It's all downhill from here: we were excited to reach our highest point (500m ? above sea level) as we approached the Danube along the Main-Donau Kanal.
Our experience of the Danube so far has mainly consisted of drinking dunkel beer and eating sausages, it is great. At the moment we are in the wonderful Regensburg, yesterday was spent on a boat trip to the world's oldest monastic brewery and eating jellied suckling pig's head washed down with beer. We'll add to this post when we get to a cheaper internet cafe...
3 days of Germany left... we'll be sorry to leave.
Saturday 29 August 2009
Tuesday 25 August 2009
The Main Line
... or the Main line, you see...
Departing the Rhine we headed east for Bavaria. Tired from a few days cycling on the trot, we used one of our hotel vouchers in a little town called Langstadt. Fortunately for us, Langstadt was celebrating 150 years of the guesthouse and restaurant where we were staying and everybody had turned out to sit on long tables, drink beer, eat schnitzel and sing along to oompah music. It is obviously our cultural responsibility to observe and where possible emulate our hosts on such occasions, so the next day's 94kms were completed with slightly sore heads.
We've spent the last few days cycling along or around the Main river and scenery has been grand. Soph has been pedalling along totally rapt with the hills, vineyards, castles and well tended allotments on every side. We did lose a spoke in the neverending saga of our newly rebuilt rear wheel, but we're trying not to think about it. We'll maybe give it to Vienna to sort itself out or we'll pursue more radical solutions.
From the lovely Würzburg we were able to give Engin (friend, former colleague and resident-savant of Ochsenfurt) three hours notice before dropping in on him and his family for dinner and beers. Yesterday was a much-needed rest day spent sorting our stuff out (including the spoke), swimming and reading in the blazing sunshine.
Departing the Rhine we headed east for Bavaria. Tired from a few days cycling on the trot, we used one of our hotel vouchers in a little town called Langstadt. Fortunately for us, Langstadt was celebrating 150 years of the guesthouse and restaurant where we were staying and everybody had turned out to sit on long tables, drink beer, eat schnitzel and sing along to oompah music. It is obviously our cultural responsibility to observe and where possible emulate our hosts on such occasions, so the next day's 94kms were completed with slightly sore heads.
We've spent the last few days cycling along or around the Main river and scenery has been grand. Soph has been pedalling along totally rapt with the hills, vineyards, castles and well tended allotments on every side. We did lose a spoke in the neverending saga of our newly rebuilt rear wheel, but we're trying not to think about it. We'll maybe give it to Vienna to sort itself out or we'll pursue more radical solutions.
From the lovely Würzburg we were able to give Engin (friend, former colleague and resident-savant of Ochsenfurt) three hours notice before dropping in on him and his family for dinner and beers. Yesterday was a much-needed rest day spent sorting our stuff out (including the spoke), swimming and reading in the blazing sunshine.
Friday 21 August 2009
The Rhine
Good afternoon from Darmstadt. So, we are well aware that we are very lucky people indeed. We are also aware that over the last few days we've had some excellent cycling in sunny weather on good bike paths as we followed the Rhine south from Köln. Bob the trailer, our new friend, is brilliant: he follows us wherever we go, carries all our stuff, pushes us uphill and doesn't go wondering off up curbs.
But nobody wants to read that, or that we're really chuffed to have just tipped 1000km yesterday, so here's the juicy stuff that you do want to read: Rear wheel spokes pinging all the way down the Rhine, we got the bike to a bike shop where a very nice man charged us a lot of money to replace all the spokes and rebuild the wheel. Fortunately the nice man's bike shop was not too far from a riverside campsite with a good bar and good views across the Rhine, so we rested up in the sun for a while, read books, worked on making our tans look like we haven't just been wearing vests and cycle shorts all year and walked up a very big hill to visit the nearest Schloss ruin.
That episode over and with the bike and trailer finally behaving, we departed the nice campsite down a really good stretch of the Rhine - a valley full of castles, vineyards and timbered buildings, and Koblenz was lovely. The next day was blisteringly, overbearingly, unbelievably hot and we had lots to complain about. Sophie even forgot to eat and drink enough, so she had even more to complain about. Continuing once the day had cooled slightly, we arrived late at a private campsite populated exclusively by spherical people with sun burn. The round red people allowed us to camp on the wrong side of the fence on the condition that we only used the cold, dirty beach showers and that we fed the hordes of local mosquitos. This we did ably, given their ability to bite through clothes and we are still itching as a result. We awoke in the middle of the night to discover a dramatic change in the weather and donned waterproofs this morning to bid farewell to the Rhine and ride east to link up with a bend in the Main river.
But nobody wants to read that, or that we're really chuffed to have just tipped 1000km yesterday, so here's the juicy stuff that you do want to read: Rear wheel spokes pinging all the way down the Rhine, we got the bike to a bike shop where a very nice man charged us a lot of money to replace all the spokes and rebuild the wheel. Fortunately the nice man's bike shop was not too far from a riverside campsite with a good bar and good views across the Rhine, so we rested up in the sun for a while, read books, worked on making our tans look like we haven't just been wearing vests and cycle shorts all year and walked up a very big hill to visit the nearest Schloss ruin.
