“Just leave your bikes in the courtyard, next to the cannon,” said the man at the desk near the entrance. He hadn’t batted an eyelid when a group of six, slightly bedraggled-looking, mountain bikers clambered up the steps to the front entrance of his castle, demanding to be fed and watered. We didn’t appear to be their ‘typical’ customers, but the staff couldn’t have been more welcoming.
Three of my group had done a huge off-road ride the day before and were in definite calorie deficit, so they came up with the genius plan of ordering (and eating) pudding before the savoury course arrived. So there we sat, in the depths of a 12th century castle (complete with minstrel’s gallery, roaring log fire (in May!) and the biggest set of antlers on the wall that we had ever seen), eating slabs of cake and thinking that life was pretty cool really.