Day 81 (20/8) - Street art and under-dressed in London

Reuben had organised a street art tour of London, his interest piqued by the Space Invader artwork he had observed during the cycle tour of Paris. Dave of Shoreditch street art tours was a wealth of knowledge on the local street art scene and has been documenting it for years. His three hour tour ended up being four and a half hours stuffed full of a parade of some of the most famous and impressive street art in the world. Anne-Marie was a little overwhelmed by the end but Reuben loved it all.

After the tour it was seven thirty and we were hungry. Dressed in thongs shorts and daggy t-shirts we went looking for somewhere to eat. A nice restaurant caught our eye. Reuben nipped in to see if they had a table free which they did. Out to lock up the bikes and we where happily located at a table in what turned out to be Galvin La Chapelle a Michelin stared restaurant by renown chef brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin. Seven sumptuous dishes and matching wines later and we stumbled out to unlock the bikes. Reuben joking with a chauffeur waiting with his limousine outside that whomever he was waiting for should just cycle home after his meal.

Cycling home we stopped for a couple of shots on some famous bridge in London ;-)

Now Kiss

This one was beautifully bright.

This one is appreciated by the large local Muslim community

This one is just amazing

Octophant!

An enormous hedgehog looks awesome coming round the corner

Reverse graffiti, wash the dirt off to create art

Some impressive sculptures

And can work

A little can pointillism 

Some smut by a little Japanese woman

Some of the most impressive art was little bronze sculptures with environmental messages hidden subtly around the place

Day 80 (19/8) - A missed Train and The Beast Mk.2

An early morning, a split up because we only had one bike, a tube ride and a serious run around by terrible Parisian instructions had us panicking, and finally missing the Eurostar. Fortunately they have a forgiving, just catch the next one policy. A couple of hours and a long tunnel later we where in London.

After two and a half months it was beautiful to be back in an English speaking country. It's actually subtly stressful to not be confident the person you are about to speak to will understand you. It's also nice to be back on the left hand side of the road (although it took a while to get back into this normalcy). We stepped of the train and immediately in front of us was a Lebara stand the PrePaid mobile sim cards we have been relying on for data in each country we have visited. 20 quid later and we had two working mobiles, two gig of data, free calls and free texts between us, they didn't even need our names.

Having done some research the night before Reuben hired a Boris Bike and we headed off to Re-Cycling a 2nd hand bike shop near Elephant and Castle. 230 quid later and Reuben rode off on the beast Mk.2

We picked up a new rack for Reuben's panniers but it wouldn't quite fit the bike (custom job due to the disc brakes) so Reuben bought a file and we sat outside a nearby pub drinking the local brew, regaling locals with stories of our travels and filing the rack down to fit.

It felt like a good start to London, and it just felt bloody awesome to be out of Paris.

Once we where both mobile again (YAY) we headed over to south bank to check out the Eye of London. It's just a crazy tourist hotspot, not up our alley really so we headed to our hotel in Greenwich.

Anne-Marie and the bug spattered Eurostar

A screen grab of Reuben's mobile's GPS as he hits a new speed record on Anne-Marie's bike
(can you guess what's really going on?)

Filing down the new racks for Beast Mk.2

Anne-Marie in front of the Eye of London

Day 79 (18/8) - Pop art and Piss

Having train tickets on the Eurostar already booked for tomorrow, we decided to make the most of the day we had left in Paris. Too scared to leave Anne-Marie's bike locked up anywhere we spent the morning wandering through the urine soaked (seriously the whole city reeks of it) streets of this over-rated city looking for a replacement bicycle and after abandoning hope, the Afternoon at the Centre Georges Pompidou their modern art museum. It was impressive. A fantastic selection of international Modern art and two great exhibitions by Roy Lichtenstein and Simon Hantai, neither of them Parisians!

Two French freaks disappointed the Cheese shop was closed. MOOOO

One of Roy Lichtenstein's Famous pieces.

We didn't know Simon Hantai's work, but now have a huge appreciation for it.

:D

Paris skyline from the Pompidou escalator

The tower again

Day 78 (17/8) - Paris (Anne-Marie's G rated version)

Trying to be positive about Paris, Reuben organised a bike tour for the morning. Keen to take his own bike Anne-Marie convinced him to leave it behind and get into the spirit, ride a squeaky, dodgy tour company bike like the others. Our guide Pascale was wonderful, half British she guided us and another 6 people around the streets  a lovely city with so much history Anne-Marie was so glad she came and Reuben was coming around. The streets were quiet, Pascale explained so many people had left for the holidays, lots of shops were closed but it was still the quietest she had ever seen "It's like a SciFi movie, everyone's missing" she exclaimed. We passed armed soldiers at every major tourist attraction, apparently due to the war in Mali. 

