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!