Europe Cycling Tour 2005

The Prado and modern art

2005-11-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

The Prado and modern art museum were great. We thought Dali and Bosch were fun. We will see the naval and another art museum tomrw.

We made it to Madrid!

2005-11-18T12:51:00.000-08:00

We made it to Madrid! Yesterday we went for a fun bike ride with Timo, our host in Sevilla. Then we made a seafood feast.

Sunny Sevilla!

2005-11-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

Sevilla is an incredibly comfortable city with lovely plazas and an especially amazing public space created for the 1929 world fair called Plaza Espana. We have loved exploring and enjoyed walking the small streets in the old town all day. We were just out for a perfect night including a birthday party and dancing. We are staying with an incredible group of people in the heart of the city about a five minute walk from the river. They are an international group of students from Italy, France, Germany, and Brazil. Last night there was also a Hungarian couple staying here. It was fantastic to sit and listen while four or five different languages were being used in one household. Everyone here speaks three or more different languages, except us! They are all living here for a year or more of their studies. It is so exciting to hear their stories and dreams.

We spent a fantastic week driving from Barcelona to Sierra Espuna natural park to Sierra Nevada natural park and national park, then to Tarifa with a day trip to Tangier, next to Grazelema natural park and then to Sevilla. We enjoyed several walks and drives in the rain through the white hill towns the past few days. Our high-speed hydro jet ferry ride to Africa was a highlight of the week. The day became even more amazing when we got off the boat. We spent the day wide eyed and trying to absorb as much as possible. That night we talked about ideas for the next cycle trip! It is always inspiring to hear other cyclists and travellers experiences and ideas. We met a man that night who told us of a friend cycling from Germany to China on tandem cycle as a partner to a blind woman who wants to complete the journey as well. Our plan is spend a few more days enjoying the atmosphere here in Sevilla and then head to Madrid. We will have to save cycling in Asia for another time.

I am so excited to visit the museums in Madrid and be out with the city when the streets are alive at night. Many Spanish people do not begin their evenings out until 10pm. We have heard that in Madrid people fill the streets all night long walking and hanging out often until sunrise. One of our favorite customs of both the Italians and Spanish are the evening walks or Paseos. Around sundown or 6-8pm everyone from toddlers to the grandparents join in the town plaza or main pedestrian areas to walk and play together. We saw this happen in towns with a population of 2,000 to 2,000,000 from Northern Italy to Southern Spain. We loved joining these evening strolls and seeing all the life on the streets as the community actively spends time together everyday. It is such a sweet and simple habit that appears to bring energy to all that participate. Tonight we happened to be on the same path as a man around 80 or more years old crossing many busy roads which led us to the river of people out walking in Sevilla. We hope to join the Paseo every evening the rest of our visit in Spain!

Driving through Spain in rain,

2005-11-13T01:25:00.000-08:00

Driving through Spain in rain, lightning, and even snow has been so much more cozy than cycling. Been camping in Sierra Nevada mnts.

Bad weather to North. Planned

2005-11-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

Bad weather to North. Planned to cycle to Madrid, but watched rain flood streets today! Wimped out, going South in Hertz minivan.

We have met the most

2005-11-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

We have met the most fun Frenchmen in Barcelona! The city is great 4 walking. We loved visiting more Gaudi sights & Gothic quarter.

We went for an architecture

2005-11-05T10:06:00.000-08:00

We went for an architecture walk today. The Gaudi style buildings are so facinating. We are in love with the colors of Barcelona!

Photos from Bled, Slovenia to Palma, Mallorca

2005-11-02T06:54:00.000-08:00

Hello from Mallorca! It has been over a month since we have been able to post photos to the blog. But, alas, we have photos and some time to write a bit. It’s been a while so I will see what I can remember about Slovenia, Italy the Mediterranean and Spain...

Well, we were in Salzburg and trying to figure out how we were going to get to Italy. The weather was good for a few days in Salzburg but then turned to rain so we knew we needed to head south. The ride through the mountains towards Italy would have largely re-traced our route North from Switzerland and we were longing for warmer, dryer weather so we decided to get on a train from Salzburg to Bled, Slovenia. We didn’t know anything about Slovenia other than it was South and likely to have better weather so we got a ticket and went for it. After a couple train changes and some rather flustered Slovenian train conductors who didn’t know what to do with our bikes we arrived in Bled. We had no guide book, map or know where we were going to stay so we just headed toward what we thought was town. Within 10 minutes of leaving the train station we ran into a really nice couple who lived in the area and told us (in perfect English) all about the area and where the best camping likely was. At the campground that they recommended we found yet another friendly Dutch couple and talked with time for half an hour about their travels in Croatia and Slovenia. I love the Dutch. By far the friendliest people in Europe.

