Gallery of Jim Blilie's Photos:

World Bicycle Tour, 1990-1992

The Big Show

Part 20:  France, Part 2

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning

all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas

and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts

of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues

from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance

which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can,

begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."  (Often attributed to Goethe)

  This page is under construction.  I'm still working on a text for each segment of the

trip and scanning in some negatives and maybe a few more slides hidden here and there.

BACK TO WORLD TOUR BIG SHOW INDEX

Back to Main Photo Page

Back to Basic World Tour Page

These are THE BIG SHOW of my slides from my trip around the world with Jeff Mellor, 1990-1992.

There are many more slides in this set than on the main world tour page:  About 2600 total.  I spent

some time in late 2009 going through all my slides from the world trip and I selected many for scanning.

The results are on this page (slide shows).  Many of these have been seen only by me and many of those

I hadn't seen since 1993.  The trip itself is outlined below.

These are scans of my Kodachrome 64 (and a very small number of Ektachrome 100) slides

From Jim and Jeff Mellor's bicycle tour around the world from Nov-1990 through Oct-1992

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010 All rights reserved

I used a very nice, yet inexpensive scanner, the  Epson V500  I like it very much.

*   *   *   *   *

France 2 16-Apr-1992 to 24-May-1992, 1201 miles

The day we crossed from Spain into France, the weather broke, and, though we had some cold

rainy days in France (it was April after all), we generally had 5 weeks of splendid weather on

this trip across France, 1200 miles from top to bottom.

We entered by and end-run around around the Pyrenees at Biarritz.  We thought we'd ride over

them at Andorra.  Hah! it was WAY too early and cold and snowy.  We rode along the foothills

of the Pyrenees to Tarbes and then cut straight to and over the Massif Centrale, via the Lot River

gorges, then down the Allier and the Loire to the sea by way of Moulins, Gien, Orleans, Paris, the

Chateaux of the Loire Valley, and then around Brittany to Roscoff where we caught the ferry

for the Plymouth in the UK.

We drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of good cheese and bread.  I had my first real encounter

with the country I love best outside the US.  I've been back again and again three times so far.

(See also my photos from France in 1997 and 1999 and again in 2010.)

*   *   *   *   *

PREVIOUS SEGMENT

NEXT SEGMENT

BACK TO WORLD TOUR BIG SHOW INDEX

For the slide show:  

Click HERE.  Then:

Click on the first picture (upper left picture) on the black photo album page and then

Click the "play" button at the upper right of the view panel to start the slide show.

Enjoy.

Look:  Sun over France, clouds over Spain!		First camp in France	Still wet ...	Fantastic smoothly paved little roads with no traffic.  "Just stick to the 'D' roads!"
Our first French pastries.  Look, the leaves are out!		Free camping at Peyrehorade	Peyrehorade	Palm trees!
Looking up to the snowy Pyrenees	The Pyrenees from Tarbes	Sunny camp and wine!		Plenty of hills
Sunshine and the T-shirts are back!		We're riding up into the Massif Centrale and it's getting colder	Plane tree-lined roads	Under the chestnuts
Lunch, yum!		The River Lot	Chateaux in the Lot Gorges
Up into the Massif Centrale, back into winter ...			Breaking camp	Back towards the snow!
Real close to the snow-line	At the pass Col de Cére, 1294m	Maurillac
What is that scary bright thing in the sky ...?		Wisteria in bloom	Down the Alliers River
	The Alliers at Moulins	Lunch!		T-shirts again!
One of the many French canals	Little bitty, perfect paved roads		Gien
A grove of Sequoias, inh the middle fo the Forêt de Orléans	The Loire Valley, Sully sur Loire	The Cathedral of Orléans, looking down the famous Rue Jeanne D'Arc.  We camped at Orléans and took a short train ride into Paris for a day	Place du Martroi with the statue of Joan of Arc	The banks of the Seine in Paris
Notre Dame de Paris	Notre Dame de Paris	Henri Quatre at the Pont Neuf	The Louvre	The Louvre
The Louvre	The Louvre	Lunch on the Pont Neuf	L'Arc de Triomphe	L'Arc de Triomphe
The Eiffel Tower	Rodin Museum	Rodin Museum	Le Metro	On to the Chateaux of the Loire.  This is Chambord
Chambord	Chambord	On the road	Cheverny, which is almost unique in having all its furnishings intact	Cheverny
Cheverny		Our birthdays are one day apart.  Our celebration in 1992, in the Loire Valley		Chenonceaux
Chenonceaux		France is so rich	Rigny-Ussé	The Loire near Vienne
Saumur
		The Benz's from Kansas	Breaking camp
	Back to the sea at Brittany, first time in 4 weeks or so.			Fresh oysters
		Neolithic mound grave		The lines of Menec
The lines of Menec		Brittany coast		Heading for Roscoff
	Crossing Brittany south to north	To the ferry	The ferry	Pulling out of France for the UK

