Devon & Cornwall tour

The MetOffice firmly promised three days of rain over the Bank Holiday in South-West England, and although I bought advance train tickets for the planned cycling tour in Devon, I started seriously thinking about cancelling the trip: loosing 20 pounds on refund would be less harmful than cycling for three days under heavy rain.

Yet, with all due respect to the MetOffice, whose HadCM family of models is one of the best in the world, I wanted to know what would be the real weather. I decided to try another predictive tool, the weather horary. I cast a chart for question: “How would be the weather and my trip?”

Surprisingly, the chart appeared rather “hot & dry”: ascendent in dry Virgo, IC in hot & dry Sagittarius, ruler of ascendent strong elevated Mercury in hot Gemini, and absolutely happy 9th house of far travel, with strong Venus, Mercury and Sun therein. The significator of bicycle, ruler of 2nd house Venus (which also ruled 9th), too confirmed the first impression. The chart promised a happy dry trip! So, what should I believe - which of two forecasts?

Practising the art without trusting it would be unfair, so I decided to depart.

I started the tour in Exeter

keeping the way along the coast

that can never be boring

visited private Powderham Castle

and cycled along many picturesque towns like Torquay

This area is rightfully called “English Riviera”

with famous Blackpool sands

The villages are traditionally English, with some old stuff privately owned for living

and some old stuff for daily use, like this Victorian postbox (if it is still well and alive, why change?)

The coastal area has peculiar network of estuaries, bays and creeks, which sometimes cannot be avoided and require a ferry

Also, it is hilly

so cycling there is hard fun – but not after the training in Alps! As the horary promised, the bike was in perfect state (thanks to the recent upgrade of Shimano Deore systems), so the long downhills were crazy fun, with speed up to 60-65kmh.

I arrived at Plymouth and stayed overnight in a B&B after first 130km. In the morning, I spent some time exploring the city, with Royal Marines Barracks

Hospital of dog PDSA charity

Then I crossed the creek by the high bridge

and entered Cornwall. If you ever heard about Cornish pasties, these are from Cornwall (although historians claim that first ones were actually cooked in Devon in 1509 in a banquette dedicated to the coronation of Henry VIII).

I cycled in gorgeous and car-free village roads, where I met some ladies

and visited traditional fishing village Polperro

I doubt they need to fish now, as they have plenty of tourists

I saw an old house which looked as remarkable as the Pisa tower (although the place is too remote to attract the visitors)

I then arrived at Polruan village and crossed the bay by ferry again

arriving at the Fowey Promenade, where I left the convenient road and entered the South Coast Path protected by the National Trust

which reminded me the coast of Ireland, with similar basalt cliffs and the most beautiful ocean

The South Path is intended only for pedestrians (and I would obey this rule if I had time to park the bike and later come back to the same place – but I could not), so it is boarded and has this kind of “gates” (they are called "stiles")

that I had to cross with the loaded bicycle. Good that there was training in Alps! Occasionally I met a German couple who told me about Bilan’s victory in Eurovision – just as the Venus in 10th in the inauguration chart promised.

I also met mountain inhabitants who are quite happy on the coastal sloppy hills.

Saw a nice traditional pub – these are always pleasant to see and visit for a coffee break

I also saw a Maltese hospital: the present Grandmaster is English, and the Order has strong connections with the country.

The rest of the way led to the Cornwall capital Truro, where I spent the night and visited the Cathedral - not too ancient, but beautiful

My initial plans were to reach Penzance, but due to the rail engineering work I had to allocate about eight hours for the trip home, changing five trains.

After cycling two days and a half for 240km, I finished the tour and boarded the train back home – and saw, through the train window, the heavy rain starting. Funny enough, when I came home, there was a BBC comedy describing new Mercedes with windscreen wipers operated by instantly updated weather forecast – somehow they suffered time delays.

“I remember a holiday of mine being completely ruined one late autumn by our paying attention to the weather report of the local newspaper. "Heavy showers, with thunderstorms, may be expected to-day," it would say on Monday, and so we would give up our picnic, and stop indoors all day, waiting for the rain. - And people would pass the house, going off in wagonettes and coaches as jolly and merry as could be, the sun shining out, and not a cloud to be seen.

