For the Swimmers..

You can't ride all the time. Sometimes even cycling is too fast and I don't get to fully enjoy the towns I pass through. Rest days get taken up with shopping, laundry and Internet, so every now and then I check into a hostel and chill for a few nights.

Since I like to swim, I hung out on a recent stop in Plymouth at the Tinside Lido. The lido is a giant circular pool that was built on the seafront in the 1930s and is fed with seawater. A maze of steps lead down the cliff to the pool as well as to other little tide-fed pools, sunbathing decks, diving boards, and rocky beaches.

The whole place was refurbished in 2001 but still has a delightfully run-down quality about it. The concrete steps are worn from wave damage and the way its built makes it so you can't quite see where each set of steps lead. I went down the stairs thinking I was the only one there, but found people reading books or even enjoying a coffee at cafes tucked in behind the rocks.

Plymouth suffered heavy bombing during the Second World War, and a plaque says that on one evening 3,000 people bought tickets to swim in the lido pool after hot day of cleaning up rubble.