Author: Candid

Leaving Lyon was more difficult as expected. One of our trailer attachments had broken in half, and a shop selling this piece was not in sight. So some of us went to the construction store in the early morning to find anything that could be useful as a temporary solution, and just when we had succeeded improvising a replacement part, we realised that an important part of the trailer had actually broken apart and needed to be fixed as well. Navigating out of a big city is always difficult, and the Via Rhona long-distance cycle route along the river Rhône…

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The group left Besançon with one day delay due to heavy rains. The route planning team decided to take a more hilly but also more picturesque detour towards Lyon along the River Ain, passing through its steep rocky valleys with its enchanted mossy forests, passing many waterfalls and lakes on the way. Close to Thoirette we took a rest day on a grass field down by the river. Not many people pass by there, so we could have a circle (meeting), a few swims, time to relax, some bike fixing, a visit to the “cow piss” waterfall close by and…

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Our sleeping place in Vigo was the amazing Quinta de Carminha squat, a big mansion so luxurious that it has stone lions greeting you at the entrance. But not just luxurious from the outside, it also greeted us with a hot shower, a big kitchen, big communal spaces, an internet room, and some beds to sleep inside. Our main activity on the second day was an evening action in the city centre. We dumpster-dived lots of food, picked a public square, and presented the food there to give away for free. The signs say: “This food, which is in perfect…

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After a bit of up and a lot of down, we met the valley of our beloved river Miño again. On the way down we passed through a really rural village with really steep and narrow roads and lots of brambles, and while we were eating them the village church was ringing like crazy. It sounded a bit as if there was a button to make the bell ring, and a cat was constantly hitting the button with their paw. Every now and again, the ringing would stop for a moment, and another church close by would respond in the…

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From Ourense we had to cycle a long uphill full of suicidal flies to Allaríz, a small but famous and touristic town south of Ourense. The original plan was to do a public workshop day and people’s kitchen in a social centre there. But there had been some miscommunication about the dates, and in the end the day that we were there, no one was there to do any activities with us. But we had a sleeping place organised, a small garden on the edge of the town. The infrastructure was a bit difficult, as the only source for water…

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In Ortigueira we left the north coast of Spain to enter the hilly and (according to what everyone told us) hot Spanish inland. Most of Spain is not very hilly, sometimes even flat, but on a quite high altitude. The further north and the further east you are, the higher it is, and in some places in the north-east, the landscape can be completely flat but on more than 1000 metres above sea level. So when you leave the north coast, you first have to go up a mountain pass, but when you arrive on the top, suddenly there are…

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