Our ride on the final day was very short, just 12 miles to reach the ferryport. And the ride was mostly on the cyclepaths that ran on both sides of the river.
Our route on a short stretch of road running from our campsite along the coast was marked by a poignant series of vertical banners hung on every lampost, each of which featured a portrait of a soldier who had been killed during the fighting associated with the capture of the Pegasus Bridge. In fact, along many of the roads within Ouisterham itself the lamposts were similarly decorated.
We crossed the river at the famous Pegasus Bridge, renamed after the war after the pegasus emblem of the regiment that managed to secure this strategic crossing across the river. This bridge, whose capture by parachutists arriving from gliders in the latter days of World War 2 in Europe, was an important part of the strategic preparation for the D Day landings.
The current bridge, however, is not the original wartime version but a more recent replacement whose design still allowed the passage of ships and barges to and from Caen, some 12km to the south in order to reach the English Channel.
And then, after a satisfying lunch of galettes accompanied by local cider in Ouisterham, we made our way to the ferry port’s waiting area in preparation for boarding our ferry back to Portsmouth.
And so our journey is almost over.
We have pedalled across Northern Spain from Bilbao into France. From the Atlantic coast in France to the Mediterranean and across to the Rhône estuary. Our return ride from Paris to the ferry port of Ouisterham took our mileage to over 800 miles (around 1300km) with lots of hills climbed and many memories generated.
Together with our rail, ship and bus journeys we must have travelled around 3,000 miles in all, not so different from our previous long distance tandem travel to Istanbul and back!
Distance travelled : 14 miles
Total distance travelled: 804 miles
Ascent: 105ft approx
After breakfast, whilst doing the pre ride checks before setting off, the gear cable decided to break off inside the changer. Being an indexed device I was unsure how to access the innards of the changer without having the whole piece of machinery completely disintegrate.
Most of the day’s ride looked on the map to be fairly flat apart from a section which involved climbing up out of the river valley near Pont l’Éveque to reach the relatively flat countryside nearer the coast. We appeared to have the option of either having a long steady climb, at a reasonably graded rate on a not too busy “D” road, or an even longer more circuitous route along unclassified roads involving ups and downs some of which seemed to be quite steep according to our mapping app.
Our last night of our journey on the continent was rounded off by a beautiful sunset over the sandy beach that was right next to the campsite.
Since we had no tent to pack up we were able to start our journey from Evreux bright and early, just as the market stalls were being set up in the central square.
The bench where we had chosen to stop was around 110mtrs up and had the most magnificent view across central Paris over to the well known landmarks of the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre.
They then proceeded to pull this mower behind them to begin mowing the long grass of the park. A bizarre sight in central Paris!
Back down again, we continued our wanderings, taking in an attractive produce market, the “Pyramid” of Tiranë and the outside of the city’s oldest building, the 14th century mosque which looked particularly attractive. We weren’t able to go inside, sadly, and admire the architecture, for it was a very busy mosque for worshop so had restricted visiting hours for tourists.
The scenery here now cool and misty with forested vistas being quite a contrast to the more arid and hot coastal plain.
The place we stayed at was Maxola’s Dream, a small fairly basic family-run guesthouse right on the beach with its own parasols and loungers ready set up for lazy days at the seaside. The guest house took its name from a famous Albanian footballer from Vlorë who often visited Orikum in the past.
In the evening we went for a beautifully peaceful dusk time stroll to explore a large brackish water lagoon with extensive reed beds around it that was a short distance from where we were staying. We later found out from a faded interpretation board we passed on our way into Orikum main town (to buy lunchtime supplies) that it was an important migratory bird feeding zone and was part of the National Park protection zone.
The walk into ‘town’ was down a wide decently paved and tree lined boulevard which contrasted somewhat with the smaller tarmacked road beside the beachfront. We wondered whether there had been, at some time in the past, plans to extensively develop the beach area, but for whatever reason had not taken place.
We met some Kosovans who were also staying at the hotel and we had some interesting conversations with them. For example, about how Kosova was once part of Albania and how, after the collapse of the communist regime in Albania that Kosovans were the trailblazers for the fledgling Albanian tourism industry as it gradually emerged from its peculiar self-enforced isolation. Interestingly, they considered that Albania was now getting quite ‘Mediterranean’ in its culture, and changing from its original Balkan identity, which they felt landlocked Kosova retained.
The next day we planned to take the bus up to Vlorë and then onward for our last two nights in Albania spending a little time in its capital city, Tiranë. Of course, we had previously checked out where one had to stand to catch buses to get to Vlorë since there were no obvious signed bus stops. Just a convenient shady tree on the main road near a bar/cafe for handy refreshments.
At first sight this seemed an attractive place with two stretches of sandy beaches book-ended with woodland and without much development up into the hinterland. And it was not nearly so busy as Sarandë.
The woman at the bar told us how to get to Levadi and off we went up some steep steps and onto the footpath again. This time we noticed the occasional footpath markers painted in red and white flashes onto convenient stones to show us the way.
