Vacation Day 8- The long day begins

Hello all! Today we made it to Iceland!  The morning/ Brittish part of our day was pretty uneventful.  We woke up, got on a train, got to the airport then waited around until our flight left.  Unfortunately, our flight was delayed about 50 minutes so we had to wait a bit longer than expected.  But that minor inconvenience was made up for once we got on the plane and sat down in first class seats.  Yep that's right we are flying first class.  Well actually we paid for the upgraded economy class, but since it was full when we booked on our flights we are sitting/flying first class.  It was a lovely flight largely thanks to being a big comfy seats.

 

Anyway we landed in Keflavik around 4:00 pm and after getting the rental car and everything squared away we started heading to Reykjavik.  Even on this short drive you can already get a feel for just how different Iceland is from anywhere else, it is barren and just primordial looking.  The driving was overall uneventful (despite it being the first time Ben drove a manual in about a year), although he did stall out once... On a flat spot, at a traffic light, in light traffic, after having been driving for 20 miles.  But other than that one stall and some rough gear changes everything was pretty smooth sailing. 

Once we were checked into our AirBnB in Reykjavik, we set out to find food.  Following our hosts recommendation we went to a little fish shack nearby and had some lobster soup.  It was delicious, but not very filling.  Since we were not full we then went and walked to the best hotdog stand in Reykjavik.  It turns out that Bill Clinton thought it was the best hotdog in Reykjavik as well, despite this it was still pretty good.  From there we just started to wander the streets and make out way to the big church, Hallgrimskirkja.  It was pretty cool to see and going up in the tower led to some nice views.  Reykjavik is a town that really just sprawls and it is much bigger than I ever would have thought.  See for yourself in some of the pics below.

After the church, we slowly made our way back to our AirBnB stopping for coffee and dessert along the way.  It was a weird feeling walking around at 9 at night and it still feeling like day.  Which brings me to the title of this post "The long day begins", I chose it because quite literally we will not see night until we are back in the States.  So really our whole stay in Iceland is just like one really, really long day.  This should be really neat to experience and supposidly on clear days you do get a bit of a sunset that just lasts for like a couple hours, before it starts to rise again.  I am excited to see this, though it does mean we will not be seeing the Aurora Borealis on this trip.  

Tomorrow we will be picking up our camping gear and heading out into the wilderness of Iceland.  I am sure there are going to be many amazing views and great stories.  However, that being said I am not sure how strong the data or wifi will be, so I will try to post but I may not be able to post anything until we get back to Reykjavik.  So if I miss a couple days I apologize, and just be sure to check back on the 1st.  That is all I have for now so all the best and until next time. 

Vacation Day 7- Planes, Planes, and Planes

Hello all! Today was a pretty solid day.  We went to the Royal Air Force museum just outside of London.  It was really very impressive how massive it was and how free it was.  They have a little bit of everything from old canvas biplanes and gliders to brand new fighter jets.  It was really an impressive museum.  I will say though it was a bit confusing on how they grouped planes, missiles, and other armaments.  There did not seem to be too much reasoning behind it in the the first and second large building.  For example, you would be looking at a WWII bomber and scattered around the plane would be a random assortment of modern missiles and bombs.  But even with the slight randomness it was still a great museum.  Below are a few pictures from the museum, unfortunately most of them did not turn out well as there was some weird lighting interactions with the overhead lights and the camera on the phone.

We spent about five or six hours in the museum so it was pretty much our whole day, especially once you throw in the 40 minutes it took to get there each way.  Tonight we are staying in a really very nice hotel right near Buckingham Palace that we got at a steal.  Anyway that is pretty much our day... Oh aside from a delicious dinner we had at a nice Chinese restaurant near the hotel.  The food was delicious.  The service was fantastic.  The tea was bottomless and delicious (I may have drank about three pots).  I think that is now about everything from the day.  Tomorrow we get on a plane for Iceland and I can't be more excited!  I am mostly over my cold now too, so that is more good news.  Anyway with that I think I will end this post.  All the best and until next time.

Vacation Day 6- Burrowing into the Borough Market

Hello all!  Today was a bit more engaging of a day, I even took some pictures.  Today we went and explored the Borough Market and ate our way through it.  We had planned originally to go to the Borough Market briefly to grab something to eat in it and then go the the HMS Belfast (a WWII light cruiser permanently moored in the Thames that is now a museum you can go through) and to the Tower of London.  Well we ended up spending a lot of time in the Borough Market eating some brownies, some roast goat, some cheesecake, some bratwurst, and then drinking a fair amount of hard apple cider.  It was quite fun to walk through the market and see the different foodstuffs.  All in all we spent around three hours in the Market... Which meant we could walk to the other sights we wanted to see, but not actually go in them or really see them.  So that is what we did.

