The morning of our second day of riding in Tunisia was spent at a spectacular ancient Roman ruin: Dougga.    There seemed to be no-one there except us and an army of caretakers restoring old walls.  Dougga is on top of a hill and as you enter the site you hit the very well preserved Roman theatre.  But there are a lot of good Carthaginian related remnants as well.   Beyond the temple, next to a tethered donkey, was a big Temple of Saturn-Baal with its large front columns and stone structure and floor slabs intact.   An interesting mixture of gods! – Saturn the Roman god of the harvests and Baal, the supreme god of the Carthaginians.     Then we curved back to the centre of the site past more temple ruins, a gathering of feeding sheep whose heads were invisible because they were shoved inside a bail of hay (quite strange), the remains of the forum and also dozens of houses and shopfronts along paved roads, with their lower walls heavily restored but still standing.  Peeping over the top of an olive grove there was also an impressive tower like mausoleum, described as in the ancient Libyo-Phoenician style.   A great way to start the day! But we had to get going, partly because we hadn’t had breakfast yet!  That was causing something of a minor panic and there wasn’t much around to be eaten – or at least not that we could find quickly and easily.  We ended up with that spicy mixture of fresh tomatoes and chiles on bread and a bowel of olives.  It was served by a man with few teeth, who showed us his black gaps when he was warning us to be careful eating the olives.  One of my teeth fell out into my cereal on the trip so I considered comparing my hole to his but thought better of it.  After that challenging breakfast, we cycled on a little warily.

The theatre at Dougga

The Temple of Saturn-Baal

Libyo-Phoenician mausoleum

These last days on the road felt very good, partly because of the new landscapes we were enjoying.  The countryside in Tunisia is like being in the middle ages and reminded me of those delicately painted scenes that you can see on paper room dividers in Asian houses where one man is in the field scattering seeds, another is riding up a track, a couple are on the balcony of their wooden house, to the left of them, a river running through a wood.  That was what the landscapes were like in Tunisia – lots of simultaneous activities were visible from the seat of the bicycle that looked like they should have been happening a thousand years ago.

We also felt happy because we were coming to the end of our epic.  However amazing the trip, ten weeks is a long time and the prospect of home and being still for a while was very appealing.

But the action wasn’t over yet.  Near the town of Siliana, adjacent to Zama, the police took an interest in us and escorted us into town in their green and white jeep and then tried to make us continue riding towards the next town that was a good 15 km away, when all we wanted to do was stop, rest and have a drink.  There wasn’t a lot of logic to their argument except the insistence that further on was much nicer than Siliana.  Ben politely conversed with them in broken French for a while and we managed to extricate ourselves.

In the end, our visit to the last important part of the Hannibal story, the battlefield of Zama, was very memorable.  Zama, or Jama, is a little village about 140 km south west of the city of Tunes that is thought to be on the site of, or at least near where the Battle of Zama was fought.  This is the historic battle Hannibal lost to the Roman general Scipio, ending the Second Punic War with Carthage surrendering.  It was very strange to be gazing over this battlefield after thinking about it for a couple of years.  We didn’t really have any expectations about what it would be like when we got here –  the dusty farmland, olive groves and mountains in the distance seemed to fit the bill.   But I don’t think any of us have ever heard a donkey, sheep, chickens and a dog all making noise at once.  Zama is the battle that changed the course of history, but the battle changed little at Zama.    The locals were still riding donkeys and seemed to own a few scattered cows and little else.  The cluster of white houses were dusty and without windows.   Water was fetched from a fountain down the hill.  Little children chased us and laughed us past.   You felt a world away from Europe, but only a few hours away in a car another name that belongs to the past, Carthage - described by Ben in the last blog -  was now a wealthy suburb of the capital with palacial houses that you would see in any prosperous Mediterranean city.  The contrasts were really stark in Tunisia.

The battlefield at Zama?

The Jama locals

This is being written from a comfortable chair in the sitting room of my Granny’s home in London.  The trip seems like a dream.  But we are back from something real, and it was great.

Attack dog or escort?

