, too close to brake - luckily it crossed his path and disappeared into a field.

We visited the cathedral, saw the remnants of the city walls and went up to the fort.

We had camembert, baguette and salad for lunch. The mosquitos were absolutely enormous here. We passed wetlands full of birds (lots of flamingos), then sand dunes for many kms, which was beautiful but a bit tedious after a while.

After lunch our traffic free route turned into a building site for the last few km as they were relaying the path. A convoy of at least 10 huge trucks carrying gravel passed us on the narrow tow path. We met Soren, a US bikepacker heading in our direction and joined up for the last few kms to Arles.

It was a chilly start but mostly downhill through rolling vineyards and meadows. We cycled to Fréjus and caught a train to Cannes. To cycle would have been 500m ascent over 30km.

There's a cute old part of town with a little castle and chapel on top, and narrow cobbles streets.

As soon as we crossed the Italian border we discovered the tunnel we were planning to take was closed, so the only option was up another big hill and through a slightly scary tunnel.

Kat rested while Mat went to get a plug adaptor for Italy, then we explored the old town of Saluzzo.

The cycle route followed a straight driveway for several km leading to a massive Savoy-era hunting lodge.

Our route took us back through 17th century Piazza San Carlo.

Our apartment is in a converted garage building with the bedroom on a mezzanine. The bicycles were tucked behind the TV.

Casale Monferrato is a nice town with typical Lombard brick fortress and cathedral, which was surprisingly impressive inside.

The cathedral with the remains of the tower that collapsed in 1989, inspiring work to safeguard the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Cremona is the home of Stradivarius, there are lots of violin shops and sculptures dotted around the place, as well as a violin museum (sadly closed by the time we got here).

Even more impressive was all the free food and drink in our apartment! Unfortunately our clothes got trapped in the washing machine but the lovely owner came along at 11pm with his mother to free them. It turned out the machine stole a pair of Mat's pants and left holes in a couple of our clothes but we have so few we were glad to get them back.

The final 15km was along a poplar-lined cycle path into Ferrara. Huge clouds of poplar fluff covered the path and was blowing in the air. This was our longest ride of the trip, 103km in total.

We went out for drinks and then to a pizzeria. Kat mistakenly ordered a pizza with anchovies but they replaced it for no extra charge.

Padua is beautiful and wonderful to wander around, we were glad to have a sunny afternoon here.

The city is full of little alleys and canals (much too small for boats). There were fish in the water.

A few hours later we ran into an enormous thunderstorm and had to take shelter under an abandoned house. Our hotel has an amazing 70s character, very accidentally Wes Anderson.

After we finally checked into our apartment there were blue skies but it was not warm. First port of call was to drop Mat's bike off for new tyres, then we walked up to the cathedral, down to the water's edge and around very grand streets.

Today was our one sunny and not windy day and we watched the sunset from the quay. Out to sea, we could see a mega yacht - it's a Russian owned sailing yacht called just 'A' which has been impounded by the Italians since 2022 and now sits empty on the horizon.

It was torrential all day and neither of us wanted to go outdoors. Our bikes were serviced by the lovely Koala Bikes, with new brakes, rear cassettes and new chains.

Pula is gorgeous with lots of ancient ruins including the biggest complete Roman amphitheatre in the world. They still use it for concerts and we were surprised at the famous people performing this summer: Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, David Byrne and even Ricky Martin! Big names for a relatively small city and venue.

From there we had an amazing coastal ride looking across to islands and around the coast to Rijeka. Istria overall is has been a real highlight of the trip and today in particular was perhaps the best of all.

In the evening we went to the cinema to see the Guy Ritchie film The Grey Zone. It turned out to be a lovely plush old style cinema with a balcony.

We finished our sightseeing with another tunnel/air-raid shelter which popped us out at a different location in the city.

We got the ferry terminal just as a different ship was loading, the bar was chaos as everyone rushed off to their cars all at once. Some forgot to pay and got chased after. Over the next 4 hours we saw loads of ferries coming and going, until ours. The journey was 80 minutes. We met three lovely cyclists on the boat, all Germans. Two guys were camping/using the warm showers website and planned to take a ferry to Pag which we didn't think existed (and it turned out we were right). The woman only started cycle touring since she retired but has been all over the world.

We cycled back to the mainland over a very high bride which is sometimes dangerous due to high winds but was fine for us.

We finally arrived at the coast and Split where we'll be for the next few nights. The apartment has a lovely little garden.

In the evening we played a really fun Diocletian-themed escape room and got out with mere seconds to spare.

Split is a beautiful city to wander around, they've built in and around the Roman palace making it maze-like with unexpected architectural features. This is Republic square.

One of the things that really stands out about Split is the Torcida graffiti absolutely everywhere. Torcida Hajduk is the Split football team's supporters club, and the entire city is blanketed in their red and blue palette. Torcida is Europe's oldest supporters club, formed in 1950, and this number is written over every public surface. Their coverage is quite impressive.

This was our last rest day in Split. In the afternoon we went up the bell tower and took in the amazing views over the city, and went on a walking tour.

Mat doesn't feel comfortable cycling tomorrow so we hired a car for four days to drive to Dubrovnik veryyy slowlyyy instead. After breakfast we hopped in an Uber and went to the airport to collect the car, drove back to Split, dismantled our bikes and stowed them in the back of the car.

It was another car day so we decided to go up into the Biokovo natural park and explore. We couldn't have cycled up there, so it felt like we were making good use of the car.

We didn't get to use our ferry tickets, instead we took the exciting Pelješac Bridge which was only finished in 2022. There's a tiny sliver of Bosnia Herzegovina which separates Dubrovnik from the rest of Croatia; before the bridge you had to take the ferry or cross the border to travel between the two.

It was Corpus Cristi public holiday and as we left our apartment this morning there was a big procession through the town, headed by a priest. At least it was sunny for the parade.

In the evening we went into Dubrovnik old city. We came here in 2014 and it feels like a real achievement to make it here again on bicycles!