The HMS Belfast was really cool to see from the outside, it is a pity we didn't get to go in (gives me something to do next time).  Also the Tower of London was not what I expected to be honest, but it was cool to see from the outside (this also would have been cool to go through).  In hindsight we should have gotten started a bit earlier with our day... But we decided to just take it easy.

In other news, Ben got a haircut from a barber nearby, which did mean yesterday he had a pretty good little footballers cut.  His haircut did make him look a lot more like a local, largely because literally everyone has the same style of haircut here with short sides, and a longer top with a bit of a comb back. Also my cold is getting better, so hopefully I'll be over it soon.  For dinner we ended up going to Nando's again... It really is pretty darn good.  All in all it was a good day, tomorrow we are going to the Royal Air Force Museum, which I am pretty excited for, since it supposidly has over 200 planes.  Other than all that though that is really all I have to say so best wishes and until next time.

P.S.  Come Sunday afternoon we will be in Iceland!!! Going to be awesome!

Vacation Day 5- A Tale of Two Museums

Hello all.  For starters good news, the bikes are at the bike shops and should be all squared away for shipping.  Hopefully sometime next week they will begin their voyage to the States.  With all that squared away, the bikes are truly done with now, which is nice.  Other exciting news is that Britian is leaving the EU, so it will be exciting to see what all is going on around London today (I am writing this post the morning after Vacation Day 5) in that aftermath.  Anyway back to the rest of our day, as getting the bikes squared away only took about an hour or so.

After taking care of the bikes we went to Exhibition road on the suggestion of the man at the bike shop who was helping us.  Exhibition road has three major museums on it, all of which are free to enter.  So we did some real museum-ing.  First, we went to the Museum of Natural History.  When we first got there we decided not to go in because there was a line that looked to be a couple hours long.  As we were walking around the museum to go to a different museum, we saw a side entrance with a line of about 10 people and about five minutes later we got into the Natural History Museum... This find made the museum all the better.  Much like the British museum this was a very cool museum, and we saw a bunch of stuff but I won't bother you with an exhaustive list (if you are curious, give it a Google).  After the Museum of Natural History we hopped down the road to the Museum of Science.  The Museum of Science was a very neat museum with some cool exhibits on various tech and machines.  It was not quite as good as the Berlin Technical Museum, but it was still pretty good and I enjoyed walking around it all.

After the Museums, we made our way to the hotel and checked in.  For dinner we ran out to a great little Thai place, and had arguably the best meal I have had yet in London.  Aside from that though, that is pretty much our whole day, a lot of museums and a lot of walking.  All in all it was a good day, I am still not over my cold but it is slowly getting better.  Not sure what is on the docket for tomorrow but perhaps a massage will be in order.  Come Sunday we will be in Iceland, so hopefully the posts will become a bit more exciting and have some nice pictures again.  Anyway that is all I have for today so best wishes and until next time. 

Vacation Day 4- British Museum

 Hello all.  This is going to be a rather short post, as we spent about the entire day in the British Museum.  I really do mean the entire day.  We were in the museum from about 10:00 until 12:30, when we took a quick break for lunch.  After our brief lunch, we were back at the museum and we stayed there until about 3:30-4:00.  The British Museum was really very cool, so many artifacts and pieces... And it was free! We saw a whole lot of stuff, way to much to mention, so if you are curious about what all we saw give the British Museum a Google and you should be able to get a good idea. 

 

After the museum we came back to our apartment, had some dinner (I had some yummy duck ramen), and got our laundry done... I know riveting.  Sadly, I am still feeling the effects of my cold, so I am not too crazy about going all out and about all too much.  I really hope I get over this quickly.  Anyway like I said this would be a short post and that is all I have to say really.  So best wishes and until next time. 

Vacation Day 3- One last time into London

Hello all.  Today was another exciting and riveting day... I'm just kidding we were on a train for 4.5 hours.  We woke up in Glasgow and killed some time in the morning just lounging around, I still am not feeling quite better yet, so I was not much interested in going and trying to see anything before leaving.  We did eventually get out of bed and made our way into the town for some breakfast before our noon train to London.  We had a pleasant little breakfast in a small basement cafe near the train station.  After eating some porridge and yogurt (I ate the yogurt, Ben had the porridge), we hopped over to the train station.

