Storks and flamingos in one day? Be still my heart.

No flat tires this trip through. That's a good thing.

Yes, I do think this ride goes into the 'must' column. How many entries am I allowed in that column, per tour?

Heh, heh. Like I’ve been saying, you’ll come away wishing you’d started coming to France a long time ago.

We’ve never been through here in the summer and no doubt it will be hot and crowded but it’s certainly doable. If you went I’d plan on staying overnight and seeing the walls first thing in the morning, as soon as they open. You really only need about an hour to walk them - it’s only about a mile.

I think this has to go on my list - walk the wall (how far was it around?), see the flamingos, the cattle, and the horses. Hopefully all of the kids will still be in school in June, and it won't be absolutely overrun?

I'm a sucker for castles. And bridges.

Maybe I can trade flamingos for storks?

What a great idea! Beautiful slideshows. I'll have to copy your idea!

Hi Rachael - just doing some research of this area as are heading in that direction. Gorgeous looking area. Great photos capturing its beauty.

It would be fun to meet up at some point. If we do go to Italy, we would start in Sicily to see Elvis. He is a young man that worked with us about 7 years ago. Not a very Italy name, but apparently his parents were fans. So if we both end up in Sicily the second half of April it could happen!

That was my reaction too. It’s great to see the whole gallery here in one place. I suspect this is a page I’ll revisit many times.

What a wonderful set of pictures! I don't think they all had made it into your journal, of if so and I just forgot them, it was great to see them all again and be reminded of all the fun times we and others had with you two.

Scott and Rachael, we're thrilled to be on this roster. Discovering Cycle Blaze has opened up new thinking about cycle touring for us. What a fabulous community. Looking forward to meeting more CBers on future travels. Hope you both enjoy a little break from the daily journal demands.

The odds of anything in particular occurring are 50/50: either it happens, or it doesn't. :)

Thanks for sharing - I loved them all!!! And I will always treasure the time spent in the company of you, Rachael and each of the other CycleBlazers I’ve met over the past 15 months. I’m looking forward to any and all future CB meet-ups.

Yup, it was all good. The UK was much better than I’d imagined, and I hope we get a chance to return some summer. And France of course is hard to quarrel with. I’d say about 2/3 of our experience in France this year was new to us, which is of course a wonderful thing about bike travel - you don’t use a place up because you’ve zipped through the whole thing with a car. There are large parts of the country we’ve not really explored.

We have looked at South America, China, Thailand and South Africa so many times over the years, and have had pretty serious, detailed plans on the table for some of them more than once. I think at this point in our lives though none of them are likely to happen. If we were going to have done so it should have been when we were a decade or so younger. I do hope we can get back to both Japan and Taiwan though.

That’s very observant to notice my light had gone missing! I definitely noticed its absence and will be glad to be carrying it again.

I’ll be interested to see where you’re going next spring if you make it to Italy, because that’s our destination too. Pretty big country, but stranger things have happened than to have our paths cross somewhere.

Lovely reflection and recap of your incredible adventure. I actually teared up reading it. And, since I'm one of those who didn't get around to reading all your blog posts, I'm looking forward to the monthly highlights.