Today was Mat's birthday, woohoo! 🥳 Kat bought him a box of cherry liqueur chocolates which he tried to not eat immediately.

We finished our last day in Dubrovnik with a visit to a photo exhibition about the 1990s Homeland war and reportage from other conflicts.

We're back on the bikes! It was a gap of almost two weeks after Mat had minor surgery before he was healed and ready to continue. Our host in Dubrovnik took a photo of us smiling outside their house, and then we set off. It was a pretty grueling 8km climb out of Dubrovnik, along a busy road to the airport, but after that it opened out into a wonderful green, quiet, valley.

We came to Kotor in 2014 on a day trip from Dubrovnik, and Mat absolutely fell in love with Kotor Bay then: the dramatic mountains, the little coastal towns, the beautiful water. He always wanted to come back and on this trip we have!

The mountains are so high that the sun arrives and leaves very dramatically over the town.

It was a flat start, as far as Tivat where we had a tour on board an old Yugoslav submarine, and then the road got a lot busier and a lot less fun.

In Bar there was a huge orthodox church with domes covered in gold. From there it was a long, slow climb up a hill, 10km of roadworks along the plateau at the top, and then a beautiful 5km downhill on newly-surfaced roads. We passed several mosques and a few Muslim cemeteries.

Shkodër is Albania's 4th biggest city, located on the confluence of rivers and a huge lake. It's fairly low rise, mostly two storey buildings, with several pedestrianised areas and a large park surrounded by cafes and bars.

It was quiet in Shkodër on the way out, and had a real SE Asia vibe - no road markings, lots of mopeds, people cooking on wood fires, loads of rubbish everywhere. Drivers were very calm, especially once we got out into the countryside. Passed two horse and carts. It was pretty: fields full of crops, mountains in the distance, small towns of people hanging out and everyone smiling. We really liked it here.

Breakfast was included in our farmstay and consisted of a plate of salad cheese and olives, fruit and a pile of petulla - freshly made fried doughballs and fig jam. They persuaded us to take a free bottle of wine from their own vineyard.

We hired a car to head up into the mountains in search of more Sombras. There are two stripes of them across the country and we tracked one of these routes to find all 10 marked on the map.

In the evening went across town to pick up Mat's new t-shirt! He created a flag of all the countries that we're passing through. It seemed safe to get it printed at this point. He was more excited about just having a new item of clothing after nine weeks of wearing the same three t-shirts!

The crucial part of the journey was a 6km tunnel forbidden to bikes, which would have been an entire mountainous day to detour on a bike. He dropped us off the other side, and we cycled a very hilly 40km to our destination.

The rest of the morning was brutal hills and encouraging toots from passing cars. We rested in the welcome shade of a sycamore for lunch and a break.

It was a hilly 25km to the border. We got in line like nice polite Brits, but a Greek guy on a moped gestured to us to follow him. He took us round to the other side of the Albanian customs booth and showed us to hand our passports to the border guard, interrupting the car line. He told the guard we were cyclists and we were ushered through.

The apartment has no mugs, only tiny espresso cups, so Kat is having to improvise for tea with the standard Greek coffee pot.

We'd finished 5L of water by 13:30 and had to stop to buy more. It was a beautiful day's ride, very quiet roads, so much greenery, flowers, insects and joy. A friendly dog with a manky foot escorted us through a village for ten minutes. We're really enjoying Greece.

The Preveza tunnel passes under the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, a very beautiful but lengthy detour. Bikes aren't allowed in the tunnel but the internet told us that if we turned up at the control center they would shuttle us to the other side - which they did! A very friendly guy loaded us into an emergency vehicle and regaled us with stories about a drunk, naked man who was recently found strolling through the tunnel at 3am.

At a viewpoint just before the descent into Astakos, we met a motorbiker who was travelling in the other direction. We took photos for each other.

In the evening we went to a restaurant to celebrate our 27th anniversary and had a wonderful meal of zucchini balls, peppers stuffed with spicy feta, aubergine and cheese roast for Kat, slow-cooked lamb and chips for Mat then melon to finish.

The ferry was free for bicycles and people! There's an impressive bridge (cyclists not allowed for windy reasons) but it's cheaper for cars and lorries to take the ferry so our crossing was full.

We got chased by a couple of dogs on a country road. One was sleeping under a car and woke up as Mat rode past and started crawling out as Kat went past. A couple of houses along, another dog ran out and ducked in front of Mat, forcing him to brake. Shortly after Mat hit the bonk so we stopped at a cafe.

We bumped into another cycling couple from the UK at the start of the day, Jack and Niamh, who had cycled from London. Several times we passed each other while taking breaks. We had a picnic lunch on the beach - pittas with cheese, tomato and humus. Salads won't survive the heat anymore.

We got our first view of the Acropolis at sunset from the top of a hill behind our apartment, Philopappos Hill.

The second part of the tour was the Acropolis museum which opened in 2009 and really made the visit. It contains many day-to-day artefacts from the settlement around the Acropolis and statues and carvings from the temples, some of which have been preserved and restored. The original marble would have been pure white and sculptures and carvings were painted in many colours. The top floor of the museum contains the interior and exterior friezes and pediment carvings spaced and arranged exactly as they are in the actual temple. The carvings are a mixture of originals and replicas, made either to replace the ones pinched by Lord Elgin or destroyed by the 1687 explosion which happened during a war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

In the afternoon we went for a walk in the National Garden which had a small pond with an unfeasible number turtles in.

Down by the port we found an Indian restaurant for lunch, hurray! The Piraeus archaeological museum allowed us to kill some more time, then we hung around in a park. We picked up some sandwiches and headed to the port.

As dawn broke around 6am, we contemplated our options given that our apartment wouldn't be available until 3pm. In the end we went to a small shop, bought tea and coffee plus a couple of yoghurts so we could have our standard muesli (second) breakfast.

