Day 27 - 1,000 mile cycle across France 🇫🇷 + Spain

Last night was my second night camping at a campsite. The days of wild camping seem a long time ago. I wake up later than usual even though the sun is shining through the material of my tent.

The first part of each day starts with stretching my legs and contracting my quad muscles as they’ve usually done a lot of work the day before. If I haven’t drank enough fluids sometimes my calf muscles cramp whilst stretching.

Whilst lounging in my camping chair and making coffee outside my tent a medium height, stocky Asian looking man approaches with a small bulldog attached to a lead. He notions towards my bike with his hand and asks how far I have travelled. This starts up a 30 minute conversation.

In this time as well as answering “Rizal’s” question I ask many of my own. Finding out Rizal’s dream of owning a campervan but how he found them very expensive. Ultimately he brought himself a standard Ford transit. Watched many YouTube videos and took the DIY approach.

I told him I had lived in a campervan for a decade and only sold it at the end of last year. I felt pretty sweet when the Rizal told me that I had got in early on the game. After I finished my coffee and took a shower Rizal passed by and asked if I would like to check out his van. His wife earlier had been asleep inside but now was up.

The van was really cool, he purchased it for €10,000 and had converted it himself but was waiting to do more renovations with the help of his brother in law.

It was getting late in the day and I decided to continue with my journey. Valencia is only 15 miles from where I am now and I intend on spending the day seeking out the best food I can find in Spain‘s third-largest city.

The cycle toward Valencia is pretty ugly as I’m passing industrial areas as I approach. Then I hit the coast and find a headwind whilst cycling over patches of sand in the bicycle lane. Finally I enter a hipster part of Valencia. Immediately I get off my bike and sit on the bench.

The women are beautiful and pass by in every direction. The city is casting a spell upon me.

I finish a pastry from a bakery and continue on. Earlier I had passed a Dutch cyclist coming in the opposite direction. He had just cycled from Valencia. I stopped and asked if it was easy to find a place to stay in Valencia.

He replied

“I’m camping, I paid €9 at a campsite, left my bike and my bags then and then took a bus into the city. It only takes 20 minutes”.

This became my plan. After cycling I eventually found the campsite. I waited quite a while whilst drinking a Coca-Cola at reception, the lady was busy with two couples. Finally I paid and she took me to the area where the tents were.

As she left me alone I stood there For a while unsure if I wanted to sleep in this space. The ground not only didn’t have grass neither gravel it was dirt and cigarette butts with too many tents into too small a space. I got on my bike and headed towards the exit.

A German cycle tourist who I recognised from a few towns ago spotted me and asked what’s the camping like I responded “have a look you might not want to camp there”. He took my word for it and followed me to the next campsite on his bike.

When I got there I realised the first campsite even though not nice was much better than the second one with two homeless people living in some shanty tents with tears in, one of the guys was standing outside his tent with a large beer belly smoking a cigarette staring at me as if I Gone into somewhere I should not have.

I immediately returned to the first place and told the lady I was not comfortable with the area and did she have another. She took the time and kindly showed. me somewhere I was completely happy with. I’d lost the German guy by now he was having a cigarette back at the other campsite with someone who had asked him for one of the cigarettes. Not my type of place.

I’ve now caught the bus into Valencia and I’m walking round what is the city which has further cast a spell for me. Old buildings, the vibrant conversations with energetic Valenciennes in the night life really appeals.

I did my research and found the top places if you’re a local Valencienne to go and eat paella. The first place I went to there was an American couple standing outside I asked if they’d enjoy the meal they responded by saying they found this place but gone in without making a reservation were turned away. I went in and tried my luck in less than a minute I was standing outside on the curb with the Americans.

I then went down my list and found the closest next best place in Valencia to get a paella called “La Riua”. Apparently if you’re local and live in Valencia this is the place to go, I’m not local and I don’t live in Valencia but I’ll check it out.

I Enter La Riua (the river) a small energetic lady in her 60s looks at me and says in Spanish “darling we are full but come back at 10:15 or 1030 and you can have a table”.

Biding my Time by drinking red wine round the corner in what seemed like a bunch of tables outside a block of apartments and an entrepreneurial guy serving people with shit pizza and wine. The wine was not great but it gave me time to write this.

The paella was mediocre. What was more interesting was the people at the tables around me. In front the lady in her 50s staring at me with seductive eyes. To my left a group of lads from what I recognise to be the Place of my birth, that being Wolverhampton, when I asked that was confirmed. To my far left two girls and one guy presumably the guy was gay. And at my right two young girls with their eyes deep into their phones.

After the meal I took a walk around searched in google for a nightclub to go to and then decided the taxi back to the campsite was probably the best option. The Pakistani driver held intellectual conversation with me all the way to the campsite. He has three children all of them are married in Pakistan and now they all live here.

Once I arrived at the campsite I went to the refugee camp and sat at the table with a guy hitchhiking who is a chef who works works for one week and then travel for one month so I guess he works 12 weeks per year. three local Valenciennes, two were a couple and one was a guy with a large tent behind me, a girl who was cycling and a South African.

I listen to the hitchhiking chef talk about everything in a matter of fact way and then decided it was time for bed.

So I said good night and departed.