Final day of filming with cameraman John and Hamet our Tunisian fixer (in white)

When you cycle day after day the rhythm naturally brings music to your mind.  At the beginning of the trip I tended to hum fairly epic stuff as the wheels turned – tunes from the film The Dark Knight  for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfO3szikvnI&feature=related or some of those ponderous but very catchy Michael Nyman movie sound tracks, like, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_-iTyQdog

They all seeemed to help with the peddling.  As the trip became never ending, and getting on the bike a little harder, the melodies got worse (arguably) but adjusted appropriately, and we even started to vocalise them. I cringe a bit to admit it, but Ben started this one and Sam sang snippets of it too: That´s Just the Way it is Baby by the Rembrandts, was hard to shift from my head as getting into the saddle just one more time started to feel like that Bill Murray film, Ground Hog Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA

Silly as it may seem, the on camera side of things and the desperate search for conversation topics made us fantasize about who would be appropriate to play us in a Hollywood version of our BBC epic.  We had this conversation with the help of Andrea our Director and it was in no way a serious one, just to pass the time!  We brothers thought Sam should be played by David Wenham, Ben by Jim Carrey and me by Joaquin Phoenix.  Andrea thought Ben should be played by Keanu Reeves, me by Tom Cruise and from what I recall, Sam by Russell Crowe!  We are contacting their agents…

This part of Hannibal's Trail was about discovering the parts of Italy the tourist brochures have generally forgotten.  Trani, is on the Adriatic coast of Italy and near Cannae where Hannibal won his greatest victory against the Romans.  Trani is a beautiful, old stone town where the main street is paved with large, slipperly slabs and the port area is like a mini-Marseille.  If you think you have read about Trani before, you are right – this leg of our Italian trip is a a return to the locations we had already cycled, in order to do the filming.  This time in Trani we had a lot of fun in a local barber run by a friendly Italian called Frank.  He and his two middle aged male assistants gave us all the sort of old fashioned shave you only thought possible in spaghetti westerns.

After our clean shaves..

After Trani, we headed to the deep south of Italy.  It´s a curious place, in some ways reminiscent of our cycling in the south of Spain where rubbish and ugly buildings can predominate a little too much.  For western Europe, southern Italy has surprising poverty and neglect.  In the port city of Taranto, for example, the old town centre is literally rotting and collapsing. Rows of abandoned buildings and others that look difficult to inhabit, but are lived in by people whose looks and gestures remind you of those black an white pictures of sufffering Italians in rubble strewn streets post World War II.  But this is 2009!

Statues at Altamura

Riccardo Chiaradia, a local Archaeologist who helped us find the hotspots of Taranto

Mussolini's doors at Taranto

One other difference – I always expected Italian restaurants to be chatty places, and they generally are in the centre and north.  Here, in the deep south, everywhere we ate – whether it was lunch or dinner - had at least one big television screen blaring out banal chat shows.  No-one who was eating seemed to talk as much as you hoped they would, instead their attentions were distracted by the box.    This drove Francesco our Italian producer bonkers and at least once he saved our sanity by asking restaurants to turn off the tv.   

We were all looking forward to visiting Crotone, situated where the instep part of the Italian foot, becomes the foot proper.  This is one of the few places where the archaeology and the Hannibal literature coincide.   Our main ancient literary source, Polybius, writes that Hannibal recorded his achievements on a tablet that was fixed to a column on the Temple of Hera that stood here.   On a streatch of green coastline there is an archaeological site and a column belonging to this temple still standing.  Unfortunately this lone column was surrounded by a wire fence – but it was still an atmospheric spot where we were encouraged by our Director Andrea to mimic Hannibal and reflect on our achievements.  This made a lot of sense but at the time seemed like a potentially egotistical and difficult thing to do with the cameras rolling.  Sam and I were both impressed with how Ben got around that by saying that our biggest achievement was getting on so well with each other most of the time during our weeks together on the road.   On an unusual, intensive trip like this one, I think we would all agree, that just saying nice things, even if they may not be entirely true, helps them to come true.   I certainly felt that after Ben’s statement.

The remaining column of the Temple of Hera at Crotone

From Crotone, we slipped down to the very toe of the Italian mainland – to Reggio, on the Straits of Messina.  This is a mythical place where you can look across a narrow slither of sea to Sicily,  a rising green hill with buildings staring back at you from only 2 miles away.   In Greek mythology two sea monsters were on either side of this strait.  We didn't spot them – perhaps because the ferry ride was so quick.

Early morning filming near Crotone

We dashed across Sicily – it is not part of Hannibal's trail.  After a night in Trapani, on Sicily's southern side, we boarded another ferry to head for our final destination – Tunisia, once the home of Hannibal's Carthaginian civilization.  While we were boarding we met Cristof, a Belgian, who was about to start an astonishing, solo bike ride that would begin in Tunisia and take him all the way to India!  He said he was going to take a year and a half to do it!  We wished him luck!

It's always exciting arriving at a port city by boat.  At sunset our ferry cruised in towards the port of Tunis.  To the right we could easily make out the peninsular of pretty white buildings that is Sidi Bou Said.  Just below that we knew there was what remained of the old Punic port and beyond that, Carthage itself, now a wealthy suburb of this bustling city.  The final leg of Hannibal´s Trail and lots left to explore!