They drove up to a site 20 minutes north of Chios town, by a tiny church on the water's edge, the chapel of Saint Isidore of Sykiada.

Next we went to Anavatos, an uninhabited village built with rock that camouflaged it from a distance. We had mastica drinks (bit weird) and greek honey donuts (delish) called loukoumades.

We went for a delicious restaurant meal Restaurant meal in the evening where we (eventually) had a beetroot and yogurt dish, a fava bean dish like dahl, fried mushrooms and an eggs ranchero style dish.

We followed the longer, more scenic EV8 route along the coast which was quiet, with good roads and polite drivers. All day, every five or ten minutes, someone would wave and beep, it was like being superstars! While we were slogging up a hill, a car slowed down and asked Kat in English if there was anything she needed.

Izmir is huge, the third largest city in Turkey, but the entry through the park then along a seaside cycle path was idyllic. The EV8 carries on up the coast but we said goodbye to it and headed to our apartment.

Bandirma is a bustling passenger ferry port with a huge bus station and festive nightlife. We stayed in a hotel right across from the ferry port.

From the ferry port to the hotel was under 2km, but Kat still managed to get a puncture! (In the indestructible inner tubes we bought in Spain). We stopped to change the inner tube and a station worker (we were next to a railway) immediately got involved and tried to take over. He didn't seem to know exactly what to do, which didn't dampen his enthusiasm. Mat carefully made sure it was all ok but happily let him pump the tyre up.

Our friend Nicholas from Valencia arrived and we wen to Food Street for a celebratory reunion.

We used our travel cards to catch a ferry across the Bosphorus to Kadıköy and then up to the Grand Çamlıca Mosque, Turkey's biggest mosque which was completed in 2019. It can hold up to 63,000 worshippers (and up to 100,000 in case of an earthquake or tsunami).

UK friends Karen, Rob and Debbie landed and arrived in time for supper in a back street.

We took a sunset cruise on the Bosphorus again, this time passing the Büyük Mecidiye Mosque on the waters edge, upmarket neighbourhoods on the west side and then crossing over to pass the older, more traditional wooden buildings on the east side.

In the evening we visited the Hagia Sophia, which was incredible even in its current state under renovation, followed by cocktails then to a fancy restaurant with an incredible view. Istanbul is all about the rooftop views!

We walked back through Karakoy, past the illuminated Galata Tower.

We saw more colourful houses in the neighbourhood. Shutterboard and bay windows are common features in houses.

He even made little cardboard and tape handles so we could carry both boxes between us. He'd clearly done this many times before.

After an uneventful flight, we made it back to Spain. It took us 100 days to get to Istanbul, but just an afternoon to come home again. Wow.

We had a farewell brunch with friends at 11:00 at our favourite cafe, the Ola Fresca. Helen had made a start line and decorated the table 🥰

There's a beautiful off road coastal section through cuttings and a long, cool tunnel between Benicassim and Oropesa. We had already switched to Komoot for navigation.

A lovely 15km ride through the Sierra de Irta. There were a few drops of rain, and the sea was rough, but it was very pretty. A climb up switch backs to a tower just before leaving the park got us using ALL the gears, our first proper hill training.

We entered Catalonia and rode 40km against very strong headwinds, all the way to Amposta.

Most days our lunch was a lunchbox full of salad, either prepared in the morning or from a supermarket on the road.

We visited the Cau Ferrat museum, the home of artist and writer Santiago Rusiñol, one of the most important figures of Modernisme in Catalonia.

Of course, we found a Sombra in Barcelona - and it was a trophy one!

We explored the narrow medieval streets and famous houses along the river.

We stopped at Figueres, birthplace and resting place of Salvador Dalí. After lunch in a shady square, we toured the museum which is also his tomb he's buried in the crypt at the bottom).

The road to Perpignan was extremely straight and heavy with traffic but we arrives in good time for lunch and a lie down in a park.

We are staying in a beautiful little apartment in the centre of Perpignan. Loving the French supermarket selections! We had a pasta supper with a mini bottle of red wine to celebrate.

We arrived in Narbonne for lunch, then rode on to the beautiful city of Beziers.

We waited for a lifting bridge to undergo maintenance, then rode along a narrow strip of land which was chilly with constant headwind. Our hotel has a sea view and the slowest lift in the world - 67 seconds to go up 4 floors, over 2 minutes to go down!

We all went for a wander around beautiful Arles. Van Gogh lived here for a year and painted 300 pictures in that time. There's also a Roman amphitheatre which we had supper next to.

There was a long, gentle climb all the way up to Éguilles then downhill all the way into Aix En Provence. We had a beautiful apartment that felt a bit like a cave, with a courtyard garden.

We stayed in a chambre d'hote above the village which had a swimming pool (a bit fresh, 20C). We walked down to the village which was having a wine tasting festival.

Our cycle buddy from Arles, Soren, was in Cannes too. We cooked a veggie chilli dinner for him. Turns out he was in Palavas-les-flots the same night we were, and night before was at the same hotel in Béziers!

From Cannes the first 30km into Nice was flat coastal riding. We stopped at Nice (another UNESCO site ticked off) then it was a hard climb up and pretty winding coastal roads into Monaco.

We took a 2 hour train up into the Alps, climbing up past pretty mountain villages and icy blue rivers, followed by a 60km ride downhill nearly all the way!

It was a cold, grey, wet day so we wore long trousers, a raincoat and shoes - not what we were expecting to wear at this point in the trip. We met our new bike buddy Line and cycled along an old railway track.

It's Labour Day and when we walked through the park to a view point, everyone was out enjoying the sunshine.

We did a bit of shopping during the day (Mat bought some more hoodies) and sampled some more pastries - lemon cream filled coda d'aragosta (lobster tails).

It was super quiet on the road with not a lot of towns or places to stop. The second half was super flat, mainly through rice paddies.

The ride today was very flat and not very interesting. There were more flooded fields full of birds.

