Prague to Vienna, approx. 500km

The view of a thousand spires from the hill

We had a delightful time in Prague, a city which deserves its reputation for being beautiful and charming. Our time was divided between resting, touristing and running bike errands in fairly equal amounts. On our way into the city centre, we came accross a large park on top of a hill overlooking the whole city centre. It was magnificient and we spent a lot of time there, having coffee, lunch and beer at various times of the day.


Still life of pastries, coffee and knife

To get to Vienna, we followed the Praha-Wien greenways route which is 460km long and took us through the hilly rural region of South Bohemia and the wide wine-growing basins of Moravia on the Austrian border. This section was a little bit more challenging but was also very rewarding. Although we have confirmed that I am no climber, the thrill of hills really comes at the top, when you can look back and see where you have just come from, or spot the next village where coffee or lunch are awaiting you at the bottom of a long sweeping downhill.



Riding through Czech Republik for the last week was a really interesting experience where I was often reminded, in a strange way, of places like Vietnam or Laos. Besides Prague, there are no other big cities and we rode through countless miniscule villages separated from each other only by a couple kilometers. The rural areas are deeply rooted in tradition with tightly packed villages surounded by paddocks divided to form a patchwork of various shades of green and yellow all over the hillsides. The gleaming spires of small churches stick out of every hilltop or valley directing your eye towards even the tiniest of hamlets.



In contrast, the legacy of Soviet times is palpable. One woman in a deli told Chris "I am old-school, I am Russia ! " when she couldn't understand his order and the bleak social housing style of construction is visible all around the bigger towns. More disturbingly, there are also traces of a previously strong Jewish population all over the country. Almost every village has a synagogue or a jewish cemetary. We saw many Orthodox Jewish tourists in Prague and around who must come in search of their distant roots. Interestingly, as we were riding along the Czech-Austrian border, we saw dozens of small concrete bunkers completely covered in vegetation, surrounded by fields of corn or sunflowers.


Exploration of WWII relics

The area which forms the transition between Czech Republik and Austria is called Moravia and is famous for its wines. We sampled a Riesling which was a little bit fruitier than usual but still nice and crisp. We spent one night in Poysdorf, an Austrian town most famous for its sparkling whites which we didn't sample. Every village in this area produces its own wine and as one enters the town, the streets are lined with wine cellars, often dug directly into the hill exposing only a small wooden door hiding the treasure inside. The route flattened out a bit once we reached the wine region and made our arrival into Vienna relatively easy, despite strong winds and threatening weather.



Nevertheless, this section went wonderfully well. It provided us with a few challenges and we were panting up some steep hills more than once but the weather was good, the scenery beautiful and the Czech network of cycle-paths was surprisingly extensive and pleasant, mainly taking us along quiet country roads. We barely saw another cycle-tourist and the local people looked at us with an air of suspicous surprise a lot of the time. It was also a good time to think about the rest of our itinerary and it became apparent fairly quickly that we would be going around and not through the Alps. Physical and mental strenght are connected but can also work separately and battling our way up the hills of the Alps would quickly turn into the holiday from hell so we will leave it at that and follow the Danube into France and then, head South as far as our timing will allow towards Lyon, Avignon and eventually Nice.

Appendix : Equipment and itinerary

When we set off on this latest intrepid adventure, it all felt like a bit of a rush, running around Copenhagen, getting all set up, buying a few maps and riding off into the Danish sunset. Things have somewhat settled down since and it has become apparent, through the comments of a few of our faithful readers (one of them being my dad) that we had omitted to mention anything regarding our stuff and where the hell we´re going besides Nice. So here it is, as far as we can tell...


His...