We tried to get onto the train we were suppose to get on only to be told we could not bring our bikes with us... Which is a bit of an issue, so we had to go to the ticketing office.  In the ticketing office the ticket man wrote us a note asking that we please be allowed onto the next train with our bikes (I am not joking he really just wrote a note).  Regardless we boarded the 12:40 train to London, everything was squared away, and our note was accepted as good enough.  The train ride was lengthy and all together uneventful, I did take some picture though so please enjoy the lovely English countryside.

Once we rolled into London we went to go check in to our AirBnB.  This will turn out to be an interesting stay.  We are staying in a little studio apartment all to ourselves, but we are the first guests in this particular AirBnB and it shows.  The locks to the door did not work at first, there was no cooking equipment, many of the light bulbs are burnt out, and so on... Luckily we are only staying here two nights so it won't be the end of the world.

After checking into the AirBnB we ran out to the bike store that we had communicated with about shipping our bikes home.  I will say this if you want to fear for your life and feel very alive then try biking during rush hour in London... It is terrifying and more than slightly mad.  We did eventually make it to the bike shop alive and unharmed.  The people at the shop were very helpful and they took our bikes and told us to come back in a couple days with the other gear we want to shove in with the bikes and they would take care of it for us, which is great.  That means that Ben and I can both get rid of about half the things we are carrying in our bags for the rest of the trip.  

After getting all this stuff squared away we went to dinner and had some "proper" hamburgers, in other words American style hamburgers.  The burger were actually really quite good and the milkshakes were really good and thick.  Since we were now bike less and I was tired we decided to get an Uber to drive us to our apartment from the burger shop.  This was an interesting experience because I sat in the front passenger seat of the car, meaning I sat in the front left hand side of the car, while the car drove without my input.  My brain was really confused for the whole trip as to where the steering wheel was, and what was going on... Because normally when I am sitting in that position I am driving.  But alas we did eventually make it back to our "great" apartment and just settled down for the night.

Tomorrow we are going to go to the British Museum and see about finding somewhere to wash our biking clothes so that way they are not biological weapons at the end of their shipping experience to the States. Anyway that is all I have for you, I apologize for yet another bland post (if you stop reading the blog until Iceland on June 26th I would understand.  We are going to be camping in Iceland so that will probably be more exciting, not to mention all the amazing landscapes and the fact that I had better be over this cold by then).  Best wishes and until next time.

Vacation Day 2- I'm Sadly Sick in Scotland

Hello all.  Today was really rather uneventful, aside from taking a train to Glasgow from Oban we did not do much else.  The reason for this sadly, is that I woke up feeling a bit sickly and as the day went on I got worse.  To be honest I think the sickness may have begun the day before, but I was ignoring it and it wasn't all that bad.  However this morning I was not feeling very well at all.  We began our day with some breakfast and then went over to the train station to catch our train to Glasgow.

The train ride was quite nice and had some pretty views, but mostly I slipped in and out of sleep the whole ride.  Once we arrived in Glasgow we first tried to find someone who could ship our bikes back to the States.  This turned out to be a futile endeavor and after a couple hours and after we had visited all the bike shops in the area we decided to just head to our overnight lodging and deal with the bikes in London.  

After checking in and getting squared away we headed out for lunch (mind you it was about 2:30 at this time). We went to a little pub and had some pretty good food.  By this point I was really struggling... So we went to a pharmacy, I got loaded up on some Sudafed and throat drops and we went to our lodging.  I then proceeded to pass out and just slept.

At 8:00 I woke up, and we went out to get some dinner.  We went and had some yummy curry.  Shortly after eating we came back and I again just went to bed.  I know I live a very exciting life.  It would appear that my body fought to keep going throughout the biking, but now that it is over and I think my body is getting some pay back.  I am writing this post the morning after Vacation Day 2 and I am feeling somewhat better, but still not quite all the way.  Hopefully after a day or two more I will be all recovered... Really I just hope I am all better in time for Iceland.  I apologize for another rather bland post and for the lack of photos.  I just realized that I did not take a single picture yesterday, I blame my cold.  Anyway that is all I have for now, so best wishes and until next time.

Vacation Day 1- Lazy day in Oban

Hello all.  Today we had a pleasant day around Oban.  We started the day off with a big Scottish breakfast that the proprietor of the hotel prepared.  After breakfast we packed up our gear and headed out into Oban.  Our first stop was the train station to buy our tickets for the next day and get our bike reservations squared away.  After that we went to the Oban Distillery for the real reason of our stop in Oban... The distillery tour.