The Golden Age began on Thursday 22nd October.  That is to say, in accordance with our agreement that we should each take a go at having total control over what we do on a day, it was my turn. Hail Caesar!

My inheritance was unexpected because I am not of an authoritarian disposition.  This may be because I am very happy with the Anglo-Australian democratic tradition, rather than other cultural strains that have admired dictators and started big wars.  Certainly as landlord of my flat in Madrid, unfortunately it was necessary to give orders and there were times when I didn't exactly excel at giving them - but some people don't take hints very well and are hard to order around!  And it's true that until recently, I probably lacked a dictator's basic craft skills. So I've been studying and now that I've had a little bit of time in command employing what I've learnt, as Mel Brooks once said, I've really found out that 'It's good to be the King!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZKiYgcgBAY&feature=related

Before I took over the reigns of power we had been in Italy for about a week so I had plenty of time to examine the work of the local maestro.  Watching Silvio Berlusconi in a few tv news bulletins in the lead up to my rule really helped me understand what's key to good governance: a funny big grin, making sounds with little or no meaning, cracking bad jokes and exuding confidence.  That model seems to have worked everywhere and I wanted my younger brothers to have the best so I tried to apply these maxims as much as possible.

Things got off to a good start in the Italian seaside town of Barletta because I inherited a fortuitous legacy: the buffet breakfast that was part of the hotel deal confirmed the day before under the rule of Sam, my great predecessor. I didn't let us linger too long at the buffet because my brothers like to keep on the move, so after a second coffee I showed them a map of where I planned to navigate to, pointed, smiled, talked a lot and shrugged a few times. I thought I might have to use their own favourite jokes to distract them from examining the route too closely: a big burp or a loud fart - but this wasn't neccessary. Seeing that my co-operative subjects were content with the day's plan, we were soon mounting our bikes and cycling towards the centre of Barletta, en route to our final destination, the town of Altamura, some eightly kilometres inland.

The first section of our trip wasn't a very nice and so almost immediately I tried to get us off the main road which was crowded with trucks and rush hour traffic and guide us to a possible route along the beach.  The way was blocked by appartments, some half built, others falling down and when we got to the beach it wasnt exactly picturesque with much of the sandy strip covered by a large factory. Under an emmergency decree, I suggested getting to the next town called Trani as quickly as possible to find a coffee and we all agreed. A 15 km cycle and we were soon on the outskirts and with the help of a local who directed us to the old town and said it was bello we eagerly beelined for it. For some reason Sam was leading the way, but by the time we had reached the old port, I had wrestled command back.  The old port of Trani was accurately described by Ben as a mini-Marseille.  The old stone and quiet atmosphere also reminded me of a little port on the Greek island of Santorini, to which one of my subjects, forgetting his place, disagreed.  I realised that my judgement was coming under question and so to quell the possibilty of a coup, it was clear I would need to restore confidence in my reign.  I quickly took the initiative and quizzed our waiter about the location of certain places in Trani that we needed to recce for our upcoming film shoot (we will be back here in two weeks to film episode five of 'On Hannibal's Trail').  This lucky and successful cross examination would lead to us finding a barber's shop and a bike mechanic - two locations for our next Hannibal episode.  Confidence in the Kingdom had been restored but now time was the enemy, because it had been passing suprisingly quickly.  It was already 1pm and painful awareness of how hunger can so adversely affect the mood of some members of our family, I was very worried that we may not reach an appropriate lunchtime spot in time to avert cutson, an often silent grumpyness that is the hallmark of this lack of food (for more information see the helpful blog on cutty filed towards the beginning of our journey).  But we all pulled together and Sam's excellent reconnaissance found us a small square in the town of Ravu where we cooked up pasta with an improvised sauce of fresh olives in an olive paste. A good omen too because it looked like our gas cannister was going to run out but in the end it lasted long enough to cook the spaghetti pefectly.  Yummy and much needed.

The ride ahead was tough. Hill climbs and a strong wind in our faces made the going very difficult but the countryside was ruggedly appealing - extensive fields of rich brown earth, olive groves and vineyards.  The sky had grown bigger and the half light of evening was approaching. This twilight hour is often the feeding time for sharks back home on Aussie beaches but it also seems to be dinner time for dogs on Italian farms.  At least three times packs of hounds ran at our bikes and Ben was very nearly caught by an angry, big white dog. It was starting to get dark as we pulled into the outskirts of Altamura - whose name means high wall and meant in ancient tongues 'The Other Troy'.  With that sort of pedigree we were looking forward to exploring the town, but the suburbs were a bit depressing - half built houses, rubbish scattered on the sides of roads and on top of it all I nearly caused an accident that could have injured my subjects by stoppping too suddenly out of eagerness to take a picture of an inflateable teddy bear hanging in a tree.  But my brothers forgave me and soon we found our hotel.