In terms of equipment, we are probably the most matchy matchy couple there ever was and yes, Marcin and Rose, that makes you close seconds.
First, the bikes...They are identical except for the frame size and mine is a ladies bike which has a slightly different handle bar shape. Follow this link to see them properly. They are fitted with identical red Ortlieb back panniers and I also have a little matching handle bar bag which we use for the camera. We bought a bunch of clothes in Copenhagen like padded shorts, gloves and t-shirts. They are all identical as well. In fact, the only difference is our helmets and the fact that Chris also carried my big pack on his rack while I carry our tent. Some aspects are not perfect and could always be improved like the bag on Chris´rack but it works well enough and we feel quite satisfied considering we organised it all within a week.


And Hers.

In terms of itinerary, we have less certainties and it will evolve as we go. We have now completed the sections to Berlin and Prague. From here, we continue down to Vienna along national cycle routes. Afterwards, we will head west along the EuroVelo6 all the way to Basel following the Danube. From there, we are not quite sure. If we are feeling terribly fit, we will head south into the Alps and Italy, emerging near Lake Como and make our way through Italy to Nice. Otherwise, we will continue to Nevers along the EuroVelo6 and find a way down through France to Nice. This option is easier but longer. The section through the Alps is shorter and more spectacular but obviously much tougher. We will see. Our ultimate deadline is October 4th when we will be delighted to greet Heleana and Adrian in Nice for a week. As we are already coming towards the end of August, our timing is tight and we will catch a train if we have to. We would rather do the whole thing but it is hard to be certain. We will probably finish off August getting to Vienna and spending a few days there. We should get to Basel around mid-September and then finish off by the end of the month...

I hope that answers a few questions and makes a certain reader (my dad again) work out where to come meet us along the way for a section.

Dresden to Prague, approx. 300km

Leaving Germany

After an agitated night, I am quite reluctant to head off as the weather is still terrible and I am pretty depressed by the thought of more rain, mud, detours and highways... We eventually prepare to leave Dresden and start our last big stretch to Prague. About 300km following the Elbe (we hope) which we plan to get done in 3 days. Since we have a late start, we don´t get as far as we would have liked. We experience more detours along the way but the water is going down and we can follow the normal route more and more. We make it to Bad Shandau, the last German town before the border with Ceska Republika. We camp in a beautiful national park and have a great dinner so things are slowly looking up.


Possibly the best cycle-path in Czech Republic, no doubt the funkiest

The next morning, we decide to have a big day. We have a bit of catching up to do if we still want to make it to Prague by the next day. We soon reach the Czech border and are amazed to notice that, as we had been warned by Mick a couple days earlier, the cycle path suddenly becomes terrible, riddled with holes and bumps. A few minutes into this new country, as I swerve to avoid a pothole, my back wheel smashes into it and slams down, bursting the tire instantly. We are soon back on the way and have our cheapest morning coffee yet in the unremarkable town of Decin. We discover that it is often more pleasant riding along the normal road than the so-called "cycle-paths" which are often a slightly sad joke. Nevertheless, we have a pleasant enough day and make it all the way to Roundnice, 106km further than the night before.


Fixing our first puncture a few minutes into the Czech Republic

Our final day along the Elbe turns out to also be the nicest day in a while. It is quite chilly in the morning but it is not raining which is already a small victory in itself. We have a nice ride to Melnik where we climb a steep hill into the town and get a magnificient view of the river below. A little bit further, we catch a small wooden boat to the other side of the river which reminds us a bit of South East Asia in a totally non high-tech homemade way but efficient and we are back on our way soon enough.


Waiting for the ferry driver

As we go along, we suddenly end up on a track so bad that I start cursing these "bloody under-developed ex-soviet communist countries" (sorry Marcinski, I was overwhelmed) before we realise that the mistake is probably ours and we are actually on a mountain biking trail before which we were supposed to turn off. Then, I start cursing myself instead. We get back to the turn off and start a long uphill section to a village called Klecany followed by a long downhill section to Klecanky. From there, it is an easy and short ride into the outskirts of Prague where we intend to spend a few days before continuing on to Vienna.


