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Vagabonding

August 2022 - May 2024
An open-ended adventure by TakeMeFurther Read more
Currently traveling
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  • 178footprints
  • 20countries
  • 632days
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  • 15.9kkilometers
  • 774sea miles
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  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 29

    Verdun

    September 12, 2022 in France ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    I remember Verdun from my history lessons as the largest battlefield of the First World War, so I really want to see it to better understand Franco-German history.

    My first museum there is a small privately run museum (l'ouvrage de la Falouse) that recreates life in a WW1 fortress. It's unbelievable how simple life was for the people and how much it was reduced to the bare essentials. A museum well worth seeing. The imitation rats are particularly cute 😄.

    Of course, I also want to visit the Ossuaire of Douaumont, with its interesting architecture and the largest cemetery I have ever seen. The number of graves is enormous and I will notice several more cemeteries of different nations involved in the following days.

    Rather by chance, I stumble across the Memorial de Verdun and learn everything about the battle there. The multimedia presentation is impressive and gives a good overview of the complicated back and forth of the front line.    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 31

    Reims

    September 14, 2022 in France ⋅ 🌧 24 °C

    It is four in the morning. I have just woken up and can't get back to sleep because the weather forecast for the coming day predicts a thunderstorm starting in the afternoon and continuing into the evening. A public place to seek shelter won't be enough this time. Fortunately, I find a suitable and cheap place to stay and fall asleep again.

    During the day, I run errands in town and in the afternoon I drive to Claudia*, where I am warmly welcomed.
    Fortunately, my French is good enough for a conversation with her and her husband and I get a little insight into their world.

    It's not until the next morning that I realise I'm in Champagne. 🫢
    I keep passing sweet-smelling little houses and gradually the penny drops.

    * name changed    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 34

    Rouen

    September 17, 2022 in France

    Rouen. What do I know about Rouen? There are half-timbered houses there! How beautiful. ❤️
    That's what I know when I roll into town, and it's exactly what is immediately and irretrievably destroyed.
    Rouen is like any big city: confusing for cyclists. This is reflected in the fact that I choose the wrong side of the river for a break and then need 15 minutes to correct this mistake. Annoyed, I ride to the outskirts of town to do some shopping.

    Hungry as I am, I leave the supermarket with supplies for a three-man picnic. I meet an elderly gentleman with whom I talk about cycling, Tour de France, football, doping, Formula 1, Michael Schumacher and finally about German and French culture. We say goodbye with various greetings in each other's language. The day is saved.

    The next day I drive into town again - there must be nice places here too... and indeed I get exactly the ambience I had wished for in the old town quarter. It's dreamlike: narrow streets, half-timbered houses. Aesthetics.
    When I leave the city, I even like the districts with new architecture.    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 37

    Caen

    September 20, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    You have probably already gone outside for sports and thought about how to dress appropriately. With continuous weather and exertion, it's easy to gauge.
    The thing that drains me on the ride to Caen is the constantly changing conditions:
    The area is hilly so I ride sometimes uphill, sometimes downhill.
    I have a crosswind at times. It is partly cloudy.
    Due to the frequent change of all these factors from one extreme to the other, I am always dressed too hot and shortly afterwards too cold, or I have to use much more power because of the crosswind. So all the time I'm getting dressed and undressed, half on , three-quarters off, opening the jacket a little wider, closing it again because of the wind, and so on and so forth.
    In the end, I find the ideal position is to put my jacket only half on and tie the other half around my waist. It looks rather strange but "form follows function" in this case.

    In Caen, I visit the local Memorial de Caen, which deals with the Allied landings in Normandy during the Second World War. After a few hours, I reach the end of the exhibition (already completely saturated with information) and add the special exhibition 'Cold War' at the end. The two living room photos in the gallery are supposed to give an insight into a West and an East living room.
    😵‍💫 Very exciting, but I would have preferred a 2-day ticket, given the wealth of information.

    The last film shown there summarises the exciting European history in the 19th and 20th centuries very well and leaves me wanting to do more research.    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 37

    Lion-sur-Mer

    September 20, 2022 in France ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    To solve the problem of my tent pole, I look for a nice campsite.

    The drama continues there.
    To recap:
    1. I had lost my bright red tent pole in the forest.
    2. the replacement I had ordered was incomplete, one of the needed parts was missing but time was too short for another replacement.

    So now I have the idea to create a handicraft solution. First I have to saw around a piece of metal, then shorten hollow poles and thread a rubber cord through to get a bendable tent pole.
    The sawing works wonderfully and I start threading. And I notice that one of the segments is not hollow. Glue has filled the hollow space through which the cord has to pass. This is something that should be noticed in the quality assurance of the production. With the limited means I have, I hammer a hole through the glue. Afterwards, the hole is still much too thin to thread the string through, so I glue the string to a wire with super glue and thread it through the narrow opening.
    The whole thing takes several more hours, but despite all the trouble it easily saves me 100 euros.

    ***

    I also visit the nearby bunker museum and try to poduce crepes. They are damn difficult to make and the crumbs I produce that evening cannot yet be called crepes. But by now I know what the problem could be. ☺️    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 41

    Saint-Mère-Eglise

    September 24, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    I meet Philip at the market square in St Mère-Eglise. He is Irish and has several bicycles on several continents - so that's how it works!

    I then visit the Airborne Museum, which focuses on the paratrooper units in the Second World War. The subject is really well covered in the media and what fascinates me most are the operations to cover up the Normandy landings:
    - Complete bases were built and managed so that they looked functional from the outside.
    - Even radio messages, non-existent units and even gossip on the false bases were spread by radio and radio stations.
    - In parallel with the Normandy landings, dummies were parachuted into other locations to simulate an invasion elsewhere.    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 42

    Be honest!