"Ah!" we said, as we stood looking out at them through the window, "won't they come home soaked!"

And we chuckled to think how wet they were going to get, and came back and stirred the fire, and got our books, and arranged our specimens of seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve o'clock, with the sun pouring into the room, the heat became quite oppressive, and we wondered when those heavy showers and occasional thunderstorms were going to begin.

"Ah! they'll come in the afternoon, you'll find," we said to each other. "Oh, won't those people get wet. What a lark!"

At one o'clock, the landlady would come in to ask if we weren't going out, as it seemed such a lovely day.

"No, no," we replied, with a knowing chuckle, "not we. We don't mean to get wet - no, no."

And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and still there was no sign of rain, we tried to cheer ourselves up with the idea that it would come down all at once, just as the people had started for home, and were out of the reach of any shelter, and that they would thus get more drenched than ever. But not a drop ever fell, and it finished a grand day, and a lovely night after it.

The next morning we would read that it was going to be a "warm, fine to set-fair day; much heat;" and we would dress ourselves in flimsy things, and go out, and, half-an-hour after we had started, it would commence to rain hard, and a bitterly cold wind would spring up, and both would keep on steadily for the whole day, and we would come home with colds and rheumatism all over us, and go to bed.”

Jerome K. Jerome, “Three men in a boat”

Easter cycling

The natal lunar chart for March promised lots of travelling, with filled 3rd (short journeys) and 9th (foreign land) houses:

I decided to use the Easter holiday for my long-cherished dream: to cycle along the Castle Road between Heidelberg and Prague (not because of Jerome. K. Jerome’s “Three Men on the Bummel” – those did it in Schwarzwald). The lunar 9th house of far travels was afflicted by retro Saturn and Ketu – a good description of cycling fun in winter. My plans were thus confirmed.

I got a flight ticket to Stuttgart on the day when the Moon already passed conjunction with Saturn and sextile with detrimented Mars in Cancer, but when I cast a horary chart for the coming trip, I didn’t like it at all:

My main worry was about the ruler of 2nd house of movable property, i.e., my bike. It was signified by that nasty detrimented Mars in 9th house: the bike seemed to be causing problems in the foreign land. But then, the ruler of the ascendent (me) was the exalted Venus in 5th house of fun and dining pleasures, in conjunction with ruler of 9th house Mercury. And 3rd house of journeys had (although afflicted) great benefic Jupiter. What was that, I wondered, how could I read such a combination? If the bike significator is so spoiled, how could I have fun and travel at all?

The answer came soon after landing in Germany: my bicycle was lost at Stansted. Instead of starting the tour, I got stuck in Stuttgart “until further notice” from Lufthansa (which might happen after the holiday, I thought).

The only thing I could do was to wander in the downtown – which I did until bumped into the musical museum in a side street. My trip delay was well paid off! Although it was all in German, the instruments talked for themselves: I was astonished to see schemes of mechanisms and dozens of various piano constructions. This is where craft and art couple!

Fortunately, the next morning my bike arrived. Many thanks to the nice lady in the Lufthansa office for her valuable help!

To cope with my plans, I started towards North-East, heading Schwabisch Hall

But the weather… Since I couldn’t change the dates of the holiday, I didn’t even look at charts for weather. What would be the point to ponder over unchangeable changeability? Yes, it started snowing:

On the way, I occasionally crossed Schwabisch Alps and arrived at frozen Schwabisch Hall

Then there was unremarkable road to Ansbach, where I took a train to another Alps, Bavarian

This was my first visit to Southern Bavaria with its Tirol style

The road was “hilly”

I saw a sign which, as far as I could understand the language I didn’t know, warned drivers about frogs blind of love!

I do not know whether at this sign one should stop or turn back at all? Or just wait for frog’s crossing? I wish I saw that.

I arrived at Benediktbeuern

and had an Easter dinner with unforgettable Kirschstrudel (ah, exalted Venus in 5th)

In the evening, walking in the snow-covered village I found a very interesting place: Bavarian cowshed

They put those cow medals on the gates to show how good the farm is. And the cows – they look really happy and well-groomed, what a nice living for them in Bavaria…

The morning was just perfect with perfect road (I suspect, they are made with some hydrophobic surfaces)

and I soon arrived at Munich

My next destination was Augsburg, where Leopold Mozart (father) was born

I also visited Schaezlerpalais

The family declined when the two heirs died in WWII

Although the younger brother was probably fighting in Russia, it was sad to see this memorial. Soldiers ever deserve respect.