It's good to be the King! (photo by Zissi Kausch)

For dinner we set off from our lodgings for the old centre of town and we weren't disappointed.  It was pouring with rain but that gave the white stone an appealing glisten and the church in the main square with its two guardian lions on its steps was quite beautiful.  But before this evening wander we had a satisfying dinner of beer, antipasto, salad and pizza.  It was surprising how few restaurants Altamura has and it reminded us of our home town in Australia, Newcastle when we were growing up there in the late 1970s and 80s.  At that time, in central Newcastle, the Alcron was the place to go to dine, mainly because there was hardly anywhere else.   The lady of German extraction who ran it, Mrs Oberlander, was a character and perhaps at one time in her long career a provenor of fine dining.  I worked there as a waiter when the Alcron was in steep decline and when it didnt look as if Mrs Oberlander could get any older.  It was the sort of stubborn, established restaurant that still thought of itself as a centre of culinary excellence but with tired old roasts and smelly place mats you could tell it had had better days. The entertainment consisted of a charming one legged gentleman who played the piano, and the head waiter was a middle aged man with a blond wig called Willy who spoke with a European accent whose origin was difficult to pinpoint. One typically quiet night, Willy told me that he had buried his pet dog wrapped in plastic twenty years ago and exhumed it to find the dog's body perfectly preserved. He assured me that this technique would work just as well if we did the same to me.  The comment seems much stranger now than it did at the time. The waitress in Altamura's Three Arches restaurant was lovely and in no way provoked this strange memory.

The dictatorship ended at 0000 hours, 23rd October without incident, sometime during a Johnny Depp movie watched on our beds in the hotel room.

We are in Cortona - a beautiful hilltop town and Michael Knight would have (once again!) been proud of our efforts to get here. A lovely night time ride in an upwards direction along a very straight road but once we got here our dinner in a restaurant in the main square was probably our best yet.  At the hotel I had to explain that my brother Ben and I were brothers not lovers, in order to convince the hotelier to give us sheets so we could separate the double bed into its two single components - and it was worth it because we both slept very well. Wood Brother Sam is in a triple room next door with two friends who have joined us to cylce from Florence to Rome: Perry and Will.  They were very game today and went like the clappers on their bikes during our 100 km ride from Florence to Arezzo.  Now Perry can barely walk and Will who is always up for a late night was very happy to come back to his hotel bed and go to straigt to sleep.

We had a lovely ride through Florence this morning - a circuit of the Duomo and its unusual marble exterior and crossing over a beautiful bridge which showed off great views up and down river towards gorgeous contryside and appealng Italianate villas.  But the countryside surrounding they city was probably even more beautiful - right out of a Renaissance painting of picturesque scenery: rolling hills, cypress trees, vineyards.

Are you talkin to me? (photo by Zissi Kausch)

A few months ago I was cycling in a very different place - through the arid landscapes of Almeria in southern Spain. I was there partly to do some long cycle rides around Cabo de Gata national park but mainly to have a holiday with my flatmates Kristina and German.  In the the history museum in the city of Almeria you'll find a cleverly arranged exhibit based on excavations of some early bronze age sites, little villages and the like.  The most impacting stuff was on life expectancy based on testing the age of the excavated human bones. If they were lucky, the majority of the adults whose remains were found in these tombs lived until they were aged thirty, sometimes forty.  I turn forty in a couple of months and after five weeks on the road I can understand why our ancestors four thousand years ago at my age may have been on his or her last legs. Cycling for the last six weeks or so, being out in the elements all day, on the move all the time has had its effect on all of us.  Im not about to die, but I have an everlasting tiredness that never seems to leave me.  I feel hardier, fitter and stronger, but I know that I dont feel as healthy.  That sounds like a contradiction but I think my brothers would agree.  We are all in better bike riding shape, but it's like we are burning the wick at both ends. 