After looking at the wonderful map at the campground we decided that we should stay at a different place on the other side of town. This is typical of the helpfulness of the Slovenians, on the area map at one campground, they show where their competitors are located! We stopped by the Tourist Information office on the way to the other campground and the lady there was absolutely the most helpful TI person that we have encountered and they had excellent free literature and maps of the area. What a change from Germany. The campground was perfect, located right on the lake with excellent facilities.

We awoke the next morning to beautiful weather and decided (based on the fantastic TI info) to head to Soteska Gorge near Vintgar. It was beautiful. Some dude like a hundred years ago build this crazy walkway along the length of the gorge.

We walked the entire length of it and then hiked a few more kilometers to an old church above the town of Bled. From here there was a great view of the whole valley except for the lake which is hidden.

From Bled we cycled to Kranj where we stayed with a wonderful family in a really beautiful home.

Bozo took the day off and showed us around the town of Kranj and then led us on a super cycle tour of the surrounding area.

The weather was really nice and we had a great time there. They also arranged for us to stay with their daughter in Ljubljana which was fun. We went out with her and some friends and partied till 5 in the morning. I think we went to every club in Ljubljana and Janja knew every bouncer so we got to the front of the line and in for free at every place. Very tired the next day but who cares after such night!

From Ljubljana we cycled south towards Croatia where we planned to do some island hopping with our bikes eventually arriving at Dubrovnik where we would catch a ferry to Italy. We made it to Postonja and visited the caves there which were very cool. They go for like 200 kilometers and have been transformed into a Disneyland like ride with a train and lots of very cool lighting.

At the hostel in Postonja we checked our email to find that a gentleman we had emailed about crewing on his boat had replied. The Internet is great. We used this website called Float Plan to connect with people from all over the world that need help on their yachts. Of the many people we contacted this guy sounded like the most fun. We had contacted him early in our trip but it wasn’t going to work out since he needed us in a couple days in Greece and we were in Switzerland. So we told him to let us know if he needed help later in his journey. He did! So... we worked out that we should meet him in Southern Italy in one week. From Postonja, Slovenia we had to travel all the way to Southern Italy in a week and still somehow see the "must do" places in Italy. So we got on the next train out of Postonja to Italy and by some wonderful turn of fate it terminated in Venice. So much for Croatia. It looks really nice there though and we decided we must return.

We booked a hotel while on the train using one of the recommendations in Rick’s book and it turned out to be just perfect and very near to the train station which is good since you can not bicycle in Venice. Heather tried to cycle but within 10 meters the police stopped her and made her walk the bike. Even without bikes or traffic Venice is crazy. Rick Steves puts is best when he says that the city is living on the "artificial respirator of tourism." The place is nuts. Everything has to be delivered by boats or by hand. They have garbage boats, DHL boats, UPS boats, ambulance boats, taxi boats and construction boats.

The first floor of most of the old canal-side buildings is flooded or floods regularly and is therefore abandoned. Most of the city is less than 50 cm above sea level and it floods over 100 times each year. They have these walkways setup all over the island so that when it floods the tourists can still get to the major sights. It’s sinking and no amount of money will save it from the rising waters. But, this has been a problem in Venice ever since they built the place so check back in another 2000 years.

It is a wonderful place though and we had endless fun just strolling through the streets with no particular destination and just trying to get lost, which is very hard of course since you are on an island.

So we got on some random ferry of which we had no idea where it went and ended up on some other island near Venice where they blow lots of glass for the Japanese folks. Speaking of Japanese folks, Saint Marks Cathedral and Square are awesome except that they are over run by pigeons. There are these vendors all over the place selling 5 Euro bags of pigeon feed which the Asians think is great fun. You hold the (pigeon birth control laced) feed in your hand and they swarm you until you can’t see the person holding the feed! The funniest actually was when this guy bought some feed for his girlfriend but when he motioned to give her the bag of feed he actually threw it in her hair! I almost pissed myself laughing.