It was a bit wet and grey, very flat and not particularly interesting. The road was busy with heavy freight traffic; we passed lots of logistics centres and light industry. We took a completely traffic-free cycle path along a levee all the way into Cremona but it started raining and Mat hit the bonk.

This was a tough day. Really busy roads, heavy rain and strong headwinds. We changed our route because were so many heavy trucks but the alternative was gravel tracks. We rode past a railway station but the next train was in two hours.

We had a rest day in Ferrara, which is a UNESCO site. The architecture is typical Lombardy brick. It's also as the City of Bicycles as it's flat and largely traffic free.

Mat visited a doctor in Ferrara for his cyst, who recommended some time off the bik, so we took the train to Padua. It was super busy, barely room for us let alone our bikes.

We rode 50km pretty much in one go without stopping, so we had plenty of time for sightseeing in Treviso. It's very pretty, like a small version of Venice.

It was supposed to be very wet and rainy all day, but by 11:00 we'd only had a few spots so we're very happy. It was a gentle flat ride through small towns and alongside canals on quiet roads. We took lots of bike paths today.

It was torrential when we woke and didn't let up. Instead of a miserable 75km ride to Trieste we took the train. Thank you Trenitalia for such a great service and having so many bike spaces on your trains. If you could also install lifts in your stations so we don't have to carry our heavy bicycles up and down stairs, that would be even more awesome.

We took a few days off in Trieste, partly to do some sightseeing, and partly to avoid cycling through a big storm that's coming through this part of Europe.

We had to swap apartments for our extra 2 days and decided to risk leaving our bikes on the street rathe than in bike storage between check out and check in. Happily they were still there when we came to pick them up.

Ready for the next part of our adventure, into Slovenia and then Croatia!

With zero fuss we passed through into Croatia, our third country of the day! It started with a very long uphill then about 20km to Novigrad, a pretty little seaside town. First impressions of Croatia: very tidy, quiet roads (so far) and friendly people.

We also visited the fort which has a lift that takes you down to 2 levels of tunnels. The lower level tunnels are 700m long under the city and were built between the World Wars. In the evening we went to see the Lighting Giants - huge cranes in the docks lit up in different colours.

After a long downhill to a river valley we had a long, hot slog back up to the top of the hill. Our host met us at the gate with a welcome glass of ice tea.

During our lunch we had a stunning view and were completely covered in chafer beetles (they seemed particularly attracted to Mat's hair). We met a German couple who had cycled the same road when it was part of Yugoslavia; they had a drone and the guy took some footage and showed us the even more amazing bird's eye view.

We climbed up the 500+ steps of the Petar Kružić Stairway to visit Trsat castle, as recommended by our apartment host.

Looking down at a Bakar town from the bay we cycled around.

We started off on the island of Rab, which is peaceful and pretty, then got a ferry back onto the mainland. The next section was very hilly, but a joy to see the islands rolling by on one side and a steep mountain on the other.

The first 10km were quite hard work, a lot of very steep and deep gravel paths and we both nearly fell off a few times, but it was very beautiful cycling along the water. Several sheep huddling in the shade. From there we passed through Pag town and stopped for a drink, then along the edge of the sea salt pans down the length of Pag.

We hopped on the ferry for a short crossing to the island of Ugljian, and then rode down the length of the island to the ferry terminal at the other end. The island was really cute, very quiet and pretty.

Today was our last day of riding before a longer break in Split. It was already 28C when we set off at 9am so we packed extra water and snacks for the climb. It was hard, hilly and hot with only a handful of houses, no shops or bars. We saw lots of lizards and snakes, and rode through a beautiful almost deserted valley.

We were in Split for a few days to catch up on work, explore the beautiful old city and have a rest! We were both quite exhausted from the heat of the last few days. We had a lovely little apartment with a cute garden.

Today was another rest/work day. Mat woke up in a bit of pain from the cyst operation yesterday and didn't really get a lot done. In the afternoon, we went out for a slow walk in the city. We went to the cellars of Diocletian's palace, which are an enormous series of underground rooms that were completely filled in with rubble until the 1960s when archeologists excavated them. The scale of the palace is really impressive.

Mat had a follow-up appointment for the surgery he had on Wednesday - the doctor was very positive about the healing. We celebrated with a bottle of Mat's favourite, Lambrusco amabile.

Up in the bell tower overlooking Split.

To celebrate having an engine, we spent the day going up lots of hills that we'd never ride up. The first place was Klis fortress, with stunning views over Split.

It was a beautiful experience, they have a glass skywalk at 1,000m above sea level.

We reached Mali Ston, our destination. Ston and Mali Ston are two tiny towns joined by an enormous fortified wall which you can walk along.

It was a short drive from Mali Ston to Dubrovnik in the morning, and once we arrived we reconstructed the bicycles ready for more cycling on Monday. When we visited in 2014 we stayed very close to where the cruise ships moored; this time we could see them from the other side of the water.

Dubrovnik old town harbour - the water was crystal clear despite all the boats coming and going. There were a couple of pseudo galleons taking tourists around the coast and some very fancy exclusive yachts nearby.

To celebrate we went scuba diving. It was wonderful, just the two of us and a super friendly, kind instructor, Maro. The water was calm, warm and clear, we saw so much wildlife - maybe a dozen different species of fish, starfish, urchins and lots of other things we couldn't even name.

Followed by a trip up in the cable car for a view over the city and a walk back down the hill. Kat was still a bit woozy from the scuba dive so we took it slowly.

We stopped for lunch #1 on a patch of shady grass next to a cool river. Croatia has been so good to us, and we were sad to say goodbye, but excited to cross another border and into a new country!

It was quite hard work at first, some very busy stretches, sharing the road with a lot of trucks and buses. But once we got past the ferry that crosses the mouth of the bay, it got a lot quieter and more intimate.

We visited a really quirk cat museum (thanks Mackie!) and a beautiful old church, before picking up lunch ingredients and coming home for a work call.