The tour was pretty good, but not great.  Unfortunately, some seagulls had taken over the filling room and were particularly aggressive to people, so they were not taking anyone over there until they had been removed.  This meant our tasting just took place next to the gift shop area and we did not quite get the experience of drinking the whiskey from the barrel.  The whiskey was good don't get me wrong, but when it comes from the bottle it isn't as exciting when you have gone through the whole tour.  

After the tour we went to lunch at a restaurant on the wharf.  This was an excellent meal!  I had some haggis with potato mash to start, followed with some fish and chips, and finished with some cheesecake.  It was a huge meal... I am going to have to cut down on my meals with no longer biking many hours everyday. But then again I am on vacation...

After lunch it began to rain so we went to our next hotel and checked in.  This time we are staying at a real hotel in the heart of Oban, no more guesthouses.  The hotel is better than the guesthouse for sure, but it could still use a lot of work.  Due to the rain we decide to just be lazy (we have kind of earned it) and just hung out in the room until dinner time.

Dinner was pretty good.  We went to a Chinese restaurant (Sunday there wasn't much else open).  It was pretty good, and the sweet and sour chicken was massive!  Each ball was like a whole chicken breast battered (surprisingly lightly) and fried.  Other than that though it was all pretty good.  Really that is pretty much our day.  We took a very lazy day, and tried to rest and recuperate some more from all the biking.  Tomorrow we head on to Glasgow (on a train, woot woot). But anyway that is all I have for now, sorry it was not a bit more exciting.  Best wishes and until next time. 

Riding Day 26- Ben's bike bites back

Hello all.  I am sorry for not uploading this post earlier, quite frankly I couldn't be bothered to write it this morning.  The wifi was spotty, the bed wasn't terribly comfy, and again I really did not want to write it.  Anyway, I have some downtime now, and I am a bit more motivated so I figured I would update you all.  Yesterday we had a pretty amazing day overall, despite a couple of pitfalls.

We started our day with a delicious and very filling Scottish Breakfast.  The hotel we stayed at was rather nice, and having such a large breakfast included in the price was excellent.  After filling up, we loaded up the bikes and got back on the road to Oban.  For the first part of the journey we had a brief 6 mile stretch of riding on a somewhat busy road until we were able to pick back up the bicycle path.  We were making good time and traveling at a great pace.  It was easy to do so as the weather was beautiful (clear blue sunny skies and perfect temperatures) and the riding was pretty smooth.  Luckily the road was not all too busy and cars seemed to actually show us a lot of consideration and gave us a lot of room.  That being said at about mile 4.5 we were rounding a bend when Ben's bike decided that it no longer wanted to work like a bike and his chain just popped off, which immediately caused the bike to jerk to the left and thus into a curb and a few feet later Ben went over his handlebars and into a ditch full of peat, moss, and rocks.  Luckily this crash looked and sounded a lot worse than it actually was.  Ben was a little bruised but overall we got the bike fixed again and soon enough we were back on the road.  His crash did give an older couple in the car right behind him quite a fright but after making sure he was ok they continued on their way.  The riding after the crash was relatively uneventful aside from again some incredible views (see the pictures, I hope they do the views justice).  

We rode for many miles (well really only like 47 miles), and eventually made it into Oban.  Unfortunately, we did not make it into Oban in time to do a distillery tour.  That being said though we did decide to stay an extra day in Oban, so we are doing/did the tour today.  In fact due to the crash and the fact that the riding was so beautiful and the fact that it was suppose to rain for the next four days straight, we decided to just call the trip (well the biking portion of the trip).  The riding was just absolutely perfect to end the biking trip on, and since we had made it over 1200 miles without a major incident, we decided to just call it a wrap.  So that being said we decided to stay one more night in Oban, do the tour today, and on Monday take the train into Glasgow.

Oban is a pretty neat little port town, but sadly it feels really crowded, and it is clearly a very popular tourist destination for folks.  We did make it out after checking in to our "hotel" (the quotes because it was a guest house, we had to share a bathroom, the wifi was spotty, the rooms were super old, and the mattresses felt like just sleeping on a set of sharp truck springs) and walked around the town a bit before going to get some dinner.  We ate at a quaint restaurant in town that made a delicious seafood chowder, but a super salty beef pie, sadly.