Learning from our mistakes and checking the map carefully

Berlin to Dresden, approx. 300km

Leaving Berlin

After what feels like a long week-end in Berlin, we have a bit of a wake up call when it is time to get back to work. Getting out of the city takes a little while and once out, the first thing we have to get through is a long hilly section in a beautiful park full of hard core training cyclists. It is time for our legs to wake up. We make it to Postsdam for our beloved morning coffee, a tradition we had tried to revoke during rest times (A silly idea which doesn´t last long). It then takes us close to 2 frustrating hours to find our way out which means that we have lunch almost as soon as we leave the city, on the banks of a river. After following the water for a while, we turn back into forest and the terrain becomes rather hilly which I have trouble copping with. At the top of one hill, 75km from Berlin, we call it a day (my sudden burst of sobbing accelerates the process somewhat) and we set up our camp in a little clearing right on the edge of the forest. It turns out to be lovely and I fall asleep hoping for a better day tomorrow.


Having a snack out of the rain

After a nice breakfast, we set off feeling good. We manage to ride 45km to Belzig for morning coffee but as we sit down to enjoy our daily pastries, the weather starts changing and it begins to rain. It has turned into a heavy downpour by the time we are ready to leave and shows no sign of calming down so we have no choice. We put on our rain jackets and are back on our way. We end up riding, completely soaked, for the next 40km to Wittenberg, which we reach covered in mud. Once in the town centre, we find a cafe and have a hot lunch before finding a campground on the other side of the Elbe. On the way, when I think the day can´t get much worse, I get my wheels stuck in the line between cobblestones which makes me fall off and gives me one more nasty bruise to add to my growing collection. We decide to leave it to the next morning to explore the town, on our way out. Crossing the bridge over the Elbe, we notice that it is looking rather huge but think nothing of it until the morning.


The Silhouette of Lutherstadt Wittenberg on the Elbe

After a quick loop around the very picturesque centre of Wittenberg, we are quite excited to begin the section which follows the Elbe down to Prague. Our enthusiasm is short lived. As soon as we find the begining of the marked route, we realise that the cycle-path is submerged half a meter under water which begins a long succession of detours and unsuccessfull attempts to get back onto the right path. Everytime we get closer to the river, we can not go any further and end up back onto the main roads. We ride 115km to Strehla where we find a lovely camping ground to rest our tired legs and hope that the water levels will drop by the morning.


First (but not last) flooded section

We have a slightly nervous sleep, punctuated by the sound of rain throughout the night. It is still raining in the morning and we know that it means we will spend a lot of time on roads rather than the cycle-path. We have a later start than usual, waiting for the rain to ease off and have a short ride to Riesa for morning coffee where we huddle inside a cafe, out of the damp cold. It is only drizzling a little bit when we set off again and we are able to ride along the Elbe route for about 30km to Meißen. It is a relief being off the road for a while and the area is beautiful with grand mansions and wineries following the steep banks of the river. Unfortunately, we end up back on the road for the last 30km to Dresden, breaking our first 1000km. We have to ride through the centre to get to our camping ground and we get excited about having a rest day here before the last big push to Prague.


Approaching Dresden, Germany

On our rest day, we have a leisurely morning giving our bikes a good scrub, doing some laundry and generally taking it easy. We then catch a bus into the centre to avoid riding up and down the hills which separate us from the city. While we have a small lunch at a bakery, there is a massive downpour which eases quite quickly. Dresden is full of impressive old buildings but we are not in a very touristy mood so we stroll around a bit and head back. On the way, we are forced to seek refuge inside a bakery where we have a pretzel while the elements go wild outside. Only a few meters from the bus stop, it is raining too hard to even contemplate attempting to make it there. After a while, it calms down and we retreat to the camping ground but the reprieve is short and through the night, the thunder is so loud that it makes the earth tremble under our mats, the lightning is so bright and frequent that it is like someone is turning the light on and off and it is so wet that we can barely sleep, fearing our tent will get wet. Not the most restful night...