We stopped in a pretty park in Budva for a break from the traffic and the sun. Everywhere you go in Montenegro there's a gigantic limestone mountain looming in the background.

Another 10km took us to the border, a bright purple building covered in flowers, where we had our first interaction with an Albanian person. We were in line with all the cars, and the guy in front of us called me over and told us to just walk our bikes to the front of the queue. We did that and saved ourselves at least half an hour of hot sunny waiting.

All in all it's very chilled and super friendly. There's a bazaar selling all sorts, including amazing fresh fruit and veg. Supermarkets are better stocked than Montenegro and Croatia and everything is a fraction of the cost.

Along the road we met a lovely Dutch cycling couple in their 60s who were going the other direction. They'd come from Istanbul and we're heading back home. We swapped notes and took a photo together.

Our ride started through beautiful rural landscapes before getting a bit busier. There were funny moment: Mat pulled around a parked car and the driver said "alright?" in perfect Estuary English, he almost fell off his bike laughing. There was traffic chaos going around Tirana airport, then it was quiet again on back roads into the centre.

We went out for a bike ride in the chaotic traffic to find a bike shop and cycle round the delightful park in the south of the city. It's a few hundred hectares of wild forest surrounding a giant lake. In the evening we crossed Skanderbeg Square with its enormous I❤️t sign.

Our accommodation was a beautiful family run chalet near the beach. We went for a swim in the evening sunshine and then had dinner at their restaurant.

We stopped after half an hour down by a quiet beach for lunch. The rest of the ride was pretty and flat, riding mainly through groves of lemon trees.

We went for a stroll along the coast again, had a snack and then returned home for another lovely home-cooked meal. We're finally back to omelettes as eggs are a) available in half dozens and are b) EU grade free range. In fairness, we saw an awful lot of extremely free range chickens in Albania, but you never know.

We stayed near a beach in a quiet area that has just a handful of villas and restaurants surrounded by flowers and greenery. We had supper in a local taverna: moussaka and stuffed tomatoes.

We continued cycling around a military base and airfield, ignoring all the restricted area signs, and shortly afterwards completed our 3000th km!

We're staying in a tiny ferry port which connects to just one small island, Kastos. There are not a lot of people here. Our room for the night is in a hotel that feels like it was the height of fashion 50 years ago. The tiling, curtain fabrics and textured paintings are wild. It's huge and we seem to be the only people here. Everything in Greece is blue and white! Not only are there lots of Greek flags all over the place, but everything - fences, walls, door and window frames, tablecloths, furniture - is blue and white.

It was another long straight road along salt pans until our destination. The forecast was for thunderstorms this afternoon and we could see a big dark cloud with rain not far behind us, but we arrived just before the thunder.

Mat got to try out a wooden bicycle which was incredibly heavy and uncomfortable - but looked cool!

There's a little fort and lighthouse on one side of the channel and another little fort on the other side. After being blown about, we docked at Rio then rode a very windy, dusty 5km to our apartment. Overall it was a short day and we arrived in time to have lunch.

While having a drink in a cafe we saw Line ride past! (We hadn't seen her since Turin, two months ago.) We shouted out but she didn't hear us. Five minutes later we saw her and her friends coming out of a store. It was a joyous reunion! She was with her girlfriend Éva, who'd just joined her on the trip, and a British guy they met last night, Sam, who cycled here from Bristol. We caught up, rode with them for a while and then agreed to meet again in Athens in a few days time.

Everywhere we've gone, the grafitti has been almost exclusively rival 7 and 13 tags, often one crossing out the other. Apparently these are football ultra tags - Gate 7 for Olympiacos and Gate 13 for Panathinaikos - but others say if there's a 13 you have to put a 7 on top to cancel the bad luck.

We stopped for lunch on a shady bench next to the water. Another 10km through pistachio groves took us to ferry hop across the after onto Salamina, and then another 15km to the ferry port. Or what we thought was the port, and actually turned out to be a tiny fishing village! Oops, another 5km to the actual port, and our second ferry of the day to Parama. From there it was a busy 15km ride into Athens city.

On the way down we stopped at Socrates prison (also a prison for other people, he was just the most famous).

In the evening we met up with Line, our cycle buddy that we met in Italy back in May, and her girlfriend.

We wandered back to our apartment via the shops, picking up some essential items: new drinking bottles for Mat and a bottle cage for Kat (it broke on our epic ride into Athens.) We also found a blue-and-white striped ribbon in the ribbon district of Athens to add to Mat's collection.

Adjacent to the park is the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It's really very tall.

The tickets said dock E2 and we followed E2 signs into the port but couldn't find our ship, Ariadni. Staff in a kids play centre said we were in the right place so we stayed and chatted with a nice Croatian guy called Mattia who was a foot passenger on our ferry. We were supposed to board at 7pm so by 7:20 with no sign of Ariadni we started to get worried. We asked around - no we weren't in the right place, the ship was at another dock. We dashed round, made it on board and stowed our bikes then found our cabin. We saw Mattia who'd luckily made it too. We had a 4 berth cabin all to ourselves, luxury!

Still with plenty of time to kill we decided to ride down the coast and see some of the sights along the way: old windmills and a restored Ottoman bathhouse. There was a really strong headwind on the way out but a lovely tailwind on our return. We could see Turkey across the water; it's under 20km to Cesme.

They spent half an hour on the bottom practising buoyancy, then went to explore the sea. They saw an octopus, sea urchins, anemones, a broken 500-year-old amphora and so many fish.

After that we went to a beach that had a holy shrine, and had lunch in the shaded patio of a beautiful church.

We got the 08:00 ferry to Cesme in Turkey this morning, waving goodbye to lovely Chios. After Montenegro we were prepared for non EU phone charges and had data roaming turned off for our Spanish mobiles. We had bought Turkish SIMs which didn't seem to work initially, but we stopped at a cafe to use their WiFi, downloaded the route and map then rode out of Cesme along the coastal road.