Aside from the meal and our decision to end the biking portion of the trip, there is not really anything else particularly noteworthy from the day.  All in all it was a good day, one crash, but otherwise a great day.  Hopefully, I will write the blog post for today (June 19th) on time tonight or tomorrow morning, but no promises...  We have a three hour train ride, so I may wait to do it on the train. Anyway that is all I have for now so best wishes and until next time.

Riding Day 25- lox, locks, and lochs

Hello all! Three more days of biking! That is all that remains of this magnificent trip.  I am both a little sad the biking is about to end but also really really excited for it to end... My legs look forward to resting.  Today we had a solid ride from Inverness to Fort William, all in all about 70 miles and we crushed it.

We started the morning by waking up on a train somewhere in Scotland (you know a typical Friday).  A little while after waking up we were brought our "delicious" "breakfast" in our train berth.  It consisted of "eggs" and smoked salmon.  The salmon was fine the eggs...not so much. 

After rolling into Inverness and walking down the platform we saw our Scottish van driver waiting for us and he brought us to our bikes.  So we mounted up again and made our way into the heart of Inverness.  It was quaint, but personally I didn't think it was too breath taking of a city.  Anyway we grabbed some real breakfast and coffee then did our shopping and went to a tourist information desk for directions to our bike path.  The lady behind the desk was very helpful, but was mostly just really interested in our trip.  It was slightly comical because at one point she asked how long do you think it will take to get to Ft William, to which I was thinking in my head well that depends on when we can actually leave from this information desk."  Anyway we eventually made it out and found the start of our path in front of the Inverness castle (under construction, classic) and some statue.

The riding was excellent, the path we rode on was very well marked and either avoided roads entirely or only used small roads with hardly any traffic.  We saw a lot of other touring cyclists too which was neat.  The weather was overcast, a little misty, and cold... So we finally really got to use the cold weather gear we had been carrying since Rome.  All in all the riding was uneventful aside from the absolutely jaw dropping views (Northern Scotland might be number 1 in my favorite places now).  Just absolutely incredible views. We rode through mountain passes (yep some more epic hill climbing), around Lochs (we did ride by Loch Ness but no sign of Nessie), through glens, and around a bunch of canal locks.  I can't really describe it so I am going to include a bunch of pictures (hopefully assuming this wifi holds out).

We eventually made it to Fort Augustus and grabbed some lunch.  Lunch consisted of some hot sausage rolls (think hotdog on a bun) and a handful of Scott's pies (think lamb burger in a flaky pie crust).  It was really good, but not quite filling enough in hindsight.  After wolfing down some food it was back to canal riding, and a few miles later to some "tame" mountain biking.  The trail was just a gravel road.  Due to the speeds we were riding and the miles we were riding on the roads, it is likely this was some of the hardest riding for the bikes, but they held up (so far).  We again had some outstanding views!  I will let the pictures do the talking again, I hope they do it justice. 

We eventually made it into Fort William no issues at around 7 pm, so not bad on time either considering we left Inverness around 10:45.  We are staying in a hotel on the side of Loch Linnhe (I think).  The hotel has a restaurant that made some pretty good dinner.    I think that is about all I have for now though. Tomorrow we are heading out to Oban, so hopefully we get there early enough for a distillery tour.  So for now I say best wishes and until next time.

Riding Day 24- Cheeky Nando's

Hello all! Today we made it into London.  An easy feat really since we just took a train into London.  We decided to give ourselves a rest day of sorts, and since we had already decided to take a train the final way into London, we just went to the closest train station.  All in all we biked maybe a total of 7 miles today.  Let me also say that I am writing this aboard the Caledonian Sleeper train from London to Inverness, which does mean only cellular wifi and slow cellular wifi.  As such I will not be able to have any pictures in this post at the time of first posting.  I will try to update I as soon as I get the chance to, but that may not be until late tomorrow.

The ride to the train station in Sittingbourne was very straightforward, nothing remarkable really.  Getting on the train was also straight forward.  Riding on the train was a bit more interesting, because much like the French there is nowhere specific for you to put your bikes, so we just had them in the entry way.  I do find it interesting that the trains in Europe are not more bike friendly (meaning that they do not have slots or spaces for the bikes specifically), but I suppose they just figure whoever a bike fits is good enough.

After arriving in London, we made our way to the train station we were departing from that night.  There we got our tickets, stored our bags, and Locke up our bikes.  Realizing then it was around 2:00, we decided we should get some lunch and right nearby was a Nando's.  We felt obligated to try it out, we were not particularly excited but it felt like something we had to do.  For those of you who do not know, Nando's is often likened to a Chick-fil-a... Let me tell you it is nothing like that. Nando's is much slower pace and tastes much better.  Truth be told I thought it was actually really good.  I had a grilled chicken wrap and it was great.  After trying it, I can understand why so many people seem to love Nando's so much.

