Starting over when many think it is time to stop.

I am Angel Diestre, married, father of two children and born in Barcelona. For many years my life was shaped by work, family, responsibility and the steady rhythm of doing what had to be done.

I worked as an engineer in the automotive world. It was a long and demanding chapter, full of learning, but retirement changed the pace of everything. For the first time I could decide, calmly and honestly, what I wanted to do with my time.

For much of my life I did what needed to be done: study, work, build a career, carry projects, keep schedules and answer commitments. I do not say that with sadness. That is how a life is built, step by step, with effort and with many people around you.

But retirement opened another stage. I no longer had to live by someone else's calendar. I could wake up and ask a simple question: what do I want to do with my life today. That question was the true beginning of the journey.

I had always felt the need to move, to look at the world slowly and to discover roads beyond habit. The bicycle became the natural answer: humble, slow, demanding and free.

The route around the peninsula was much more than a line on a map. It was a sequence of sunrises, secondary roads, paths, villages where someone always asks where you are coming from and where you are going, and afternoons when the only thing that matters is finding a quiet place to rest.

Travelling by bicycle places you at a very human distance from everything. You do not arrive all at once; you enter places little by little. You see how the light changes, how the earth smells after rain, how the accent shifts from one area to the next and how a small conversation can fix a difficult day.

There were windy days, long stages, breakdowns, tiredness and moments of solitude. But there was also hospitality, simple meals that tasted wonderful and the feeling of doing exactly what I wanted to do.

The crossing into North Africa opens another chapter inside the same loop.

The available photos mainly show the departure, the city and a few encounters along the way. I do not want to turn them into a full chronicle of the section, but to use them as an entry point into that change of scene: the peninsula stops being only European coast and becomes a wider route.

The Canary archipelago had a special weight in that journey. Crossing to northwest Africa made the route change tone. The roads, the villages, the Atlantic and the way people were invited me to slow down.

I remember the islands as a very vivid part of the road: days of open coast, climbs that looked small on the map and then felt endless, cafes where time did not press, and simple conversations that were born even when we did not always share every word.

There I understood one of the reasons for this journey more clearly. It was not only about covering kilometers. It was about leaving space for things to happen: an unexpected recommendation, a shared meal, a better road than planned, a place to stay a little longer because the body and the landscape asked for it.

The next part is still waiting to be written. From the peninsula, the journey will continue into Portugal, with the Atlantic setting the rhythm and the promise of roads, villages and cafes where time seems to move more slowly.

After that will come Galicia and the Cantabrian coast, continuing north until Bordeaux. It will be another way of looking at the map: less like a closed objective and more like a long conversation with the landscape, the weather and the body.

From Bordeaux, the route will cross France along the Canal du Midi and finally return to Barcelona. Closing the circle does not mean ending the journey, but coming back to the starting point with a great story on the bicycle.

That journey was the beginning of a different way of looking at life. After so many years following obligations, the bicycle gave me a very concrete freedom: moving by my own decision, making my own mistakes and celebrating each small achievement without asking permission.

This website exists to tell that road in the first person. I do not want it to be only a list of stages or a map with points. I want it to be the story of what it means to begin again when many people think it is time to stop.

Each photograph, each section and each text belongs to that story. A journey that began in Barcelona, circled the peninsula, crossed to Mallorca, reached North Africa, rode through the Canary Islands and still looks toward Portugal, Galicia, France and the return home.