Crossing the Alps on a bicycle should be more in this vein of Rambo style physical adventure like Sam's impressive Col de la Traversette performance, and Ben's grim determination on Clapier, but in my case at least, it was a bit of a dwardle.  Montgenevre is the smallest of our three possible 'Hannibal was here' mountains.  It is under two kilometres high and my ride to get there was only 13 kilometres.  It was uphill of course, but a pretty easy ride with some lovely views back down the valley towards my staging post of Briancon. As I was riding out of Briancon towards Montgenevre, on the one hand I felt relieved but on the other a bit disappointed that I wasnt doing something a bit more difficult.  But it was still fun.  I was riding by myself for the first time and there was an extra feeling of freedom in that.  And in a way, this part of the journey was a bit of a scientific experiment.  We were all applying a number of criteria to each of our mountains to see if they really could be the crossing point for Hannibal's army and elephants.  Those criteria are based on what we can read about the crossing in the works of Polybius and Livy (which is not very much!) and include a suitable campsite near or on the summit, a spectacular view of Italy and snow on top of old snow from the previous year (see the BBC History magazine for more details).  Today Montgenevre is a ski village so as soon as I was nearing the summit my images of a Carthaginian army struggling along in a harsh natural landscape were erased by perfect ashfelt roads running past cafes and restaurants. There wasnt any snow yet and the view towards Italy wasnt spectacular but before the ski village was constructed there would have been plenty of room for an army to camp. In our humble opinions, Montgenevre is probably third in line to Clapier and Traversette as a crossing contender but in reality it is very difficult if not impossible to determine Hannibal's route based on the literature alone. We will have to start excavating to see where he really went.

Sam is sleeping next to me, hands still clasped next to the book he was reading, as we relax in a hotel in Briancon on our rest day. We are in the Alps for real now and as I write brother Ben is making his way across the Col du Clapier with our film crew. It will be interesting to see how he goes! Tomorrow it will be my turn to do Mont Genevre and then Sam will follow up with the Col de la Traverstette, the third possible Hannibal path over the Alps that we are testing.  Since we entered the foothills of the Alps a week ago the bike riding has been spectacular. Mountains like giant stone fists that leave little room for sky on all sides of us, many packed so densely with deep green pine trees, that the trees appear like bushy blades of grass. Panoramic views from the seats of our bicycles over scarey cliff edges, telescopic vistas down valleys that look like the massive, interlacing paws of gigantesque bears. It really is a dream landscape - like the covers of those science fiction books portraying the undiscovered worlds of the future gone Alpine.

A strange sun marks our descent from Mont Ventoux

We've been lucky enough to have Zissi Kausch with us for a few days.  Zissi is a professional photographer who gave up her time to join us for nothing except the glory and thanks to her we have some wonderful snaps of us riding in this eye boggling landscape. She was also very entertaining and always good for a smile and conversation! We were sad to see Zissi go!

Photographer Zissi Kausch plans her next shot

But to start this blog where it should start we have to go back a week to the village of Maillane, just across the Rhone and up from Beaucaire, where we interviewed some other brothers, Henri and Rene, who like us share an interest in history. The motive for our visit to Maillane was the discovery a couple of centuries ago of elephant bones under a house. Before the bones disappeared without a trace an investigator concluded that they could have belonged to one of Hannibal's elephants. Henri and Rene sat together outside Henri's beautiful house set in olive groves and told us the elephant story and thought it could be a good idea to dig up the aptly named Giant Street to see if we could find more bones. Unfortunately it's not even clear which house on Giant Street should be the excavation site (the villagers are far more interested in their link to Frederic Mistral, the French writer and nobel prize winner) so we rode on to tackle another giant - Mont Ventoux.

Brothers Henri and Rene at Henri's home near the town of Maillane, Director Fiona front left, Luca holds the boom, John on camera and in the distance Sam chats with Exec Producer Chris

I really learnt the meaning of physical pain riding up Mont Ventoux.  That pain would have been lessened if we had ridden the twenty kilometre long road up a nearly two kilometre high mountain without our panniers, but we decided we'd like to do it differently to most cyclists and so we loaded our bikes up with a total weight including the bike, of about twenty-five to thirty kilos. After half an hour I really didnt think I'd make it - my undies must weigh a lot more than I thought they did! And I had two hours plus to go. This was supposed to be a race but in a classic but warped edition of some sort of mountain macho man myth, it also ended up being a competition between each one of us and this giant hill. We all had big problems with cramp but somehow we managed to get back on and keep going...

The Way to Pain I - Ben reaches the summit of Mont Ventoux

The owner of the Hotel Paris here in Briancon has just offered me a beer on the house and it has arrived...I could have done with good will like that as I was slowly peddling up Ventoux and in fact, oddly enough, a motherly looking blond woman who must have been driving up Ventoux to see the incredible aeroplane like views to the valleys below, seemed to appear with her camera snapping the scenery near the barrier at four different stages of my journey into pain.  She always said bonjour as I went past and that did help keep me on my bike.

We all got there, hugged at the summit and as the camera rolled after filming Ben writhing in agony with cramp in both the hamstring and thigh of his shaved leg (he only shaved one leg to test the aerodynamics), for a few minutes I spoke about prunes to the camera and thanked Granny for introducing me to them. (eating them during the last hour really helped me stay on the bike).  I spoke with a slurr like I had had a stroke! It was probably because I had a thicker tongue than usual because of the cold.