After getting filled up started to wander the city, since our train did not leave until 9 that night.  Through our wandering we wound up seeing some pretty major landmarks.  We say the West End area, the London Eye, Waterloo Bridge, Big Ben, the House of Commons, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus.  It is always fun to stumble upon large landmarks when you are just aimlessly wandering around, and it will be nice when we are back in London to really see it all.

After wandering around we made it back to the station around 7:00, since we had to drop off the bike with a courier at 7:30.  Well we did drop of the bikes, but to say it was with a courier is a bit of a stretch.  We essentially just put the bikes into the back of an unmarked van driven by a man claiming to be with the railway. The man was wearing high vis and he had a Scottish accent so how bad can it be.  Oh and the best part was that this loading was all done in a small alley a street off of the train station... It was rather sketchy.   Anyway we got that done and then ate some dinner (nothing noteworthy so I won't mention it) and eventually boarded our train.  We have a small little two person berth with two beds.  It is tight but not too bad. I barely fit into the bed lengthwise but I do fit, so I can manage. 

Anyway that is all I have for today.  It was a good day, hardly any riding and tomorrow we will wake up in Inverness and start real biking again.  So for now I will leave you all.  Best wishes and until next time. 

Riding Day 23- The Canterbury Tale

Hello all. Today was a pretty great day.  The riding was all in all nice and easy, a few hill climbs and some wind, but really nothing awful.  We started our day with a very large and delicious breakfast of cereal, homemade bread, jams, butter, different spreads, and fruit smoothies.  In this one breakfast we probably ate more fruit than the whole trip combined, which made it even better.  After filling up on breakfast, we loaded up the bikes, said our goodbyes to our hosts and went into the village of Deal to find our path.  On our way to the path it began to threaten rain and since we were near a bike shop we decided to take the bikes in to get their rear brakes worked on and wait the rain out.  While the bikes were being worked on we went to cafe in the main town and had two Americanos the size of two small bowls of soup.

When we got the bikes back, the mechanic had done all he could and my rear brake worked again, but Ben's rear brake was only working at about 20% efficiency (which is far better than it was).  We set out from deal and made good time to Canterbury.  The riding was nice small rolling hills on hedge rowed roads through fields.  We made it to Canterbury around 1:00 and went straight to the cathedral.  Just outside the gates to the Cathedral we saw a man on a road bike with packs, and he started talking with us.  Turns out he was just starting a bike tour and he we from San Francisco.  We asked if he knew if we could bring the bikes into the cathedral grounds to which he responded "well the person I am married to (his words... "The person I am married to" that just struck me as such a weird way to phrase that, why not just say husband or wife...) knows the head guy here, so I dropped his name and was able to".  After this we talked a bit more then went our separate ways, and I figured I would just go ask the people at the gate if we could take the bikes into the grounds.   So I went to the ticket office and asked if it was possible to bring our bikes on to the grounds for a picture since we had just rode from Rome to Canterbury.  When they heard this they told us it was no problem to take the bikes and that we did not have to pay for admissions, which was great.  Once inside I went to the information desk and told them we were here on the bike trip and asked for someone to help with a picture, the lady offered to help us, then she got a priest to come and give us a blessing.

I thought it was really neat and kind the way they took care of us and offered to help us. After the picture and the blessing they let us store the bikes on the Cathedral grounds as we walked around the Cathedral and the town of Canterbury.  The cathedral was magnificent, see some of the pictures below. 

Lunch was some delicious pulled pork sandwiches and pulled pork Mac and cheese (unfortunately I was really hungry so I did not take any pictures, I just ate it).  After we finished lunch and got ready we made our way out again to our overnight stop.  The riding from Canterbury was very hilly, and thanks to a handful of wrong turns we made it to our overnight stop just on time, as oppose to the hour early it looked like we would arrive.  After arriving at our stop we checked in, chatted, then headed to a pub for some dinner, where we ate curry.  It was good, not delicious, but warm and good.

Anyway I think that is about everything I have for today.  We Are riding to London tomorrow, or more appropriately we are riding near London then taking a train into London.  We have been told by a handful of people that the bike path to London is no good and almost impassible at points, and that all the roads are death traps.  Many people recommended we get close then take the train in, so that is what we are going to do.  Anyway I am tired so I am going to go to bed.  All the best and until next.