After two days in Venice we caught a train to Florence where we had a place to stay with someone from the Hospitality Club. His place was great and we spent two days just wandering around the city looking at the oldness of it all. We did see David which was impressive but skipped the Uffizi since the line was hours long and the reservations were booked until January. Simply wandering around the old town was a perfect way to spend two days. And Florence has the best gelato too, which you can’t eat in the Uffizi.

The churches in Italy are amazing. St. Marks in Venice is just over the top as far as decorations go. The mosaics that line the ceilings and adorn the exterior are very impressive and the marble must have come from every corner of the empire. The Duomo in Florence is equally impressive but more so because of its size and green, pink and white marble exterior. The inside was rather dull except for the ceiling of the dome which was quite elaborate and colorful.

On Friday night the guy we were staying with, Nicola, had about 10 friends over for dinner and drinks, Italian style. We ate some wonderful food and laughed continuously for hours as we talked about all sorts of things. Mostly just giving each other a hard time about some silly thing or another. We had a blast and were sorry to leave the next morning as I am sure Nicola would have welcomed us for much longer. So continuing our journey south we headed to Sienna where Heather connected with another Hospitality Club member. Leonardo showed us around Sienna for an evening and told us all about the town. It was quite an interesting place with a great old town. I think we could have spent a few days there just exploring narrow alleys and small plazas but we left the next morning for Rome. We didn’t know where we were going until we got to the train station and found out which trains took bicycles so it was kind of difficult to plan things. Only the regional trains take cycles which makes getting from the North of Italy to the South of Italy quite difficult. But with a little luck we managed to get to Rome and find a train that would get us from Rome to the port town of Crotone on time to meet the boat. This meant we would arrive in Rome at 4:00 PM, have the whole next day to sightsee but then would have to catch the 5:45 AM train out of Rome to get to Crotone by 6:00 PM that evening. But when in Rome... you have to see Rome I guess?

On the train to Rome from Sienna the conductor took quite an interest in our adventure and even though he did not speak a word of English we had an engaging conversation with him for the better part of the 3 hour train ride. When he learned that we did not have a place booked to stay he got really worried so we got on the cell phone right away. We tried 5 or 6 places that Rick lists but they were all full, just like the conductor warned. But, Heather’s persistence paid off and we found a place 2 blocks from the train station which worked perfect. They even took care of our bikes which was very nice of them.

Well, Rome is big. Very big. But not so dirty like I have read and while the traffic was crazy it was manageable as a pedestrian. However, there were no cyclists. Or at least none that are still alive. In our usual fashion we spent the first evening there just walking around the city venturing to the Pantheon and then to the Spanish Steps.

At night Italians take to the streets and simply walk. It’s made possible since they have so many pedestrian streets around the city. Every Italian city we have been in feels more alive at 8:00 PM than at noon. Why the hell can’t the US figure out how to make cities more walkable? Look at all the people at the Spanish Steps. Only maybe 10% are tourists, the rest are locals just hanging out.

We went to bed early so we could get up early the next morning and head to the Vatican. We arose at about 5:30 and got to St. Peters before 7:00 when it opens. St. Peters is by far the most grand and awe inspiring building in the Universe. It is friggin´ huge. Just to boast they put marks on the floor of where other church naves would end if placed inside of St. Peters. Not one of them even makes it to the transept of St. Peters and even the biggest one would actually fit completely inside of St. Peters. It’s only made more interesting by the fact that the church sold "forgiveness" to finance the construction which is apparently why we have Protestants today. We saw PJP´s tomb and then hiked to the top of Michael Angelo’s grand dome where we got the best view of Rome possible.

Look how small those people are! Just from the base of the dome it was frighteningly high.

The balustrade "hands" of the church welcoming you in...

We then walked to the Circus Maximus that held 300,000 people.

Then to the Coliseum where we were accosted by American students trying to scam tours and promising to bypass the many hour long line. While there was a line to get tickets that was long, we just walked across the street to another ticket office where there was nobody, bought our tickets and walked straight into the Coliseum. Dumb tourists.

Then we walked over to the old Roman Forum and saw where Julius Caesar lived and ruled from. We saw the senate building too but not the one where Caesar was killed. They were temporarily meeting somewhere else.