After the tour we headed back to collect our bikes. The saddest part of our journey... Reuben's bike was gone, the chain cut through. After 6 years with 'The Beast', riding it to work everyday, it was not only a huge 
inconvenience and cost but a very sad ending. With ticket inspectors, military police and gendarmerie everywhere on the streets we were surprised it had happened in Paris and not Rome or Spain. Reuben's mother amongst others had warned us that the french where a bunch of thieves. After a few hours at the police station we were not going to let it ruin our holiday. Reuben got on a dodgy city hire bike and we rode around, visited the tallest building in Paris proper for a lookout, rode under the Eiffel tower and enjoyed a somber dinner with lots of wine, (not French!).

Cruise the capital on a tour bike

Riding under the most expensive apartments in France. Still looked like a bit of a dump

In a hidden garden

A lot of Paris looks like this, it's the law apparently.

Cruising with our tour group

Notre Dame in the background

An entrance to the louvre

A view of Paris better than from the Eiffel tower (because you can see it)

Ride the louvre

Cycled under the tower on a hire bike

Day 77 (16/8) - to Paris... if we get there

With a few days up our sleeves we had the choice to go to London earlier or visit Paris. Reuben was not so keen on Paris but Anne-Marie convinced him otherwise. Given the terrible head winds of the past few days we were loathed to punish ourselves further and cheated by opting for a train. We made it to the train with minutes to spare, travelling on a Belgium train to Lille  We boarded our second train, a french one, and attempted to get to Paris, ten minutes into the journey and the train encountered problems, 3 hours later we were back on our way. Once again failing public transport making good friends of strangers, we struck up a quick friendship with a young Dutchman from Amsterdam traveling to Paris to study. We finally arrived and were immediately greeted with assault rifle wielding soldiers nonchalantly patrolling the station, quite confronting. We cycled through Friday night rush hour traffic past Moulin Rouge and arrived at our hotel near the Arc De Triumph, air-conditioning broken. We visited the Arc itself, which was bigger and more impressive than we thought, and had a late dinner on the "quiet" streets of Paris Reuben still unhappy to be there.






On the train again

Show us your AR

The Arc

Day 76 (15/8) - In Bruges and not one coked up racist Dwarf

After riding around and exploring Bruges we did some lame tourist activities, a fry museum and a chocolate museum, a bit of a waste of time really. We visited a Picasso exhibition and then meandered through the streets with the other thousand tourists looking at the hundreds of chocolate, lace, beer and nic-nac shops. Bruges is a lovely place but at this time of year it is completely overrun with tourists. For dinner we delved into the world of Michelin hats again, enjoying another degustation menu with matching wines at a one star Michelin restaurant, very comparable to many of the good restaurants in Melbourne. Riding back to our hotel we saw swans on the canal in the moonlight, just like in the movie "in Bruges"; unlike the black swans of Melbourne's Albert Park lake they weren't trying to attack us!

Fools

Reuben uses a convenient convenience, very space age

A fuzzy snap of the canals at sunset, stay still when I'm taking your photo swan

One of Picaso's bulls

Day 75 (14/8) - To Bruges and too many hats

We said goodbye to the seaside town of Vlissingen and caught a ferry across the river to the mainland. With about 30 other cyclists on board the ferry, we were impressed. We decided to forget Hollands junction riding system, again, and follow Google's more direct bicycling navigation system. Again riding with a strong head wind we passed through pretty towns and farmland as we made our way to the bottom of Holland and into Belgium. (Tip for future cycling in the Netherlands, ride from bottom to top, the prevailing winds are generally going that way).

The view did not really change but we sadly noticed a reduction in fellow cyclists, the quality of bicycle paths, signage and tolerance of cars to cyclists. We made it to Bruges just after lunch, explored the town on bike and climbed the Belfry Tower (the cool one from the movie). Before it closed we spent an hour in the Dali museum, Reuben's appreciation for the ridiculous and absurd is tickled nicely by Dali's style.

As Bruges is full of Michelin hat restaurants we decided to attend our first and probably last three hat restaurant. We enjoyed a degustation menu with matching wines, truly amazing, lots of unique food, yummy flavors and interesting ingredients, and each of the 8 dishes brought out by three staff. The only problem is we might have to eat baked beans for the next few months to pay for it.. But It was a fantastic to experience gastronomy and service at such a level.

Windmills in Holland

On the ferry

Into Belgium

The wrong focal length, the buildings behind Anne-Marie was pretty impressive

Deceptively few tourists in these shots

More pretty canals, but after Venice, Strasbourg and Amsterdam we are not so impressed.

Particularly inspired by Dali's sculpture