A view of Dresden

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Our rest day in Krakow was what it should have been : easy and relaxing. We barely rode our bikes all day and just chilled. As predicted, we felt much better the next day and got on the road a little bit before 9am. Our plan was to get to Berlin within 3 days, and with 260km ahead of us, we had some big days coming up. Luckily, the terrain flattened out a fair bit, my legs were feeling really strong and we managed to keep a great pace riding between 80 and 100km each day quite easily. We rode through long sections of thick forested areas which are a joy to ride in since they are well sheltered from the wind and are so freshly scented. On the first night, we camped right in the middle of it, on a little patch of grass surrounded by trees off a side path. Although it was "verboten", no one bothered us and we had a fine night. The next day, feeling rather dirty, we were faced with a total absence of campgrounds in our path so we were forced to free camp again and this time, found a nice spot on the edge of a freshly harvested paddocks where our only neighbours were a few deers and one hell of a slug. We woke up to the sound of strange birds and were off to Berlin which we reached after an easy, slightly shorter third day.

While in Berlin, we need to get a few things organised for our next section to Prague which we will start in a couple days. We mainly need some maps which we hope to find without too much difficulty so that we can explore the city by bike a little bit as well. At first glance, what I find striking is the scale of the city centre area which is full of very monumental public buildings and it seems a direct result of having had to rebuild the whole thing failry recently. It strikes me as a city which would take a bit more time to appreciate, unlike Paris where it is instantly apparent, Berlin's beauty seems to be hidden a bit deeper under the surface.

In any case, this first stage of our big ride around Europe has been very interesting and more challenging than I had imagined it would be. It was also more rewarding and after 10 days, things are falling into place and we are both really eager to get started on phase 2, to Prague. The areas we cycled through in Denmark were, in my opinion, more stunning than their German counterparts. The same goes with the pastries. Nevertheless, it has been fun dusting off my old german speaking skills and we even celebrated our arrival in Berlin with a good Bratwurst and beer dinner so we can't complain, things are SEHR GUT!

More adventures coming soon, stay tuned!

And on the 7th day...

They had rest in Krakow am See...

Yeah, I'm afraid the honeymoon phase is over and we are now starting to realise what we have undertaken. Chris is as happy as can be while I wonder how I will manage to keep going for so many weeks still ahead of us. When we were still in planning mode, we had quite a glamourous vision of what our life on the road would be and in many ways, we were absolutely correct. We are going through gorgeous stetches of countryside, stopping in cute towns for coffee and pastries while camping along the way. In other ways, I think I had underestimated how difficult, physically and mentally, it is to maintain such an intensive routine, pedalling for dozens of kilometers each day while only resting overnight.

From Praesto, we had a long day, riding 90km, while island hoping towards the south of Denmark. We first headed towards Stege which is the city on the tip of the island of Mon and had a long break there before continuing onto Bogo By where we arrived just in time to litteraly roll onto the ferry to the southernmost island just as they were closing the gate. The ferry trip only took 15 minutes and as soon as we were back on shore, we mounted our bikes again and kept going along the coast and through some beautiful thick forest areas to Hesnaes where we found a beautiful spot to camp, in between the forest and the sea. Around dinner time, we went for a swim and the water was silver while the sky was a faint pink, it was perfectly still and incrediblybeautiful. We had a wonderful night, soothed to sleep by the sound of water.

The following day was longer still although unvoluntarily. This was also our last day in Denmark as we rode south all the way to Gedser, at the very tip of the country, to catch the 2 hour long ferry to Rostock in Germany. We didn't leave Denmark without a last pastry stop though and embarked on the ferry at 3 o'clock, landing in Deutschland around 5pm. Since I was starting to feel the effects of this new lifestyle, we had thought that we would take a day off cycling and explore Rostock which looked pleasant enough and was the first decent sized place since leaving Copenhagen. Therefore, we picked a campground off our map which didn't seem to far away so we could come back the next day. Unfortunately, when we arrived where the campground was shown, we found nothing and eventually realised that we would have to keep going. This is the story of how what was supposed to be a short day turned into a 105km day. We rode another 20km to the delightfully named Schwaan, forgetting our plans of visiting Rostock, and after a bit of looking around, eventually found a campground where we spent the night.