The Way to Pain II

The moonscape view from the summit of Mont Ventoux

Anyway! Our next port of call was Vaison la Romaine where Hannibal settled a dispute between two brothers by naturally chosing to side with the older brother against the upstart younger one, who was getting too big for his boots. How things change eh? Vaison is a wonderful place. The old town has been lovingly restored so that it still looks old and it winds around a hill to a castle, through beautiful cobbled alleys with fountains, views off to the moutains, over vineyards far below, and of course there are great places to stop and have a coffee.  We managed to sneak one in between bike shots.

Matching coffee cups for a piece to camera in Vaisone la Romaine as location manager Luca looks on approvingly

I think we are all in a sensitive mental state after the last two weeks. It seems indulgent to say that - after all, this is a paid holiday, but sometimes the extent to which constant physical tiredness has nearly driven me round the twist, has been a surprise. And I thought I was laid back! These reflections are possible now because the three of us are relaxing in the pretty French village of Russan, near Nimes, with our parents who have met us here and are feeding us and treating us like Kings. We are resting for a few days after finishing filming episode two. I have returned to normal (I think), so I can see my angry, exaggerated responses for what they were.  On the road they did seem justified! At times a mere gesture from Ben or Sam, was enough to make me see red. But both brothers have helped me through, both demonstrating wisdom and tolerance. For example, Sam's knowledge from his previous long cycle trips, patiently explaining to me that this quick to anger mental state is normal and that you learn to have extra tolerance for people on a cycle trip, including yourself.  And Ben, who at times has been kindly and motherly towards me, which has helped too.  I have been lucky to have them along to support me but I know I have pushed them! But I do feel a bit wiser myself and I know I wont be as quick to anger on the next leg - I hope.

Adam prepares to debowl his pig as Wood Brothers look on...

So! Here we are in the pretty French village of Russan!  But pigs on spits and Barcelona are the subject of this blog. Even though we had rode over the Pyrenees, to keep to the filming schedule we returned to our beachside campsite in Ampurias in our support vehicle to film a Carthaginian feast on the beach. Our location manager Jason had done a great job getting a colleague of his to actually manufacture an iron spit for us and our chef Adam Melonas had spent a considerable amount of time researching the topic of what the Carthaginians ate and he didnt disappoint. Like a well oiled machine he set to work preparing our three course meal with some help from his trusty assistant Mark. The result was very impressive - a whole pig sizzling on a spit on a beach, which has a very peculiar ambience to it and attracted some attention from at least one passing beach goer. But I felt very alone when I was sampling a leg of this beast. It was fantasically authentic - and with its belly full of local sausages which our chef 'debowled' in front of us, there was no need for the studio to add any special effects afterwards. Adam's effort was a tour de force: from suckling pig, to massive oysters and then the fabulous fruit of figs, peaches and plums - but Carthaginian style food is probably not for me!

Adam slices for the camera...

Then we piled into our vehicle for a drive back to Barcelona to attend the big football clash between Barcelona FC and Atletico Madrid. We wanted to test if  Barcelona fans knew that the chant they sing at games: 'Barca! Barca!' is also the nickname for Hannibal's family - according to most translations it means 'Thunderbolt'.  Ben charmed about a dozen fans as we all waited for the big game to start and very few of them knew about this link, but Ben managed to get them to sing and dance for the camera.

Ben talks to a Barcelona fan...

Morning saw us visiting some of the tourist sites in Barcelona - it was quite a shock to be competing with busloads of tourists after our solitary riding in countryside.  We visited the incomplete Gaudi Cathedral and also Casa Batlo and even rode our bikes down the Rambla which was a real challenge because the promenade was wall to wall with live acts, locals and visitors taking a stroll.

But now it is time to have a beer and relax with la famille in this pretty French village, with les enfants playing in the background and a kindly hostess who has just brought us a round of drinks.

Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia Cathedral...

Nine days on the road and we all feel quite tired.  Dinner tonight was much less noisy than it was back at the beginning of our trip in Cartagena, but we all feel much more at ease together - silences are very comfortable. It is strange though when the the only time you get to yourself is in bed, on the loo or in the shower. I am writing from a campsite in the town of Elne on the French side of the Pyrenees.  Internet access continues to be a bit tricky because of filming, long rides and late arrivals at destinations and so there are a few blog days to catch up, starting in our campsite on the beach south of the Ebro Delta last Sunday that seems like a month ago. This was a rest day but after it we didnt really feel rested at all.  Our muscles were still are stiff from riding and we all have a strange drained and slightly dazed feeling that doesnt leave us.  It was a real physical struggle to get going at 730am but we were all looking forward to visiting the Ebro Delta, touted as home for Europe's biggest population of migratory birds and a protected natural park.

