Italy 2018: Rome - The Colosseum and Forum

Some days it just all goes wrong. This was one of them. I'd been working in Chennai on a secondment and was coming to the end of my time there, where I'd have a couple of weeks to myself. This was the first place I visited, and promptly began feeling sick about 10 minutes after arriving. It was a scorching day, and I'd arrived with the sun at it's highest. I dragged myself around the complex for a single lap stopping as many times to throw up as I did to take a photo, before collapsing into the rear seat of the hotel car for the long ride home.

The weather finally broke and I grabbed my bike and onto the ferry for a four day round-trip ride to Mont Saint-Michel, a true bucket list location that I've tried to get to for the last 6 years and been tripped on in one way or another from Covid to an operation on my arm. Unfortunately the day I got their it was enveloped in thick fog to the point where I could barely see it even thought I was there. The Abby was also closed due to an emergency so I didn't get to see as much as I'd hope. Which just means I have to go back. The weather played another trick by whipping up a storm the day I was supposed to go home. So a cancelled ferry meant an unexpected day in Saint-Malo. I'm glad it arrived that day as I'd have really struggled with the bike to get back there if was a riding day. But despite the hiccups, the riding was fun and I enjoyed myself. The intention is to spend more time with my bike in France and exploring what is on my doorstep.

Another of those places that has to be seen with your own eyes. Every nook and cranny is filled with detail that even a gallery of a thousand photographs could not hope to capture. So many moments where you turn a corner and say 'hang on that's a...'

A late afternoon walk around the Estonian city of Tartu.

A walk around Kew Gardens at night, guided by Christmas Illuminations.

I had no idea what to expect in Riga, and really had no pre-conceived notions on what I'd find but if asked back then I probably wouldn't have said a gloriously pretty city with vividly coloured buildings and art deco facades intertwined with redbrick medieval churches.

I wonder how much Beijing has changed since I was there. There had been rapid development which made parts unrecognisable from the scenes in '80 Days Around the World' what would have been filmed around 20 years before I visited. Coming up on 15 years since then, how different is it now?