Chartres to Amersfoort to Copenhagen: the 80th anniversary of VE-Day. WWI Trenches. Anne Frank. And a Little Mermaid.

Hullo! Bonjour! Groetjes! Hallo! Hej!

The last time we wrote a cycling blog post was in November of 2024 after we had had, to be honest, a hellacious last day of riding through a freak snow storm. On that day, we were very grateful to leave the bikes at the HomeBox storage facility in Chartres.

In a nutshell: Fall 2024’s trip was “1587 kilometres cycled over five weeks… and the watery-est trip so far. We rode through absolutely torrential rains on the very first day (Lisbon to Setubal), did a complete re-route mid-trip when violent floods ravaged Valencia, and rode through a freak snow blizzard on the last day of cycling to Chartres. The “DANA” flooding in Valencia, was definitely climate-change related. It was scary.”

On April 27th – i.e. this Sunday evening – we start our sixth trip. Spring 2025’s trip will be 1200 kilometres of cycling over four weeks with no climate-change-related events.

We’ll fly from Toronto to Paris, hop on the Metro to get to Montparnasse Station on Monday morning and then board a train to Chartres. After dumping our luggage at the hotel which is conveniently within 200 metres of the train station, we’ll cab it to the HomeBox storage facility, assemble the bikes, and ride them back to the hotel. It’ll be a happy reunion: the bikes we ride in Europe are ICE Trikes (“Inspired Cycle Engineering”). They are exceptionally fine pieces of British engineering and an absolute joy to ride.

John has some preliminary maintenance to do on his bike: the treads are worn on his tires, so he’ll swap them out for new ones which we’re bringing from Toronto. We’ve allowed ourselves two nights in Chartres to get acclimatized, address any additional technical problems with the bikes and see Chartres’ magnificent cathedral which we just didn’t have the energy to visit when we were there in November. I’m also hoping to see “Chartres En Lumieres“: images projected on various historic buildings around the city in the evening.

Tuesday morning you can bet we’ll be checking the news for the election results. We voted at an Advanced Poll last week. Our fingers are crossed for no unpleasant surprises. If you haven’t already, please please please VOTE!

On Wednesday, we begin cycling; we’ll average about 70 km/day, travelling almost every day. As you can see from the map at the top of the page, we’ll head first for the spectacularly beautiful Mont St. Michel, and then northeast.

We’ll be on the Normandy Beaches for the 80th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day and John’s arranged two tours with guides for those days. We have tickets to attend the Service of Remembrance and Celebration at 2:00 on May 8th at the British Normandy Memorial. The Standing with Giants installation is now open; it features 1,475 silhouettes of soldiers, nurses, paramedics, bagpipers who landed on beaches. It will be sobering.

We’ll visit the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, “dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave.” (I re-read Jane Urquhart’s excellent book, The Stone Carvers. Highly recommended.)

Then, east to Passchendaele and Flanders Fields, ending in Amersfoort just outside of Amsterdam where the bikes will go into storage. (Thank-you, Ben!) We’ve pre-booked tours of Anne Frank Huis and the Rijksmuseum because those tickets sell out early.

From there, we take a train to Hamburg for two nights, and then on to Copenhagen for three nights. Along the way from Chartres to Copenhagen, of course, there are cathedrals and museums and galleries to visit, cheeses and moules frites to eat, and we appreciate any suggestions you may have for us!

I apologize in advance for the photos of food that I won’t be able to resist sharing.

Sidebar. My parents visited Amsterdam, Hamburg and Copenhagen when they did their epic scooter trip through the UK and Europe in the ’50s and as it turns out, John and I will be travelling in their footsteps often: many of the famous buildings in those cities are familiar to me because as children my siblings and I spent hours looking at the hundreds of slides that my dad took of buildings that were of interest to him as a recent graduate architect. I’ll attach a few of his photos to this post.

Our pal Rob Mee will be living in our house while we’re away, his “home away from home.” We’re grateful to Rob for his residency. We appreciate Ben Pon’s offer to store our bikes in his beautiful hometown of Amersfoort. And we are very, very grateful to John’s brother and sister who will be on hand here in Toronto should 94-year-old Marny need any support.

Love,

Patti and John