Terveisiä Tomilta

Rostock
Hi Lauri,

hope you had a good trip through Austria and Germany. Which route did you go?
We`ve just returned from France after having a great time in our neighbourstate, where I haven`t been since 1988. Nobody seems to smoke in Gauloises`country anymore and the old Citroen and Renault cars have almost vanished. But it´s still France, unique, charmy, little roads with almost no traffic, grey, middleage villages made of huge stone cubes, cheap coffee and red wine (otherwise swedish prices!), a language, which is beautiful but a personal nightmare to me since my days in school. France is also daily changing landscapes, canyons, oak forests, treeless highlands, almost fjell-like, fertile farmland, but still not so unpersonal and boring as in Germany or Denmark. We were going from Le-Puy-en-Velais in the heart of the Auvergne westbound to the eastern parts of the Périgord and used a different route back again, where we took the train to Regensburg, changing in St.Etienne, Lyon, Genève, Basel and Mainz, 17 hours, a horrible ride, but inevitable if you want to avoid flying like we do. Bike transport in France is possible without reservation, except fot the big and fast TGV-trains, but usually limited and not garantueed, but we even got a place during the afternoon rush-hour between St.Etienne and Lyon. Price p.P. return ticket Reg-Le-Puy was about 220€. Against my scandinavian habits we mostly used campsites for several reasons: 1. cheap, usually 4-13€ for both of us a night, 2. France is even more difficult for "wild camping" than Norway and sometimes can be dangerous 3.several times we stayed 2 nights on the same campsite in order to be able to make tours without all the bagage on our carriers, cause you never ride in flat landscapes, it´s going up&down all the time and sometimes we spent 2 hours just for one uphill, but never steep, it´s just about 5-7% usually.
Best place we discovered was the little town of Entraygues-sur-Tryuère, which is located where the river Truyère meets the river Lot, an almost 1000 year old town whit loads of charme, hot climate, a wonderful campsite and Auvergne´s best bakery with a beautiful female owner. Compared to Norway it was easy-going - despite the mountains - but we had more rainy days in 26 days as I had in the north in 54 days, which seems quite unbelievable.
I´m starting my new business as a bike-messenger in Regensburg from the 1st of Oktober, you can visit my homepage (also fr oct. 1st) under www.radkurier-regensburg.de.

Hope you come and visit us next year

see you

Tom