Diary
Details for the main places, and pictures, on the links below.
29 April 1999
- Bath to Dover
May 1999
- Ferry to Ostend. Bruges, Gent. Then collect our first namesake...
- Bath - the one in Holland. Up to...
- Delft. Follow the LF1 cycling coast route to first twin town:
- Alkmaar. Wonderful time. Spend a lovely lazy few days further north, on the island of Texel, and meet a man who has a Gibson Les Paul for a...
- Weathervane. Across into Germany for the second twin town:
- Braunschweig. A few days here, almost getting caught up in a cycle race, then East into the old East Germany to the...
- Mecklenburg Lake District. Down to...
June 1999
- Leipzig for some culture (German and British). A few days in Jena and Weimar before starting on the...
- Danube cycle path, going from Passau to...
- Vienna to spend some time, and huge amounts of money. Continue along the Danube to Bratislava, Budapest, and the third twin town:
- Kaposvar where our arrival prompted the council to exclaim, Who are you?, and the local newspaper editor to say, Have a drink!
July 1999
- Cakovec in Croatia. Top country, top people. Great time and saw lots of storks. Through Maribor in Slovenia, and pick up the...
- Drau cycle path in Austria. A gem of a cycle path that we think rivals the Danube for scenery and atmosphere. En route, visit...
- Spittal, a place with moving personal significance for Rob. Hurtle across Switzerland into France, picking up the Rhône at Lyon, taking a couple of days to canoe the astounding Ardèche gorge, another couple to cycle round the Camargue, before reaching the final European twin of...
- Aix for a free bath, some great food and drink, and the end of this part of the journey.
August 1999
- Bath-bagging in earnest begins with a visit to the beach village of...
- Bath, Barbados followed by the cosy Canadian villages of...
- Bath, New Brunswick and
- Bath, Ontario. Then came America in the shape of
- Bath, Michigan, famous for its Bath Tub Race, and then
- Bath, South Dakota which isn't frankly famous for anything.
- Bath, Illinois with lots of bars, and
- Bath, South Carolina with a Vets' Park; then the historic village of...
- Bath, North Carolina and the splendidly friendly spa town of...
September 1999
- Bath, West Virginia. Next was
- Bath, Ohio with its 1848 museum, then
- Bath, Pennsylvania and the Marrying Mayor, after which we went to
- Bath, New York, a simply great little town. On to
- Bath, Jamaica - rather different, as you can imagine - then to
- Bath, New Hampshire with its covered bridge,
- Bath, Maine where we had a day's kayaking courtesy of Seaspray Kayaking and want to live; and finally (for now)
October 1999
- Bath, St Kitts-Nevis in a sleepy and beautiful part of Caribbean. Then spent lots of time winding down, and winding people up, in...
- San Francisco, including cycling down Lombard St, the third crookedest street in the USA. Then flew across the International Date Line, losing a day, which at least meant that one date was back in budget, to...
November-December 1999
- New Zealand. So good that we stayed until December, getting into hot water (on a beach), bathing nude in forest hot springs, visiting an Art Deco 'Bath', skydiving and bungyjumping and tramping up volcanoes... the usual thing.
January-March 2000
- Er... still in New Zealand. So good I couldn't bring myself to leave, even though Rebecca was back in England, having left the trip. I went on lots of tramps, did some sailing, climbed some wet mountains, visited another 'Bath', enjoyed a cycling trip, panned for gold, and rode up the steepest street in the world... almost.
March-April 2000
- Manly, Sydney, Bath's twin in Australia, which I rode to from Manly, Brisbane, in a nicely symmetrical move. Koalas, dogs, kangaroos, but don't mention seagulls to the mayor of Manly. Water pistols, incredible shrinking bikes, and Rob controlling the world. It's all here in pictures. Finally it was on to Tokyo, where I cycled from there to...
- Beppu, Japan, Bath's final partner. Hot springs, cold showers, mountain hot pools, being buried up to the neck in sand, lots of fishy food, great hospitality, and a Sex Museum. A museum? That's where I should be...
June-July 2000
- Bath, Scotland, was the last Bath on the trip. It has a castle, but a special sort of castle, with no moat, drawbridge, keep, motte, bailey, dungeon, towers, or anything like that. In fact, to be perfectly frank, it's a cottage.
- Spa, Belgium, is the original Spa resort, after which everything was named, including West Country railway stations where you get delayed for an hour. It was the last last final call on the trip. I ate a lot of chips.
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