Public bathrooms are virtually unknown in Europe with the exception of Switzerland which has them everywhere, Austria and Bavaria. So in Germany you just go anywhere, like the Germans do. But we found that American businesses have great bathrooms, they don’t care if you use them and they are very clean. And what American businesses do you find everywhere in Europe?

After a wonderful Italian dinner we headed back to the hotel to sleep before our 12 hour train ride to Crotone. We got up before 5:00 AM and headed to the nearly deserted train station. After a bit the sun came up in the most beautiful light but from a train it’s hard to capture. The photo is about as blurry as our heads were foggy after getting up so darn early.

Alas, after 12 hours of travel and many train changes we arrived in Crotone at the Southern end of the East coast of Italy. We were met at the train station by Antonio who manages the marina and didn’t want us trying to cycle through Italian traffic. A few hours later Jose showed up and we headed out for a most wonderful dinner in Crotone. The food was amazing. In fact, Heather and I both agree that it is the best food that we have had the entire trip. Just some simple fish antipasti and some pasta but it was really really good. I think it must have been the best restaurant in Crotone.

The next morning we set about taking apart the bicycles to stow them for the trip. Antonio drove us around town and helped us find some bubble-wrap and foam to protect the bikes while on the boat. In a most Italian way, two guys poked fun while I took apart the bikes so we cold stow them. The guy with the sunglasses (talking to Jose) owned a coffee shop at the marina that was open for maybe 3 hours each morning. The guy on the right as far as we can tell doesn’t work at all and just hangs around the marina all day. This is very Italian. Our host and his friends in Florence had warned us not to go to Crotone as it is run by the mob and the police don’t control anything. They thought for sure that we were going to get on a boat, get taken out to the sea, asked for money and then dumped overboard! But, after seeing this guy just hang around the marina and do nothing one begins to wonder if he was just keeping track of things for somebody. In any case, we liked Crotone, and we liked the boat, the food, and our host.

Don’t want a storm to wash the bikes off the deck!

At the helm of our American flagged "Danny Blue".

The trip from Crotone to Messina took about 20 hours and we arrived just as the sun was coming up. We slept most of the fist day and ate another fantastic meal at a local restaurant. It is hard for me to sleep on the boat (we were in the bumpy bow) so after a long trip you need to rest for a few days to get ready for the next journey. So, the second day in Messina Jose rented a car and drove us down the East coast of Sicily to the old town of Taormina where there is a well preserved Greek, and the remodeled by the Romans, amphitheater.

After wandering around town for a while we got back in the car and drove further South to Catania, the "capitol" of Southern Sicily. Catania had a wonderfully crazy outdoor market with some of the best looking and least expensive food I have ever seen in my life. You could get the most beautiful bell peppers by the kilo for $0.50! There were olives, cheese and meat everywhere. If you like good food, this is the place to be. At the outskirts of the market we took a couple photos. Notice the guy getting a shave on the right. The barber just makes the rounds to all of the vendors. Very Italian.

Sailing is hard work. Very demanding.

We had lots of good instrumentation so sailing at night was fairly easy. Just have to watch the radar for big ships and scan the horizon for lights every few minutes. We usually took 4 hour shifts although Jose was up a lot. I don’t know how people do this sailing for like 3 weeks across the Atlantic. I would want a crew of like 6 or something.

Jose is hoping to produce a documentary of sailing the Med so he was constantly grabbing his video camera.

The volcano island of Stromboli. We sailed around the other side of the island at night and watched the volcano erupt several times. It was awesome to see it spew chunks of lava hundreds of meters into the night sky. If only we had a better camera and weren’t on a boat. Sorry, you will have to go see it for yourselves or wait for the documentary. But we do have an evening photo of the island.

From Stromboli we traveled to Ustica Island where we spent a couple of nights before our long journey across to Sardinia. Ustica appears to be supported by tourism and fishing. The fishing boats are just pulled up on the beach which is covered with garbage.

Somewhere between Ustica and Sardinia we hooked into a 6-7 kilo red tuna and Jose and I managed to get it on board without a net. Quite a feat and quite a feast! Jose is an excellent cook and made up some excellent tuna meals. Here is Jose with the fish in the galley.