    September 25, 2022 in France ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    The thing about wild camping is a bit tricky - actually it's not allowed, but as long as you don't disturb anyone it's tolerated. I remember the beginning of my trip and a conversation in Bonn that got a bit complicated when I tried to hide my wild camping intentions.

    Man: where are you staying today?
    Me: Well, at a camping site (I don't dare say that I actually wanted to spend the night in the city forest).
    Him: Which one? There are two.
    Me: Well, I'll have a look.
    Him: Are you going up or down the Rhine?
    Me: Uh, to the south!
    He: Oh, but that one is still 40 km away, you'll have to go all the way! And the other one is 10 km back, that's a bad alternative, too.
    Me: (I didn't want to complicate the situation any further, because another woman had just joined the conversation to help):
    Yes, driving back is not the best idea. I better get going to the next oine in the south..

    In the meantime, I have received very positive feedback when being honest about wildcamping here in France. While being in Courtils I have the following conversation with an elderly gentleman:
    (course of conversation):

    He: You have a lot of luggage!
    - I'm going on a world tour.
    - What? How far are you going to travel?
    - Maybe 40,000 km.
    - Ouuuf!
    - But I only plan for about a week at a time, then I don't think about the big distance.
    - Where do you sleep?
    - I'm going to look for a field or a forest somewhere.
    - Turn right here, that's the way to go, otherwise it's difficult.
    - Okay, thank you very much!

    For five minutes I follow that direction.
    A car comes up behind me, it's the gentleman again: "Have you found it? It's just up ahead."

    He drives ahead and stops 100m further on in front of a dirt road. The path is blocked with a barbed wire gate.
    Him: you can go there, just open the gate.
    Me: and it's okay if I open it?
    Him:
    Yeah, sure, I know ---- (hopefully the owner)....
    Me: okay! Thanks a lot!
    He disappears into the sunset.

    That day I also encountered the cow that has by far the funniest stain - it looks like a little child that has tampered with its mother's make-up case. In the sad hours of my trip (and every time I look through my photos) she brings a smile to my face. 😁    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 43

    Beauvoir

    September 26, 2022 in France ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

    The weather that day was supposed to be really bad from early morning to midday. For this reason, I wanted to find a creperie and spend several hours there, sitting comfortably in the warm, eating crepes, recharging batteries and planning the rest of the route before heading to Mont Saint Michel in the afternoon.
    I drove through Beauvoir and immediately found a creperie with all the amenities I wanted. The owner seemed to be just opening and set up the chairs outside. I made myself comfortable and ate two crepes when the owner told me he was about to close.
    I was a bit puzzled but couldn't figure out why he was about to close.

    A little further on I found the bakery Bellevoisine, where I gave it a second try. I told the shop assistant that I wanted to go to Mt Saint Michel and asked if there was a train station or another way to keep my bike bags safe. She replied that I could leave them with her at the bakery and so this challenge was resolved.    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 43

    Le Mont-Saint-Michel

    September 26, 2022 in France ⋅ 🌧 13 °C

    After storing all my bike bags in a bakery, I was able to visit the unique mountain without any worries. (By the way, the lack of storage facilities for luggage is the biggest obstacle for me as a bicycle traveller, but I realise that I am travelling in a niche, because others use hotels or campsites. )

    I knew it was going to rain hard and the wind was going to be fierce, so I wrapped myself up as best I could. For me, the 1.5 km walk was therefore a great experience despite the rain and wind, others were not so well prepared and came to meet me with soaking wet trousers, distorted faces, bent umbrellas and sad looking dogs.

    The inside of the monastery walls is very touristy. There are many restaurants, snack stalls and souvenir shops, a bit of a pity because the atmosphere suffers as a result.
    I bought a ticket for a tour of the abbey, which is centrally located and perched at the top of the mountain. Without an audio guide, I had no further information about the individual halls, crypts, chambers, rooms etc. and therefore found the interior ordinary. However, all the views from up there were spectacular.    Read more

  • TravelerVagabonding
    Day 44

    Rennes

    September 27, 2022 in France ⋅ 🌬 16 °C

    Eve of the city visit

    Rennes, the capital of Brittany - like the whole of Brittany itself - will always be a rainy place in my memory after today's visit. I have rarely experienced such wet weather, and for so many days in a row. I know that's unfair to the region because the last week of September was wet all over France but it fits the narrative and life isn't always fair. 😃

    In the evening I found a refuge in the forest where I made myself comfortable. There I built myself a cheap second cooker.
    My actual cooker works with petrol and it's a bit complicated to get pure petrol here (or it's expensive). After a few attempts, I was finally able to prepare my dinner and now have a cheap burner variant that has low consumption and also gives me some heat. 🔥

    28 September

    It rains cats and dogs all night and I am glad that the tent is watertight. It will stay like this all morning so there is no reason to get up early.
    In the morning I am woken by a few approaching voices, but I stay in the tent as it is still raining outside and I have no reason to leave the warmth of my sleeping bag.
    I have my breakfast in the shelter and notice that the forest is teeming with young people. Talking to their teacher, I learn that they are learning to orientate and navigate in the forest.

    The actual visit to the city is briefly summarised, as I am in Rennes for quite banal reasons:
    1. buy and change an inner tube, my current one has to be pumped up every few hours. I do this at 'Le Citron 🍋', a bike shop that also offers a café.
    2. I have to do some laundry.
    After that, I roll through the old town and admire the half-timbered houses and street art, then I roll off into the sunset.    Read more

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