We set off through rural back streets, got chased by a couple of dogs but they couldn't be bothered to run very much. We then joined a highway along the coast which was busier but a good size. Saw a couple of touring cyclists going the opposite direction and a pack of road cyclists. Mid morning we stopped for a coffee and snack - Mat's waffle turned out to be more than he bargained for but he managed with a little help from Kat.

We spent a long time trying to figure out how to cross the 300km between Izmir and Bandirma. It's a hot, mountainous region with very few towns, so we didn't think we could cycle it. There are trains and buses, but they don't allow bicycles. In the end we hired a 16-seat minibus with leather seats and a driver.

Right up until boarding we weren't convinced we would be able to get on the ferry with our bikes but of course it was fine. There were no other bikes (limit of 3 per ferry) and nobody batted an eyelid.

We went to Suleymaniye Mosque. It was a beautiful building and a great experience. A volunteer called Rana gave us an English quran with our names written in Arabic inside and answered our questions.

This morning we all did a tour of the Topkapı Palace, where the Ottoman sultans lived, which included a 6th century Christian church, the oldest any of us has ever been in.

We visited the Basilica Cistern, a huge Byzantine underground reservoir made with cobbled together Roman pillars. It's beautiful and atmospheric.

Cats, cats, cats.

Our friends stayed at the same hotel so after breakfast together we headed to the Blue Mosque again and then up to the ferry to cross to Asia once more

Kat's 50th birthday! She went with Debbie, Karen and Rob to Sulimaniye Mosque then for a delicious street food lunch.

After a bit of browsing and souvenir purchasing, then card playing, we waved off all our friends today from the Empress Zoe Hotel.

We visited Kariye mosque, an old former Eastern Orthodox church like the Hagia Sophia, with 12th century mosaics and 14th century paintings.

During our last full day in Istanbul, a lovely guy called Murat came to pack up our bikes in an incredibly efficient and professional manner.

We made it home! Sad, grateful, excited, exhausted, sticky, loved, sweaty, hopeful relieved, proud. All at the same time. The photo of us at the start line back in April felt like a hundred years ago, we've had such an adventure!

We rode through the huerta out of Valencia (where we found a Sombra) then orange groves all the way to Chilches, where they were preparing for a Corrida.

We had a picnic on the beach for lunch.

As rode into Peñíscola the rain got heavier, and we hid in a restaurant for pizza and hot chocolate, waiting for it to end. It got a bit lighter so we continued to Vinaròs where the apartment thankfully had gas heaters to dry our clothes.

The final route to Sitges was nice, along beach paths, small roads and a nature reserve.

In the afternoon we went on a bus ride to find some Sombras, and then in the early evening we took a walk up to a beautiful mirador to find another one!

We saw our first copyu on the river banks.

La Jonquera, like most border towns we've visited, is strange. It's a weird mix of supermarkets, bars, sex toy shops and casinos. The AC in the hotel was broken so we had to have the window open all night, with noisy traffic outside.

After finishing work tasks, we had a walk around the city - it's pretty but a lot of the attractions were closed on a Monday. There's a surprising amount of Catalan language here, it's a very strong identity here.

At Lecaute we hopped on a train for one stop to avoid a poorly maintained section of the bike path, and then rode another 20km to Narbonne. Despite the train being recommended for this stretch, we still had to carry our bikes over the footbridge at both stations.

From Béziers we followed our final stretch of the canal du midi.

Almost all bike lanes through pretty, modern coastal developments and a huge salt works until we reached Aigues Mortes - a beautiful town planned and built in the 13th century where we walked around the ramparts.

We left beautiful Arles along a long, shady tree-lined boulevard in dappled shade, heading east. After 10km we stopped for the worst espresso of the trip so far.

We left Aix en Provence and passed through small towns on leafy country roads. It was steady traffic for a while then became much quieter as we skirted through a natural park with hardly any vehicles and just forest and meadows on either side.

We passed the Rock of Roquebrune with a trail of hikers going up to the peak.

We had a much-needed day off, caught up on work and wandered around Cannes. There was a series festival going on with a pink carpet on the famous steps.

We met a Line on the train, she's cycling from France to Greece. We spent the day cycling together and had lunch in a park.

We stopped for a much needed hot drink in Scalenghe, and then lunch 1 in Volvera, by which time it had stopped raining.

We walked around the city, had some Italian pastries and visited the Palatine Gate.

In the evening we visited the incredible Egyptian museum.

There were several cement works and even some monuments. They're very proud of their cement heritage in this area.

Pavia covered bridge was originally 14th century but was heavily damaged by Allied action in 1945 and partially collapsed, so they rebuilt it in 1949.

We bumped into 2 touring cyclists - Quentin and Peter set off from Brittany about the same time we left Valencia, but they're definitely more hardcore than us. They're camping, they cycled over the Alps, and they're heading for Vietnam!

Mantua was very impressive with a huge cathedral, enormous fort and many old buildings.

Lunch was a pretty little town called Carbonara de Po. Kat did some field coding.

Mat spent most of the afternoon in the cemetery looking for the grave of a friend's fatherhere. He eventually found it after a long search with the help of a super helpful cemetery worker called David

Luckily we managed to get around the city before the rain arrived.

We stopped for lunch on a park bench at a small town called Torre di Mosto. I had a 45 minute call with Maddie, and when it ended I realised I had a flat tyre! We found a tiny fragment of sharp metal embedded in the tyre.

We arrived in Trieste after about an hour, it was still raining and quite chilly. Nobody told us about the wind in Trieste! It's called La Bora and it's very much a feature of the city.

Trieste is a beautiful city with lots of impressive buildings, a serious cafe culture, and a lot of yellow cars. It has Europe's largest square located next to the sea!

Quite a wet day so we hid out in a cafe in the morning and then visited the museum of antiquities. Lovely.

After 4 days off the bikes we're finally back on the road and after 10 km we crossed into Slovenia in what must be the least impressive border crossing ever, a small sign completely covered in stickers.