That night we got into a fairly good storm. It wasn’t quite gale force winds blowing up to 30 knots with 4 meter waves. While I was on watch I got soaked by a rogue wave. Heather and Jose woke up instantly and came running out apparently to see if I was still on deck. It wasn’t a very big wave and it is easy to see how someone could get washed off and never be found on dark stormy night. In any case, Heather and Jose took the helm for the rest of the night and everything worked out great. How can you go wrong when you have fresh tuna for breakfast! We finally arrived at Porto Corallo which is on the edge of nowhere in Sardinia. Jose managed to talk the only person around (a local pizza joint owner) into renting us his wife’s car. It was an Italian piece of shit FIAT Uno but it worked great and we ventured through the mountains to Cagliari. The guide book we had for the island warned of bandits in the mountains that abducted tourists and demanded ransom from family. However, we encountered no bandits as we were well disguised in our piece of shit car.

A happy sailor!

From Porto Corall we sailed around the Southern end of Sardinia to the Western island of San Pietro and the port of Carloforte. Here is "Danny Blue" in port. Notice the Med style mooring, stern to the dock. It sucks but minimizes the amount of docks that have to be built. Instead there are "laid moorings" in the water that you use to hold the bow in place. These suck and regularly get tangled with propellers, keels and other moorings.

The wonderful town of Carloforte. It was really beautiful but mostly shut down since tourist season is over. We did however find some really nice restaurants.

After leaving Carloforte we headed back to the open sea 205 NM to Menorca. On the way we were visited by many migratory birds and even a couple pods of dolphins.

We stopped for a swim on the Abyssinal plain which was almost 10,000 feet deep! We had to rig a rope with a buoy on the end so that we could catch the boat again. The wind was picking up and blowing the boat at 2 knots without the sails up. Don’t want to go for a swim and get left behind!

Then the wind really started to blow and we got to put up the spinnaker. Downwind sailing is so nice, smooth, quiet and fast.

We made port in Mahon, Minorca just about the time it was getting dark and got a spot on the dock right in town. The port of Mahon has a long history and was used as a quarantine station for Spanish sailors returning from adventures to the New World. The port of Mahon is a wonderful natural port and was very strategic for many centuries. The British, French and Spanish all fought over it and took control of it many times.

One of the military quarantine islands in the port of Mahon.

From Mahon we sailed 100 NM to our final port of call in Palma, Mallorca. Jose immediately headed off to Barcelona to catch the boat show there and hopefully buy a new and larger boat for next season. The 42 Bavaria Ocean that we were in was just right for two couples but Jose would like to be able to accommodate more people to make the longer crossings more comfortable. More people means more sleep and the ability to make longer crossings more comfortable. So Heather and I have spent the past few days staying on the boat and checking out Palma, cleaning the boat, putting our bicycles together and catching up on the business parts of life. Yesterday we rented a car and drove around the island. It’s very beautiful and reminds me both of California and Nevada in its vegetation and geology. The North coast is rugged with little white sand beaches tucked into the rocks here and there. A perfect place to sail around and anchor at your own private beach.

The bay of Palma and the wonderful, miles long, white sand beach with warm water that is only slightly less attractive because it is full of fat Germans in Speedos.

Even though the island of Mallorca is Spanish, the mayor of Palma is German. The island is basically German. Most things are written in both Spanish and German and there are Germans everywhere. It’s their Mexico I guess.

The rugged North coast.

Our rental car, a Nissan "Micra". It worked great on the small island roads. Shown here by a sexy sailor.

We drove to the North Eastern most point on the island just in time to catch the sunset. There are nice sunsets and then there are really nice sunsets. I have rarely seen this ones equal.

Sunrise from the boat. A boat is a great place to wake up each morning.

This was taken this morning from the "hatch" in our "v-birth" on the boat.

Tomorrow we leave the boat and catch a ferry to Barcelona. We plan on spending the next two weeks traveling around Spain then heading up to Paris for the last week of our trip before we fly home. According to the timer on this computer I have spent 5 hours and 32 minutes updating this so I think it is time for food. We have been enjoying the comments that everyone has posted and we look forward to telling you more about our adventures when we return.

Buonas noches!

Happy Halloween from Mallorca Is

2005-10-31T10:52:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween from Mallorca Island off the coast of Spain! We had excellent wind for our last leg of sailing. Went for fun bike ride along the coast.

