We loved exploring Triglavski national

We loved exploring Triglavski national park in NW Slovenia. Lake Bled and the park are so beautiful. Next we plan to cycle to Kranj.

Photos from Andermatt to Salzburg!

Hello from Salzburg, Austria! We cycled here from Munich a few days ago and are having a nice relaxing time trying to decide where to go next. It's been since Andermatt that I have uploaded photos so I will be brief on the text and focus on getting some photos up...

At the top of the 3303 meter Corvatsch mountain in St. Moritz Switzerland. It was a long hike...


...from the cable car to the restaraunt and bar at the top of the mountain. As we rode back down the gondola stopped half way and two maintenance personnel jumped from the top of the car to a suspension tower. The tower was leaning at about 45 degrees and if either one of them had slipped it would have been about 200 meters straight down.


We cycled from St. Moritz down the Inn River towards Austria and encountered lots of flood damage. This scene was typical of these small Swiss towns along the Inn river. The main channel was fine but all the side channels had dumped tons and tons of gravel on these towns destroying homes and bridges. It took us a while to cycle down the valley as we had to take many detours around these damaged bridges. At about 7:00 PM we came to a detour that made us climb 500 mteres in about 5 kilometers. That sucked. We were very happy to arrive at Peter and Tina's place almost at the Austrian border.


More flood damage in Northern Italy. There is a whole town under the water but only the church steeple can be seen. In the early 1900's the valley was flooded to build the reservoir you see. The people were moved but were not very happy about it.


After staying a few days with Peter and Tina we decided to cycle up the river behind their cottage. After gaining about 600 meters elevation we got to a catwalk that was blasted into the hillside. What you can't see is the sheer clif that drops down a couple hundred meters to the river below. According to Tina the catwalk was built for cattle! At the top of the valley is fertile grazing ground that could not be accessed from the Swiss side of the border. The Italians were using the area for their cows because they had easy access. So the handy Swiss simply built this crazy walkway!


This valley trail (with catwalk) was overrun by mountain bikers. They were quite supprised to see us bombing down the hill on our Surly Long Haul Truckers! The cycles worked great even on these harsh roads and it was worth every pedal stroke up the hill to see the faces on these mountain biking wimps who were walking their $5,000 full suspension bikes up the hill that we rode up on our touring bikes.


More flood problems as we left Switzerland down the Inn River towards Imst. Glad I brought my Chacos!


We were thinking of continuing down the Inn River to the Danube but decided we had to see the castles of mad King Ludwig. So we headed over Fernpass to Reutte and went to Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. This is the wonderbar view from one of the rooms in Neuschwanstein. The castle (built in the 1880's) was never finished since Ludwig and his psychariatist were found dead in the nearby lake. It really wasn't a castle since it had no defenses, just a really fancy home. No one knows for sure who killed him but only a day earlier the parliment had found him to be legally insane, probably because he spent so much money on these fairytale castles. In any case, it was an amazing place.


In front of Neuschwanstein.


From Reutte we headed north and camped on this lake. We thought it would be nice to grill our dinner with this handy $2.00 disposable (actually recyclable) grill. Accoring to the instructions it takes 20 minutes to do something in German and then it does something else for 90 minutes or so. We assumed that this meant it took 20 minutes to heat up after lighting it and then it cooked for 90 minutes.


Well, after a whole lot of bad words, 3 newspapers and a box of matches, we had a real mess on our hands. Finally after 90 min we managed to get the thing started. It burned for 20 mintues. But it was really hot so we were able to cook our unidentifiable pork parts and vegetables. It tasted great.


We stayed in a small town east of Stuttgart for a few days with Liz and Larry and they took us to Rothenburg one day to see the old fortress town. We had a wonderful time reading Rick Steves self-giuded tour of the town and walking along the old fortress walls.


And it just so happens that Oktoberfest starts on September 17th and we are only 100 km from Munich! So we cycled to Munich and stayed with a wonderful family there really close to the center of town. We spent most of our time in Munich just wandering around town and cycling all over the place but we did manage to make it to the Hofbrauhaus (where Hitler gave his first public speech) for an over-priced 1 liter beer and had a hell of a time laughing at all the people singing and swaying to oompah bands!


But then, you are in the hart of Bavaria at Oktoberfest time so you have to go to the fairgrounds. Holy crap. It's like the Puyallup fair with a comsumption rate of about 3 liters of beer per person. They pour something like one million gallons of beer at this place in 3 weeks!


There are at least six large tents that hold 6,000+ people each. We managed to stampeede into the Lowenbraü tent with the aid of a half-dozen Iraqi guys.


After some searching we found two seats at a table that seats 20 and sat down. We also managed to make enough room at the table so the Iraqi guys that helped us in could sit too. Interestingly enough the rest of the table was full of Israeli guys! We spent the evening laughing at the drunk Germans and just having a great time. The most popular Oktoberfest song that all the drunk Germans know the words to? Any guesses? "Country Roads" by John Denver. This is by far the funniest thing we have seen in Germany. We have video too, but you will have to wait till we get back!


