Portmouth St Malo out, Bilbao Portsmouth in, my favourite route. St Malo route is much less anti-social than Caen - you leave earlier and arrive later, so time for a nice meal on the boat and enough sleep for the long next day. Plus less chance of failing a breath test on the autoroute, seems the gendarmes are starting early morning checks.

Plan was for a long fast weekend chez Flash, followed by a leisurely solo tour of Cathar country. After a detour en route to the Monteneuf Menhirs arrived on the Friday evening for welcome beer and banter. As ever Chateau Flash was magnifique, Violette's fish soup was delicious, and I caught up with a few old friends. And discovered my trusty, but 11 year old Ducati was now struggling to hang onto the modern race bikes, especially in the damp. Thinking I need traction control too. Hmmm...

A great weekend over too fast, Tuesday morning and the weather forecast says south east, just where I wanted to be. Spent the next few days touring around, finally taking in Montségur, Rennes le Chateau and cave paintings at Niaux. Brilliant.

Ferry back on Tuesday so I decided to head for Bilbao on the Sunday to give me Monday in the Guggenheim. A cunning plan thwarted by the Guggenheim being closed on Mondays, doh! But the city, especially the old quarter, is full of narrow lanes and tapas bars, so a relaxing day. Like the next day back, when rough seas meant the ferry restaurant was pretty much empty and the wi-fi worked OK(ish). In contrast to the next morning when satellite bandwidth was overwhelmed. Should've expected it, but irritating nonetheless.Ho hum!