We ate more delicious red

2005-10-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

We ate more delicious red tuna today. Reeled in 2 tuna yesterday but 8 kilo fish broke the line at boat. We sail to Mallorca manana.

We are in Spain! Motored

2005-10-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

We are in Spain! Motored through the night 205 NM to Mahon, Menorca. Went swimming 100 miles offshore in 10,000 ft deep 23 C water.

We made it to Carloforte,

2005-10-24T04:39:00.000-07:00

We made it to Carloforte, San Pietro island

Spent 2 days in Sardinia

2005-10-22T09:52:00.000-07:00

Spent 2 days in Sardinia an island full of cactus, sm villages and nice beaches. We also ate the best Tuna! Sailing 2 San Pietro now

We sailed from Ustica Is

2005-10-20T16:36:00.000-07:00

We sailed from Ustica Is to Sardinia. It was an exciting 27 hours. We caught 7 kilo tuna. Sailed in 25-30 knot winds & 4meter waves.

Incredible day! We just spent

2005-10-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

Incredible day! We just spent an hour watching Stromboli volcano eruptions. The sea was beautiful. We had good wind for a few hours.

Moonlight last night was magical!

2005-10-14T03:24:00.000-07:00

Moonlight last night was magical! We had mellow winds yesterday. Sails up only in the morning. We motored into Messina at sunrise.

Siena was great & Rome

2005-10-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

Siena was great & Rome was awesome. Now in south Italy in Crotone. Crewing on sailboat for next 2 weeks. Sail for Messina tomorrow.

We are enjoying a bottle

2005-10-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

We are enjoying a bottle of wine on Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. Due to rain we decided to head to Italy instead of Croatia.

We loved visiting Kranj. We

2005-10-04T08:39:00.000-07:00

We loved visiting Kranj. We went for two excellent day rides and enjoyed the best company with our hosts. Postojna caves were tops!

We loved exploring Triglavski national

2005-09-29T03:54:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-09-26T04:56:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

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

2005-09-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

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

Andermatt, Switzerland

2005-08-30T05:27:00.000-07:00

Hello from Switzerland. Today is the second sunny day we have had in the last month and boy does this country need it. The endless rain has caused flooding everywhere and some villages are totally cut off. Fortunatly the flood waters are receding and the weather is supposed to be nice for a while. Heather and I made it over the 2044 meter high Oberalpass yesterday which felt really good. We were thinking of cycling all the way to the Matterhorn (actually Zermatt) but we are now thinking that we will head east.

Either way the important thing right now is that I have a computer with a USB port and I can upload photos. So I am just going to upload a bunch of photos and if I have time I will write more. This blog has been a bit bland lately since we have not been able to upload photos!

The Burg Eltz Castle near the Mosel River

Eating lunch on the Mosel in Cochem. Notice the new haircut I got in Cochem.

Heather in the defensive tunnels at the Rheinfels Castle ruin. They filled them with dynamite and blew them up under the attackers.

Cycling down the main street in Sprey.

Heather and Wolfgang navigating the military tunnel complex on the Maginot Line in France.

A typical German campground. They setup their trailers on Easter and leave them up until the floods start (usually in October). Most of the time these trailers are empty so campgrounds are kind of strange ghost towns sometimes. They might get used for 6 weeks of the 6 months that they sit there. It's a German thing I guess.

Sewing up my tire. It worked great and got us the 30 km to the bike shop.

Cycling through the flooded Rhein River. We had to change our route and camp at different campgrounds because of the flooding.

The Rheinfalls where the Rhein River becomes non-navigable by commercial boat traffic.

Two Austrailians we met a couple of times along the river. One really rainy morning in Schaffhausen Jade made us some hot egg and ham sandwiches and brought them to our tent. Like room service in a tent. It was fantastic.

Then just out of camp after our hot breakfast sandwiches heather ran over a lag screw that went completely through the tire, both sides of the tube and into the rim. Luckily the rim still works fine.

Check out the size of that thing! What are the odds that it would stick straight through and into the rim! I put in a new tube and it has worked fine ever since.

Looking across the river from Germany into Switzerland. There are lots of towns like this and the river this far upstream was a clear and beautiful green color. No flooding here.