The area between Augsburg and Nurnberg is just fields and farms, and I took a train to Nurnberg instead of cycling: the further road should be more interesting.

Although Germany is known as a bicycle-friendly country, I can tell that after England it does not look friendly at all. One is charged for taking a bike on train 4.5 euro (in England it is free), and bikes are not allowed on intercity trains (imagine if in England you would not be allowed to take your bike between London and Colchester – nonsense!) Moreover, frequently blamed expensive English tickets must be compared with German: for a 1.5-hour journey between Augsburg and Nurnberg in a regional (slow) train I paid 25 euro! About cycle road friendliness – here is an example:

Since those cycle routes “exist” (they may be offroad, or covered by snow, or stop in the middle of nowhere), the auto roads are forbidden for cycling (even minor ones, I am not talking about autobahns). Therefore, the owners of some older cars often shout at a poor winter cyclist on the road side – this is the friendliness. Another problem of well-regulated relationship between drivers and cyclists is that the city edges have very complicated road junctions, where a normal (not autobahn) road suddenly joins an autobahn to become normal again later – but that’s it, it is closed for a cyclist in that area. Closed and boarded, and alternative cycling routes are signposted with names of unknown villages (leading who knows where), and compass does not help, because they change the direction for 90 degrees now and then. Each morning leaving a city and finding the right road took 2-3 hours for 10-15 kilometres!

Those nice big yellow road signposts in Germany declare distances to the nearest villages – but never to a major city, which would be more relevant for a visitor. I had quite a good map with resolution 1cm:10km, but certainly not all the inhabited places were there, and those road signposts puzzled me a lot: there was something which I did not need, and what I needed was not there. This never happened to me on English roads! Overregulation is not good, dear Germans.

Thanks to the Casio compass, I arrived at Nurnberg

and then to picturesque Bamberg

This is the area of so-called Saxon Switzerland, which I realised quite soon:

I saw famous Hartmann brewery in a small village

and peculiar houses

I approached the border between Germany and Czech Republic

and only then I realised that Germany was good for cycling… Yes, in Germany several roads could merge changing status, but in Czechia the same road can here be minor and there – autobahn, without any particular reason! Not to mention the road surface in Prague, without border ramps and sometimes with medieval stones… Oh no…

I was cycling looking around and found some modern signs in the forest

Though Hrad Loket looks like in an old European fairytale

and Prague with ancient Hradcany is wonderful

The famous astrological clock has surprisingly high tone (not as serious as Big Ben)

One can see that I visited the place at the end of March: the hand in the internal circle points at the beginning of Aries.

This guy probably symbolises Golem

After 17 years since my first impression and much travelling, I confirm that St Vitus is one of the most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in the world!

It was the last day of the tour, and the weather had finally improved

The Easter festival was finishing that day, and I was lucky to get several pieces of traditional “trdlo” (sweet pastry cooked on hot cylinders with cinnamon and nuts) – ah, exalted Venus in 5th house…

In the late evening I climbed to Hradcany again – to see dear St Vitus and, at last, the Golden Street without tourists. Here is the house where Kafka lived

Sitting in a room where one can touch the ceiling by hand, indeed, can cause psychological problems (and the guy had Mars on Algol in broad conjunction with Saturn).

Next morning, I was leaving Prague. Again, finding the way was not easy. I found the airport only because a new supermarket in the same area posted its announcements along the road – some luck at last. The Czech signposts do not expect people not to speak Czech. If you are in Czechia, you certainly should speak something better than English! And since in my flight ticket there was only word “Prague”, when I found the airport I couldn’t imagine it was a wrong terminal, just 3 km around the corner. At least they didn’t loose the bike – just crooked the back Shimano system by some suitcase.

On the back way from Luton… Well, it was old good England… Nothing like Alps or snowing…

I should say these 810km, mainly in mountains, have trained me a lot. Now Norfolk does not look hilly at all!