From Tenerife, Simon took the cargobike loaded with the electric folding bike and most of our luggage on a ferry to Huelva and from there Madrid and Barcelona. In Madrid, he was hosted by very nice Warmshowers hosts who introduced him to the local cycling community.
Before continuing to Barcelona, he cycled to https://garaldeainclusiva.wordpress.com/, an inclusive agricultural community who spontaneously offered him a bed and shared their food and company with him.
A night ferry took him from Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca, where he headed directly to an Ecofestival hosted by a French expat family near Santa Eugenia. Once again spontaneously and warmly welcomed, he spent a wonderful evening with the family and their friends and helped out at the festival the next day.
Then it was time to pick up the family from the airport, by cargo-bike of course 😉
We spent two weeks in a caravan in a degraded illegal camping site near Ses Cadenes (Palma), where we became friends with another German family from Lünen on their way to southern Spain and Portugal.
And another week in Alcudia, from where it was easy to go wild camping in Formentor and enjoy the markets of Pollenca and its Port.
A ferry then took us over to Menorca, where we spent two weeks in an Airbnb at Los Delfines. Menorca offered nice forests to cycle through with sea eagles above, and incredible beaches to sleep under the stars.
Not aware of the ferry route to Toulon, we took a ferry back to Barcelona where we split up with the ladies flying to Berlin and the boys somehow managing to get on an AVE to Pergpignan with the folding bike and the fully loaded trailer („just because of your son, YOU would have NEVER got on this train alone!“). From there, a TER took them to Toulouse, a night-train to Paris and another TGV to Epinal on the Western edge of the Vosges.
Here they were welcomed back by Simons parents and sister and spent a weekend at Ecolonie eco camping. Then Simons sister and her dog cycled along with Simon and Demian through the Vosges, via the Ecocamping Mettey, the beautiful and probably last offline managed camping Belle Rive on Lake Longemer, the summer sledge slope Col de la Schlucht, Colmar, Freiburg, the Schwarzwaldcamp on Lake Schluch and Wagenburg camping on the Danube.
We spent the rest of the summer with our families in Germany, with excursions to the lakes of Mecklenburger Seenplatte, (Simon: to the wood crafting festival Byggefest at Grobund, Reggaejam festival), the Italian Maritime Alps and Provence including a short visit of Longo Mai Limans and our second Tour de Verkehrswende. And piling up the numerous documents required for the Special Tourist Visa for Thailand 🙂