As we didn't see the point of staying in Schwaan for the day, we decided to keep going. Although still fine, the cycle paths in Germany don't seem to be quite as well marked as in Denmark which lead to a fair bit of losing our way. This combined with our most hilly section yet made the day a bit of a struggle for me. From Schwaan, we went through exotic towns called Butzow and Gustrow and eventually reached Krakow Am See, a delightful little town on the edge of a pretty lake. After a difficult day, we decided to stay here for our first official rest day for which we were able to sleep in, have a nice coffee, look around town, go for a little swim in the lake and generally take it easy.

Although I know that there will be plenty more tough sections, I am sure that it will get easier and, by all standards, getting through more than 400km in the first week is no small achievement. So eventhough I already have a horrendous bike short tan, my legs are covered in bruises and my thighs feel as stiff as logs, I haven't felt this sort of enthusiasm about our trip since we left Mongolia. Tomorrow, we set off again towards Berlin, feeling refreshed and ready to hit the road!

Riding South of Copenhagen towards Germany

After 4 days, our cycling adventure has now well and truly started, to our greatest pleasure.

We left Copenhagen in the afternoon of a rainy and windy day. After an anxious night, we spent the morning mopping around at the injustice of having to either spend another day at our campground or ride away in the rain. Around lunchtime, we decided that rain or shine, we were out of there so we slowly packed up, rearranging our belongings into a new format, and made our way out in the early afternoon. We made a brief stop at the bike shop to fiddle one last time with a couple things, a slightly longer stop at Central where we posted a few things back to Nice and had a special McDonalds lunch on the station floor, closely guarding our precious bikes, before our real departure around 4pm. We hadn't planned to get very far that day but we just wanted to make a start after a week of preparation in Denmark's teeny tiny capital city. We rode for about 30 km, leaving Copenhagen behind, battling strong headwinds and in the end not getting that wet after all. We stopped for the night in a nice campground on the coast with the firm intention of making a slighty quicker start the next day.

The sky is blue and the sun is shining when we wake up. We continue along the coast, passing small harbour towns before turning back inland towards Koge through beautiful weat fields, coloured burnt orange by the sun and shaped by the sea breeze (still going North while we are trying to go South...). Danish farmers must be having a good year because the crops here are so full and thick. They look like big soft carpets the colour of Chris' hair. After another pretty short day (we are still warming up), we treat ourselves to a nice picnic dinner of rollmops (marinated herring), fatty brie, brown bread and a salad. Yum!

The next morning, the wind isn't quite so strong and we have a good long day riding about 75km. The scenery is just as beautiful, sometimes following the coast and sometimes riding between paddocks of weat, peas or corn bordered by bright red patches of coquelicots. We have our first stop in Rodvig, about 35km away, where we have some tasty danish pastries for morning coffee. After a nice break, we keep going and make it to Praesto, another coastal town which we approach from the top of a small hill giving us a beautiful vista of the town's harbour. We quickly find a campground and go for a short stroll in the old town's centre before having an early dinner and going straight to bed. The life of a cycle-tourist is pretty simple. Ride, eat, sleep and repeat. It's nice and liberating after what I found to be a frustrating experience of spending too long in European main cities where all we can do is look and never touch.

We expect to spend another couple days in Denmark, after which we will be catching a ferry to Germany where we will continue towards Berlin. The route we are taking seems to be quite popular and is certainly very well set up and marked all along the way. It doesn't mean we didn't take a few wrong turns here and there but so far, it is smooth sailing and as long as we manage to find pastries along the way, it should remain the case.