It was sunny and warm, what a treat to be able to wear shorts and sandals again after all the rain. Leaving Novigrad quite spectacular with a causeway across the estuary then a steep climb. We passed through small villages and farmland in glorious sunshine.

We stopped for coffee and snacks in a tiny village called Valtura, with a bench outside the only store, and the oldest, dirtiest cat we'd seen in a long time.

We took a few days off in Rijeka to catch up on work, enjoy the sunshine and explore the city. There was a fruit and vegetable market right outside our apartment, and we were a little concerned that they would start early, but actually it didn't get going until 10:00 which seems very reasonable.

We also visited the amazing Peek&Poke computer museum run by volunteers which has an incredible collection and many playable consoles.

We crossed an impressive bridge onto Krk, then stopped in a shady churchyard for lunch. It was a beautiful day. There was a bit of traffic on the island, but it's all pretty laid back, and we took backroads for some of the journey.

We hopped back on a ferry to the island of Pag and met the 2 German cyclists again who hadn't been allowed on the ferry we thought was passengers only.

It's hot, dry and very windy here. All our rest stops are in bus shelters with surprisingly comfortable seating.

Once we got back on the mainland it was quite a long, hard ride in the heat, and we were glad to get into Sibenik. Just before we arrived, a buzzy thing got into Mat's t-shirt and stung him a bunch of times!

Our apartment had an overwhelming amount of decoration with bricolage on every surface and object, a shelf with at least 20 different flavour shower gels and the same number of herbal teas.

We then visited Froggyland, a collection of 507 taxidermy frogs, in a similar vein to Mr Potter's animals. This was an incredible collection of Victorian taxidermy, portraying a wide variety of bizarre scenes entirely with frogs.

The Riva is the sea front promenade, lots of people go there in the evening to watch the sunset. When we visited we thought there were nasty overflows into the water but it turns out they are from the sulphurous springs under the palace.

It was a public holiday so we headed to the city beach at Split for some medicinal bathing as recommended for Mat by his doctor. The public holiday is Statehood Day and there were several flags flown from balconies and fireworks in the evening. It's pretty chilled, most people just have picnics and barbecues apparently.

We spent a long time figuring out our next steps. In the evening we had pizza in a restaurant. Nice but surprisingly expensive.

Next we headed up into the mountains to an incredible cave, where we got a private tour from the 70-year-old grandson of the man who discovered the cave in 1903. Then we toured up high through the deserted green mountains and down through a switchback to the coast.

Further into the park we saw lots of wild horses and ended up having lunch at a picnic spot 1,300m up, in a quiet little place that also did tea and coffee.

This plus the castle in Ston are to protect the saltworks (the oldest active ones in Europe). It's in the UNESCO queue. We managed to walk the walls before the rain arrived.

Our apartment in Dubrovnik was lovely, three floors up with a beautiful view over the city. The owners were a very kind older couple whose son seemed to have been killed in the Homeland War (there was a mural of someone with the same name as the father at the bottom of the street). As every single shop was shut they gave us some oil so we could cook supper.

At lunchtime we had taken our bikes out for a check ride. It was a particularly joyful ride for Mat, first time in a month he was able to sit normally on the bike seat after his cyst surgery last Wednesday. The correct position relieved pressure on his wrists and gave him more power at the pedals.

In the evening we went for a walk up a local hill and saw two wild tortoises, then went for a celebratory cocktail followed by an Asian meal.

We said goodbye to the lizard with a bifurcated tail that lived on the steps in our apartment building.

Montenegro was a difficult start - our mobile provider charged us €60 EACH for 5MB of data as soon as we got over the border and then we ran into the maximum roaming fee, so it just cut us off from internet altogether. No data meant we couldn't find the accommodation, so Mat had to go into a mobile phone shop and buy two SIM cards so we could get the address and navigate to where we're staying.

From there it was a gorgeous 35km of wiggly little roads hugging the edges of the water round to Kotor itself, nestled deep in the folds of the bay. We cycled past the ferry that would have cut off the whole route and carried on around the bay.

We had a final wander around the old town walls before supper. Kotor is extremely busy in the morning when the buses arrive and a cruise ship pulls up, but later in the day it's much more peaceful.

The afternoon was hills, hills, hills all the way to our destination, and then a final three flights of stairs to get to the apartment.

Initially it was similar to Montenegro, but with a lot more mosques. As we were eating we could hear the call to prayer from multiple directions all at once.

Albania suddenly feels very different to all the other countries we've visited on this trip so far. There are lots of mosques (even though this area of Albania is mostly Catholic) and we hear calls to prayer throughout the day. Electric cables in the street are quite breathtaking and mildly terrifying.

We stayed in an agritourism farmstay. It was quite fancy, with a flock of chickens, another of turkeys, and 2 cute puppies that loved to gnaw on our shoes. They cooked the most amazing homemade supper and breakfast for us.

After some sightseeing we went out for a long walk in the afternoon: there's a Sombra shown in Tirana on the official map, but neither of us really believed it would be here. It was! Amazing! We were both a little giddy with excitement.

On the way back we stopped at Berat, a UNESCO world heritage site that had a pretty old white suspension bridge crossing the river.

We booked a private transfer to take us 200km south. Our super friendly driver, Erton/Donald, spent three hours patiently answering all our questions about Albania, laughing at the words we've learned - for sale, open, no parking - and telling us how half his family lives in the UK. Fully fifty percent of the Albanian population lives outside the country.

The hill out of Qazim Pali was extremely steep and rough gravel, we had to push our bikes. There were several more ascents and descents, including a couple that we added to pick up Sombras.

Just after we passed yet another UNESCO world heritage site, we had to unexpectedly use up the last of our Lek to pay for a tiny chain ferry which was cash only. Luckily we had just enough.

A rest day in our first destination in Greece, a small port town with ferry links to Corfu. It's a Sunday and nearly everything is closed, except the Archaeology museum which we visited this afternoon. Turns out there's a lot of ancient stuff in Greece.