That episode over and with the bike and trailer finally behaving, we departed the nice campsite down a really good stretch of the Rhine - a valley full of castles, vineyards and timbered buildings, and Koblenz was lovely. The next day was blisteringly, overbearingly, unbelievably hot and we had lots to complain about. Sophie even forgot to eat and drink enough, so she had even more to complain about. Continuing once the day had cooled slightly, we arrived late at a private campsite populated exclusively by spherical people with sun burn. The round red people allowed us to camp on the wrong side of the fence on the condition that we only used the cold, dirty beach showers and that we fed the hordes of local mosquitos. This we did ably, given their ability to bite through clothes and we are still itching as a result. We awoke in the middle of the night to discover a dramatic change in the weather and donned waterproofs this morning to bid farewell to the Rhine and ride east to link up with a bend in the Main river.
Saturday 15 August 2009
The Empire Strikes Back
Oh dear, things were going so well...
We crossed the border into Germany after a couple of days of patchy rain and then spent a night in the already damp tent under the most torrential downpour we've seen - ever. Soph courageously realligned the tent on its poles so that the drips were directed onto Luke's head instead of hers, but she still wasn't happy. And frankly who could blame her - this was supposed to be her honeymoon, and yet here she was, knackered from days relentlessly pushing pedals, on a campsite for hundreds with just one toilet. Not good.
To make matters worse, the day after as our heroes cycled into Aachen, the old seat of the Holy Roman Empire, Luke got rather too close to a pavement at enough speed to flip the trailer. After crushing his helmet which he'd bungeed to the top of it, it then flipped back over, revealing a bent axle and a dubious angle on the chassis.
Repair was futile but Luke did enough for them to make the 70km (90km with Sophie's imaginative navigation and up some substantial hills powered by numerous snickers bars) to Cologne and buy a new one (see the addidtion to 'How to Bodge').
With a new trailer, cheaper German beer, the shadow of Köln cathedral behind them and the prospect of sunny weather for a while, our plucky pair look set for better times ahead heading south along the Rhine.
We crossed the border into Germany after a couple of days of patchy rain and then spent a night in the already damp tent under the most torrential downpour we've seen - ever. Soph courageously realligned the tent on its poles so that the drips were directed onto Luke's head instead of hers, but she still wasn't happy. And frankly who could blame her - this was supposed to be her honeymoon, and yet here she was, knackered from days relentlessly pushing pedals, on a campsite for hundreds with just one toilet. Not good.
To make matters worse, the day after as our heroes cycled into Aachen, the old seat of the Holy Roman Empire, Luke got rather too close to a pavement at enough speed to flip the trailer. After crushing his helmet which he'd bungeed to the top of it, it then flipped back over, revealing a bent axle and a dubious angle on the chassis.
Repair was futile but Luke did enough for them to make the 70km (90km with Sophie's imaginative navigation and up some substantial hills powered by numerous snickers bars) to Cologne and buy a new one (see the addidtion to 'How to Bodge').
With a new trailer, cheaper German beer, the shadow of Köln cathedral behind them and the prospect of sunny weather for a while, our plucky pair look set for better times ahead heading south along the Rhine.
Wednesday 12 August 2009
The crossroads of Europe
We are in Maastricht, southernmost city of the Netherlands, spitting distance from both Belgium and Germany. We went to Belgium by footferry yesterday for a beer, then crossed our first land border so far on the way back in to Holland. We'll cross our second today on the way to Aachen (Germany will be country number 4 - already).
Progress has been aided by good weather and excellent cycle paths, but hampered by good hospitality and Sophie's strained relationship with her saddle. Luke has been characteristically unsympathetic, but was happy to spend a rest day by the river Maas reading Sherlock Holmes stories and drinking very small beers.
The Dutch are a very civilized people. Complaints are limited to a lack of places to pee outdoors (population density meaning that you are never more than three metres from another person) and unbelievably appalling fast food- specifically SnackPoint (which should be renamed StarvationPoint as that is the only time any sane person should consider eating there.
Current mileage - 586km.
Progress has been aided by good weather and excellent cycle paths, but hampered by good hospitality and Sophie's strained relationship with her saddle. Luke has been characteristically unsympathetic, but was happy to spend a rest day by the river Maas reading Sherlock Holmes stories and drinking very small beers.
The Dutch are a very civilized people. Complaints are limited to a lack of places to pee outdoors (population density meaning that you are never more than three metres from another person) and unbelievably appalling fast food- specifically SnackPoint (which should be renamed StarvationPoint as that is the only time any sane person should consider eating there.
Current mileage - 586km.
Wednesday 5 August 2009
The first chapter
It's bloody heavy. We were somewhat unprepared for the weight of the bike, trailer, each other and all our stuff as we pedalled round the corner to the pub for the send off. Thanks to all who came to wave us off, especially those who joined us for the ride out of Norwich.
Three days and 230km in, we are much more confident: Luke has learned to steer, and Soph is learning to trust him.
Amongst other things we have so far experienced a dodgy campsite, a smooth ferry crossing, lots of friendly people and an amazing ride up the coast from the Hook of Holland on the North Sea cycle route. We are now luxuriously installed in Amsterdam at Eva's place.
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