Cycling in the Ebro Delta

It was certainly a strange massive expanse of flat reedy swamp - but much of it appeared to be actively farmed as rice paddies and there was a lot of rubbish all over the place.  Not exactly virgin delta by any streatch of the imagination and the birds were not exactly plentiful - but the mosquitoes were! The whole delta and its scattering of small villages seemed very cut off from the mainland and the atmosphere was a bit odd at times - like you weren't really welcome round here or somethin', if you get my drift.  Sitting down to some sandwiches after filming us riding up and down the rice paddies a few times we were wondering how it was going to be possible for us to cycle from the Ebro to north of Tarragona - about 90 km - starting at 430pm in the afternoon. First we had to cross the Ebro - we did that one on of those rare and disappearing transport systems - the car ferry. 

Crossing the Ebro by car ferry and interviewing Tomas the ferryman.

The driver, called Tomas, was very nice and let us board and re-board to get our filming done and also told us that it was possible Hannibal crossed using similar transport guided by his boating ancestor more than two thousand years ago. The days of this Ebro car ferry are numbered - a big cement bridge extends into the water alongside and is half built. From the other side we did few circles in the local village and then put the pace on to try and reach our campsite by nightfall.  Friendly locals guided us out to the highway in their car but soon afterwards Ben got a puncture, his first of two that afternoon! And both Ben and Sam had headaches.  Ben still managed to drag us all up a very long hill in nasty traffic and Sam bolted along the straights and somehow we managed to make a triumphant entry into Tarragona.  It's wide promenade down to the beach lined with attractive buildings was the most elegant thing we'd seen all trip. We arrived at a fantastic campsite full of big cypress trees alongside the beach and to a welcome pasta pre-dinner prepared by our Director Robin. As you may know, you get so hungry on long bike rides all you want when you arrive is food!

It was rainy in the morning but we went in to Tarragona to get some breakfast and film some footage of us around its Roman ruins that include an amphitheatre and also other impressive remains like its castle that dominates the centre of town.  It was slippery and wet as we set off for Barcelona along a mixture of beach promenades and difficult highways - like the good old N340 that has accompanied us all the way from Cartagena. We didnt actually ride into the city - a toll road stopped us which it would have been illegal to bicycle on and filming means riding backwards and forwards and taking inland scenic routes off the most direct path so missing that section was justifiable in terms of our route - but we got dropped off by our van on the other side of the city and did a pretty grim streatch of coastal road from Bacelona to Mataro and on to our campsite in rush hour traffic and rain.

But it was lovely and sunny the next morning as we headed for a big location in terms of the telling of our Hannibal story - the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Emporias

Rainy in Tarragona

Alicante, Benidorm, Denia...legendary places for the northern European tourist and we cycled in or past all of them during a day that now seems like another holiday! Some exhausting riding on hot and pretty horrid highways a lot of the time, but then we rode a quiet minor road inland from Benidorm and everything changed.  We could see the skyscrapers disappearing in the distance as we climbed into forested hills - I didnt think we'd feel like we were in the Alps on day three! Our crew of Robin, Jason and John filmed us from the big home campervan with its open back window and (so they tell us!) got some lovely shots of us struggling up the inclines.  At one point, as we waited for John to set up the camera to record us observing a magnificent view towards the resort town of Denia from a mountain top, we chatted about the need to be competent actors for the purposes of this documentary, which none of us are.   I (Danny) was so tired I actually believed Sam when he told a long fib about how he performed the role of Julius Caesar in the Shakespeare play of the same name in a play at University.  After five minutes of details from Sam, incuding "Well yes they decided to do a more serious play that year" and "Yes there were a lot of lines, but I learnt them okay", I was actually getting jealous of Sam´s acting pedigree when it finally dawned on me that Sam was telling a tall story.  All I could think to say was, "That was a long joke!".  Ben was so tired he laughed hysterically.  What a contrast between this idyllice mountain ride and the highway between Alicante and Benidorm.  After filming on the beach promenade in Alicante (that is dominated by it's adjacent multi-lane highway) we entertained the vain hope that the beach walkway might take us some of the way to Benidorm, but it stopped abrubtly and we had to back-track, ride along the main highway and pretty soon found ourselves in a scarey tunnel in pitch black with cars zooming past.  

We've all had a puncture - Ben´s had two - here are Ben and Sam, after happily taking care of a puncture on a highway outside Cartagena.