This is actually where we spent the most time, in the Deutches Museum. This Munich museum is the most fun museum I have ever been in. They have over 10 miles of exhibits and we spent the better part of two days there. We didn't see hardly any of it. I think I could take a three week vacation at this museum. The mining exhibit was outstanding. They had re-created a bunch of different mines in the museum and it really felt like you were there. Here I am next to a long-wall miner.


We were getting really comfortable in Munich and decided that we could both stay for a long time. This is how we knew that it was time to move on. The atmosphere in Munich is the best we have experienced anywhere in Europe's large cities. So we cycled to Salzburg where we thought we might be able to catch the last bits of summer before heading south. For the past week the weather has been absolutly beautiful. Very cold at night but wonderful during the day. We feel very fortunate to be getting this good of weather this late in the summer but we did have floods earlier and camped in the rain for weeks so maybe we earned it?


Yesterday we cycled to Berchtesgaden and went on a tour of a salt mine. It was great fun and would fit right in at Disneyland. We put on these cotton suits, got on a little train and headed through the smallest little tunnel that could possibly be into the salt mine. There were these long old wooden slides that you got to zip down and lots of history. Here Heather is standing in front of a drill that is used to make bore holes 125 meters down into the salt. The hole is then filled with water and then pumped out on a 48 hour cycle. The salty brine water is then boiled and dried to extract the salt from the ~50% salt rock. One of these 125 meter holes will produce salt for about 30 years and grow to a diameter of 30 meters as the rock dissolves.


Well, that's all the photos I am going to put up for now. We just got back from the train station where we booked tickets to Bled, Slovenia. It is supposed to be really nice down there and the weather looks good. From there I think we will cycle south along the coast into Croatia until we find a ferry or something and then head to Italy. We still aren't sure as the only plan we have is for the train tomorrow!

We made it to Salzburg

We made it to Salzburg tonight at dark. It was a nice hilly ride from Munich with Alps and lake views everyday. Salt mines tomorrow?

Eolying a perfect fall afternoon

Enjoying a perfect fall afternoon at English Garden in Munich. We did just put on some long johns though. The city is alive with Oktoberfest. The leederhosen and steins are in full swing.

Oktoberfest in Munich

Hello from Augsburg, Germany. We have had a wonderful couple of weeks with mostly nice weather and great friends! After leaving Andermatt we cycled back down the Rhein almost to Chur and then headed to Thusis on our way to St. Moritz. We caught a train from Thusis to St. Moritz and spent the evening at a campground on the lake. From St. Moritz we cycled down the Inn River to Sur-En where one of my professors at the UW has a home that they venture to in the summer. It was a great place really close to the Inn River in a town with about 8 other houses. We spent a few days there and I finally got to have a summer BBQ with friends! It was wonderful.

We left Sur-En on Monday the 5th and headed down river to Austria and camped in the town of Imst at the bottom of Fernpass. Tuesday we cycled over the pass following the old Roman road through the Alps called the Claudia Augusta. We did a lot of elevation that day and barely made it into camp in Reutte. We spent two nights in Reutte using it as a base camp for exploring the castles of Hoeschwangau and Neuschwanstein. What crazy fairytale castles! When we have more time I will put up photos. Basically though this (some say crazy) king of Bavaria, Ludwig II, bankrupted the countrys coffers in the 1880's by building a bunch of fairytale castles around the area. Disney even got their inspiration for their castle from Neuschwanstein. In the end the parliment declared him insane and two days later him and his psychiatrist were found dead on a nearby lake. It took the Bavarian royal family 50 years to repay his debts. Crazy.

From there we headed north to a small campground near Fussen and had a wonderful evening swimming in a lake. The next day it rained so hard and there we no campgrounds anywhere so we ended up staying in a B&B north of Kempten. Why are we heading north? To see Larry and Liz in Oberkochen (just east of Stuttgart) at Liz's family's home. I work with Larry at the UW. On Monday we took a side trip via car to Rothenburg and Dinkelsbuhl to see some of the highlights on Germany's Romantic Road. It was great. Liz's mother made us some great food and we had a nice time drinking schnapps till late.

Tuesday we headed back south again and camped in some closed group camp in Tefflen. Last night we stayed just north of Augsburg on our way to Munich. Oktoberfest starts Saturday which should be interesting. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to handle 50,000 drunk, singing, dancing Germans! From there we head South as quickly as possible. It is starting to get really cold and wet here and is supposed to freeze tonight.

Right now we have to go and look for a new rim for my back wheel. Somehow I bent the crap out of it and it can't be fixed! It's still rideable but wobbles a lot and the brakes don't work. Oh well. Will post pictures sometime soon I hope. Bye for now.

We made it over Fernpass

We made it over Fernpass today. Camping in Reutte, Austria tonight. We have been so lucky to have sunshine while ridin in the Alps.