PREVIOUS SEGMENT

NEXT SEGMENT

BACK TO WORLD TOUR BIG SHOW INDEX

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

Outline of our trip:

From Nov. 15, 1990 to Oct. 6, 1992, with a five-month break for the winter of '91-'92, Jeff Mellor

and I traveled around the world through 26 countries, mostly by bicycle.  While in the "developed"

world, we bicycled 1000 miles per month, camping each night.  In Asia and Africa, we traveled by

train and bus and used guest-houses.  We encountered 16 different foreign languages, of which we

needed to learn at least the rudiments.  We rode a total of almost 11,000 miles on our bikes, camped out

at least 350 times, and climbed several mountains including Pt. Lenana (16,350 ft.) on Mt. Kenya in

Africa.  We took a three-week, 220-mile hike around the Annapurna Range in Nepal, which included

a 17,700 ft. high pass.  I took 13,000 photographs and wrote 1000 pages of journals.  No experience

in my life, except my university education, can compare with these travels for the depth and breadth

of learning or for the perspective gained.  It was one of the peak life experiences, up there with

marriage, children, university education.

Our trip was through these countries:

[Hawaii:  The Big Island, a 2-week shake-down within the US, started Nov 1990]

Fiji, about 10 days riding around Viti Levu from Nadi to Suva

New Zealand:  Auckland to Wellington via Coromandel Penn. and a loop around the Southern

Alps from Christchurch and back

Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne via Canberra and Mt. Kosciusko, around Tasmania, bits and

pieces inland mostly bus to Darwin

Singapore

Malaysia, from Singapore to the Thai border

Thailand (no bikes; we sent our bikes to Denmark from Bangkok, not wanting to ride in Thailand,

Nepal, India, Kenya, or Egypt)

Nepal (no bikes)

India (no bikes; just passed through Delhi and Bombay since we were running way behind)

and then on to a long tour of Europe:

Denmark

Germany

Netherlands

Belgium

France

United Kingdom

Then a winter's break at home in the USA from Oct 1991 through March 1992, then we flew

back to Lisbon Portugal in March 1992:

Portugal

Spain

France

UK, we rode from Plymouth to Land's End then from Land's End to John O'Groats at the tip of

Scotland and via ferries to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and on to Norway over the North Sea (with a

detour from Holyhead in Wales over to Ireland and back)

Ireland

Norway

Sweden

Germany (former East Germany)

Poland

Czech Republic

Austria

Germany (Bavaria) and home in Oct 1992 from Frankfurt am Main

All images are copyright © James W. Blilie, 1990 through 2010, All rights reserved

BACK TO WORLD TOUR BIG SHOW INDEX

Time and mileage table:

BACK TO WORLD TOUR BIG SHOW INDEX

Back to Main Photo Page

Back to Basic World Tour Page

Background image is view in the Loire Valley, May 1992

Last updated:  5-Sep-2010