Riding along the promenade in Benidorm.

We lived to reach Benidorm which didn't disappoint if you are a fan of skycrapers (which I am) - but there are just too many of them here! But what a fantasic beach - two massive semi-circular curves of sand, on one side the sea, but on the other side a continuous line of concrete.  From a distance it looks quite spectacular but up close it is a little depressing - and I'm the optimist of our group.  You'd think that sort of attention to architectural beauty would kill the goose that lays the golden tourism egg, but even in this economic crisis there still seem to be plenty of people around, manning the promenades and eating in the restaurants.

After completing the 90 km to our campsite, about twenty km south of Valencia, we joined the crew for dinner in a modest little restaurant.  We were very thirsty! The signs were not good when, as the waitress poured some of us beers, she declared that there was no water! (this should only happen in Australia I thought) Cameraman John - always charmingly angry about anything that might impact on us or him in negative way was about to get very upset - but when it turned out there was water, just no sparkling mineral water we sighed relief and sat down.  But the warning signs were were back when it was clear the waitress was our chef as well, but she did a fantastic job and we dined, in record time, on tasty salads, steaks, chicken breasts and plates of grilled vegetables - and a few more beers and a bottle of wine.  Her efforts now seem remarkable compared to where we had lunch today in Sagunto, or didn't have lunch.  The first place in a small plaza near the town hall was also a one man show, but after twenty minutes of waiting to get a menu we gave up and left.  Another option was another solo waitress/chef operation and was too busy to feed us and then we arrived at another place to find the the elderly waiter (and probably chef as well) closing the shutters declaring "We stop serving lunch at 4pm" (lunch in Spain often starts after 3pm). The supermarket was a much better bet.

Which reminds me, for some reason, that we are travelling with two great comedians.  John our camerman, apart from being fantastic with the camera, is very funny, even when he is not trying to be.  At a recent campsite when we were rolling in on the bikes  some time after the crew had turned up in the campervan, he gave us a stark warning as we came in the gate.  As he walked towards us with the campsite owner at his side, he mouthed the words "everyone is mad here" as the owner warmly welcomed us.  That was funnier at the time.  Jason, our location manager, apart from being a handyman whiz and brainstrust of practical suggestions is great for impersonations and witticisms.  I mentioned that this sort of documentary life that was are lucky enough to lead at the moment, however fun, could be tough on relationships, to which he responded, "What's the problem! girlfriends and wives these days really have a cheek don't they? I mean, you're away for three months at a time, you're in Spain, it's practically a holiday, what are they compaining about?".

One place that might make a lot of people at home jealous is the town of Elche. This is possibly where Hannibal's father Hamilcar died saving his sons Hannibal and Hasdrubal from a surprise attack by Spanish tribes.  The place is more like one big palm grove than a town and you really feel like you are in the Middle East rather than Europe.  We have some great photos on our other, better camera which will go up on the blog very soon.  For the first time on our trip, we spoke to two amateur cyclists who were passing through, one of whom seemed to regard himself as the most experienced and professional cyclist in the world and couldn't stop telling us about it.  What a contrast with Mat Lloyd, one of Australia's best cyclists, taking part in La Vuelta, Spain's version of the Tour de France, that was passing through Alicante. We spoke to Mat in the morning on Tuesday before he got back in the saddle. His team - Silence-Lotto - was coming second at the time and had been first. Mat was as relaxed as you like and chatted to us like we were all surfing buddies.

That all seems like so long ago! We've already passed through Valencia and met some lovely sweet eyed elephants and today visited the fantastic castle ruin of Sagunto (Hannibal`s siege of this town in 219 BC started the Second Punic War).  More on those in our next installment..

Filming in rice paddy fields south of Valencia.

The masters behind the lense, left of the camera in the hat is cameraman John and to the right is Director Robin, in the old town of Sagunto before we head up the hill to film in the castle ruins.

Thanks to Ben and Sam the packing was relatively easy, but lasted until about 3am in the morning.  Packing up a touring bike to take onto a plane, as you may know or can guess, is quite an ordeal with mudguards, pannier racks, wheels, handlebars, peddles etc all to be taken off and boxed.  This has been the sobre reality of most of the last two days - a constant state of packing and preparation, punctuated by film schedule checks, script modifications and website updates and mail outs - fantastic!  And we have been so lucky, thanks to our Granny, to have her more than comfortable house as our Wood Brothers London HQ - it would be hard to find a nicer place to pack a bag.  That lovely relief set it when the prep was all done and now, thanks to production managerial whiz Alex, we have arrived in Cartagena, to a wall of 35 degree heat, where Hannibal's trail starts...