Lunch was in a little wooden shelter next to a beautiful lake filled with lilies. There was an army of ants scouting for food, taking the scraps we dropped and dragging them back to their nest.

Beautiful rolling start to the day along the coast which is very undeveloped and natural, right up until the moment Kat got bitten by a horsefly. In rushing to get away the toe clip on one pedal came off and she got bitten again while we tried to fix it. We fled a kilometre up the road, stopped in the shade and Mat did some repairs. We got told off by an old lady for stopping in the road (there was zero traffic).

Today's ride was really peaceful, we were often the only people on the road. It was a gentle and rolling 30km to Mitikos, where we restocked at a supermarket and had lunch 1, and then another 30k through a wild, hilly landscape with no habitation.

Another day, another hill to wake us up. It was a very beautiful and winding route, fairly green but lots of thistles along the way. We got an encouraging toot and cheer from a truck on the way up. After the descent we passed through an agricultural area, with fields of kiwis, citrus and olives interspersed with tractor showrooms and sack merchants. It was totally straight and flat which in theory is ideal but can feel a bit joyless.

Our wedding day feels like it happened yesterday, and also like it was a lifetime ago, which is probably the truest thing you can say about 27 years. Thank you to everyone who was there to celebrate with us! We had a giant chocolate cake, a bouncy castle, and an unexpected visit from the fire brigade after the disco's dry ice machine got a little out of hand.

We started on a quiet road with just a few trucks that took us alongside the main highway. As we were congratulating ourselves on an easy ride, we rounded the final hill crest at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth and got hit by an incredibly strong headwind. We battled down the hill and then along to the ferry port at Antirrio, the wind making it very hard work all the way.

The wind died down considerably and we had a totally flat ride, mostly right next to the water. We cycled past a single line of houses opposite the coast with a few detours into tiny towns and through fields, but were mainly looking at the sea for the majority of the ride.

Our final day of cycling in Greece was the hardest and least beautiful. We crossed the impressive Corinth Canal as we left the city, followed a busy dual carriageway, then rode right through the middle of a gigantic oil refinery. The road there was closed for works, but we hauled our bikes around the closed section.

A rest day in Athens - we went shopping to buy some clothes to replace our cycling rags. In the evening we met up with some cycle buddies, Jack and Niamh. They're cycling to Australia, so this is still early days for them! It was really lovely to get to know them and swap bike stories.

We got up at 6:45am to make an 8am 3-hour Acropolis tour. Our excellent guide Angel walked us up to and around the Acropolis, past the Theatre of Dionysus which held up to 70,000 spectators, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus (a music concert venue still used to this day), the Propylaea ceremonial gateway and the three Athena temples: the Temple of Athena Nike (baby temple), Temple of Athena Polias and of course the Parthenon.

Today we visited the Agora (the ancient one, not the Roman one - there is another!) It's a huge site incorporating the Temple of Hephaestus and the Stoa of Attalos, a large covered walkway which has been reconstructed and now houses a museum.

There are some items which have been essentials on our cycle trip: 1. Food bag clips 2. Komoot 3. Mobile phone tripod 4. Our lunch boxes 5. Sunscreen

We had to check out of our apartment at 11:30 and the overnight ferry to Chios wasn't until 20:00, so we need to figure out how to stay out of the sun all day with our bikes and bags. First of all we cycled the 8km through the city to Piraeus.

We managed to get a bit of sleep on the boat but were woken at 3.30am for docking at 4am in Chios. There were a handful of cafes open; several other passengers were hanging around waiting for the 8am ferry to Cesme in Turkey, including our friend Mattia. We wandered around, ate the mini croissants the bakery on the mainland had gifted us, and found a bench where Mat took a little nap.

Mat booked a Scuba session with a lovely instructor called Kostas. He told him about his limited diving experience and how he wanted to go slowly.

Our last day in Greece was cool and cloudy, so Mat went for a run - he'd been carrying a pair of running shoes for the last few thousand kilometres and threatening to throw them away, but was secretly happy with the decision to bring them.

After passing several enormous military bases we followed a path along the coast and over a narrow land bridge that took us through a huge park into Izmir. We had a little celebration as we passed our 3500th km!

Last night we stayed in a hotel full of suites and the owner couldn't have been sweeter. He upgraded us to an even bigger suite and carried our bikes down to the basement for safe keeping. In the morning he gave us each a hand-made key ring!

We finally arrived at Yenkapi in the old town area of Istanbul, the final step in a very long journey.

We passed the Roman Aqueduct of Valens and had a real feast for lunch. After a bit of haggling to find vegetarian options we ended up with several dishes all of which were delicious. The whole meal and drinks (water, tea and Aryan, a salty yogurt drink with foam on top) came to 12 Euro.

The palace is beautiful, designed like a series of small pavilions surrounded by gardens, instead of one grand palace in the European style.

We headed to the Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque) which sits right across the road from the Hagia Sophia. It's old and beautiful - and free!

Balat and Fener have created tourist attractions by painting colourful things - houses, stairs, walls. Everyone was getting their Insta photos. We visited a couple of nice cafes then headed home.

We walked along the water's edge in Üsküdar then went to a cafe for lunch that had a great view across to the Dolmabahçe Palace and some fancy 5 star hotels. It's also fascinating watching all the oil tankers and container ships going up and down the Bosphorus Strait.

Back at the hotel they surprised Kat with cake which we ate in the garden.

In the evening we visited bustling Taksim Square.

It's much smaller but there are many more original decorations visible.

While he packed, he told us stories of his professional cycling career. He won something like 100 international races as the captain of the Turkish cycling team, 300 national races,he's been the President of the Turkish Cyclists' Association since 2008, and he was the Cycling Mayor of Istanbul from 2018 to 2021! Handy with a cardboard box and some packing tape too.

All packed up and waiting for our minibus transfer to the airport with our extremely well packed bicycles.