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- Arriving into Istanbul – our GPS sent us right through the Grand Bazaar! Amusing but challenging – had to get security to escort us through!
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- Our kind hosts who put us up on our first night in Turkey.
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- Just outside of Sozopol
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- Rescuing a suicidal tortoise from the road – the second in 2 days!
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- Our own deserted beach near Sozopol, our hostel owner took us there.
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- Begli Tash, some early Thracian rock formations near Primorsko
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- suicidal tortoise number one, after being returned to safety :)
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- taking the tortoise for a drive back to safety
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- Turkey!
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- Pete relaxing at Thracian rock formations – apparently this was the King’s chair
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- Tortoise rescue again!
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- Sozopol/Black Sea
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- Sozopol/Black Sea
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- Cooking dinner while wild camping
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- More Thracian rocks…
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- More Thracian rocks…
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- More Thracian rocks…
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- More Thracian rocks…
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- Paddling in the Black Sea
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- Beach cooking
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- Paddling in the Black Sea
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- We made it all the way to the Black Sea!
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- Having dinner while watching the sun go down in Sozopol
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- View from hotel balcony in Sozopol
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- View from hotel balcony in Sozopol
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- View from hotel balcony in Sozopol
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- View from hotel balcony in Sozopol
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- Hitching after spoke-breaking incident…thankfully only had to wait for 20 mins to get a lift
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- Broken spokes
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- Leaving Veliko Tarnovo
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- Leaving Veliko Tarnovo
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- Veliko Tarnovo
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- Veliko Tarnovo
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- Veliko Tarnovo
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- Veliko Tarnovo
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- Those distances are as the crow flies – more like 3400km by road to London!
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- View from Arbanasi, near Veliko Tarnovo
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- Bulgarian train
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- Thankfully we were carrying a spare tyre…
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- Not sure I would be too worried if this was chasing us!
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- Fountains in Pleven, Bulgaria
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- Guess who is staying in this hotel?!
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- Repairing Pete’s front rack which fell to bits on a potholey road in Bulgaria
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- Cyrillic alphabet makes for interesting navigation!
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- Storm is on its way, time to seek shelter!
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- Cycling is tiring!
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- Keeping track of speed and distance
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- Beer!
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- Deserted beach near Sozopol
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- Wildlife marshes near Sozopol
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- wild camping
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- unusual to find a menu in english, keeping this for future reference!
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- turkey feeling threatened – but it’s nowhere near christmas!
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- backyard menagerie, very common round here
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- bulgarian flag
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- belogradcik rocks!
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- belogradcik from above
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- love the english translation of the story of how the rocks came about
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- fortress
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- new game – guess what drink you are going to get from the machine!
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- belogradcik – prettier from afar!
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- bulgarian countryside
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- taking goats for a walk, more common than taking dogs for a walk round here.
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- country number 8
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- leaving serbia
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- serbian countryside
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- the road to bulgaria
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- at an altitude of 900m – good views but hard work to get there!
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- there be mountains ahead…pain coming up!
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- we were fully planning on wild camping, even had water/fuel/food on board, but then out of nowhere appeared a wonderful thermal spa hotel with rooms for only 15 euros/person – almost rude to say no!
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- view from balcony of pools being filled in morning.
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- same hotel. we even got free drinks from the manager because we were the first western tourists to visit!
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- danube again!
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- belogradcik from afar, certainly an impressive setting
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- bombed belgrade, still not fixed
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- belgrade’s stonehenge?
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- ada cinganjali, an artificial lake in belgrade. great on a hot day.
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- why don’t they make beers this big back at home?
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- busy street in belgrade. national holiday so everybody is out and about.
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- view from belgrade fortress.
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- pete living life on the wild side
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- random assortment of military weapons for kids to play on in the park – really not sure why
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- same dress and river as in budapest, but different bend!
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- old men playing chess in belgrade park
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- storks
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- wild camping in serbia
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- northern serbian countryside – very pancake like!
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- country number 7
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- frogs making a tremendous noise in ths pond, honestly!
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- follow the yellow brick road…off to see the wizard!
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- stork nest!
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- rural methods of farming still prevalent here
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- rural southern hungary
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- time to get the anoraks out!
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- Budapest
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- Statue on top of citadel in budapest
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- sunshine!
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- Budapest
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- more Budapest….
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- citadel
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- chillis in budapest food market
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- sausages!
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- very tall phone box!
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- arriving into budapest, parliament building in background
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- parliament building
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- pete on a recumbent, belonging to a guy we met in Szentendre, on our way into budapest
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- come back with my recumbent!
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- Estzergom, Hungary
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- Estzergom
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- working well in rural hungary
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- entering hungary
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- Slovakians appear to have an odd idea of what constitutes a good bike path – gravel is not good!
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- nor is very bumpy concrete! pete particularly didnt enjoy this as he was still breaking in his new saddle he bought in vienna!
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- there was a donkey and cart there, just missed them!
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- odd totem pole things in hungarian country village
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- great bike path by the danube in hungary
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- moer of the same…
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- good bike path, in slovakia this time
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- cycling out of bratislave with Matt and Mallin, his slovakian friend who showed us the way
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- white-water rafting by a huge dam in slovakia
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- dodgy old tram in bratislava, you can really tell the communists were here
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- entering bratislava
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- entering slovakia from austria
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- vienna to bratislava. route nice but a bit dull.
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- early birthday treat in vienna from my parents – yum yum! not all for me I should point out though!
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- Schonbrunn castle, vienna
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- fountains in castle gardens
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- grim reaper (note the beer we added!) in budapest park – creepy!
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- vienna, schonnbrunn castle
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- viennese fountains
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- vienna – spot our bikes!
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- entering vienna
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- great fountains in tulln
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- Beautiful evening in durnstein, in lovely wachau region of the danube
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- old car, new car in budapest
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- durnstein, wachau
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- on the danube
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- danube again!
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- Melk
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- mum – “we’ve done all of 5km, it must be time to stop for a coffee!”
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- mum and dad
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- family photos
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- cheesy or what!
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- on the danube…
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- here we come!
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- the world’s smallest church?!
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- random giant pear statue
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- mautenberg, on the danube
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- hochwasser means high water ie how high the danube has reached when flooding – these posts were on the side of our hotel – can’t be fun!
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- Linz
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- keep pedalling…there must be a coffee shop somewhere round here!
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- merry bunch of cyclists on ferry across danube – pete, me, parents with dean, matt and greg, who we kept bumping into
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- lunch on day one of parents’ holiday
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- gettign going
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- dean and matt setting off from passau
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- why did they have to put the youth hostel so high up? did not enjoy the 22% hill to reach it at the end of a long day to get there!
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- at least there was a good view from the top
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- view from youth hostel in passau
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- and again
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- and again
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- if we had known what weather we were in for later that day, we wouldn’t have smiled while taking this photo…!
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- Regensburg
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- for the record, we didnt have much of a choice about taking a ferry for this short section of river, as it was through a gorge and so there was no bike path!
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- danube bike path, known as the donauradweg
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- In Ingolstatd
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- hmmm, maybe we should have ignored the gps and stuck to the road?!
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- if only all campsites were like this
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- durnstein, in the wachau region of danube in austria
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- never did work out what this was warning us about?!
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- cool noah’s ark in campsite outside of ulm
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- ollie the goat in campsite!
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- billy the other kid goat. very cute, thankfully behind a fence.
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- ulm, where we joined the danube
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- stuttgart to ulm, lovely valley
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- novel multi-storey car park?!
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- stuttgart
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- buying lunch…spot the baguette!
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- you know you are in the countryside when people bring their tractors to the supermarket…
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- we like that kind of sign!
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- mmm kebab!
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- We made it to France!
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- Leaving England!
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- Waiting for the ferry
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- waiting for the ferry
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- doesn’t bode well!
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- starting the almost never-ending flapjack supply…
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- en route to canterbury
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- leaving our house!
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- black forest, owww those hills hurt!
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- entering germany
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- greg, fellow cycle tourist that we first met in saarbrucken
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- brrrr!
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- mercedes bike in mercedes museum in stuttgart
It’s great to follow your journey by reading your blog. Thanks for posting pics!
By: Ruth on May 17, 2010
at 9:15 am
I’m glad there are people like you who like Bulgaria.
By: Rumen Ivanov on May 13, 2010
at 11:49 am