At camp in Bad Ragaz. It was actually nice weather that evening.

It was raining so bad in Trun that Heather joked with the owner of the campground that we would camp under their beer garden umbrella. It kept raining and there wasn't anyone using the tables so we moved a few things and camped right there. We got a couple of good laughs from folks.

A lovely beer maiden in Ruras.

Heather cycling up the 2044 meter Oberalpass. We were a bit worried about physical limitations of our bodies but no problems. Just good fun!

At the top of Oberalpass!

Luke cycling on Oberalpass.

In Andermatt at the end of our trail which started in Rotterdam. Notice the wonderful signs for cyclists. It's ironic, the Swiss are known for their excellent maps but the signs are so good here that you don't need maps. Awesome country for cycling.

Looking back at Oberalpass and the switchbacks that we came down.

Tonight we are going to head back over Oberalpass and back towards Chur. We will then head towards the east part of Switzerland and into Austria. Other than the couple flat tires the bicycles are holding up great and we love them more and more. I'm really glad we spent a little extra on the bikes. We have heard some horror stories from others about their bikes. Our bodies are holding up well too. I am constantly sore in the legs but the Brooks saddles have become rather comfortable so no problems there. We miss a few things: summer BBQs, friends and family, and Seattle food. Thai sounds so good right now. I guess I am hungry. Will post again soon! Must go eat...

We made it to Oberalpass!

2005-08-29T05:07:00.000-07:00

We made it to Oberalpass! Now downhill ride to Andermatt. It is a perfect sunny day in the Alps full of mountain and glacier views.

Hanging out under large umbrella

2005-08-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Hanging out under large umbrella Trun Switzerland. We had over 24h without rain, ya! Today was spectacular! 2000 ft ride up valley.

Rode along the Boden today.

2005-08-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

Rode along the Boden today. Swam in lake last night. Camping in Rhein delta, one of the largest natural areas in Europe. PSB is about the same size. We are so lucky in US. Austria is beautiful and just as rainy as Germany. We invested in rainwear for our feet!

Camping on high ground in

2005-08-23T04:36:00.000-07:00

Camping on high ground in Gertweil. Rode in rain last 3 days. Rhein is flooding. Switzerland underwater. Shit weather but having fun!

Luke saved the day with

2005-08-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

Luke saved the day with his McGyver tire sewing skills. In the past 3 days we have been through 1 tire 2 countries & 3 tubes. Fun!

Camping north of Kehl, Germany.

2005-08-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Camping north of Kehl, Germany. Cycled to Maginot Line bunker and toured 3km of the tunnels at Fort Schoenenbourg, France today.

Cochem

2005-08-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

Hello from the Mosel River in Germany! We have had an excellent time cycling up the Rhein to Koblentz and then up the Mosel to Cochem. We have been on our bicycles every day since Amsterdam (except for one in Rotterdam) and loving it. The weather has been just about right for riding: cool with a little sun here and there. It has rained on us just about every night but the days have been fairly dry. We have not put the tent away wet yet.

The ride from Rotterdam was really flat, windy and kind of plain all the way up to Dusseldorf. We cycled most of the time along the top of the dikes where the Dutch have built some really nice cycle paths. Like I said in a previous post, the cycle paths in the Netherlands are the best. Cyclists even have right-of-way in almost all situations we learned. We really did not see any topography of any sort until we got to the area just south of Dusseldorf. Up till then I think we were sleeping in areas that were lower than the level of the river. It is quite amazing that all of this water management business with windmills and all has been around for many hundreds of years.

We have been alternating between staying with hospitality club folks, other cyclists and campgrounds with just the right mix to get some privacy and to have interesting discussions with local folks. For the past few nights we have been camping along the Mosel River and visiting the towns and castles that dominate this entire valley. The hillsides are vineyards and the valley bottom is small villages where the sell their local wines. The most common variety is Reisling.

Yesterday we cycled to the town of Beilstein where we walked around for a while and just enjoyed the atmosphere. The towns 180 residents run like 30 restaurants, hotels and wineries. We then cycled a few kilometers to Brutting where they were having "Winzerfest". We had some brats and drank a bottle of wine while listing to about 1000 Germans sing to this oompah-oompah band. It was quite fun. We have pictures and a video but I forgot the camera cable again so no photos for you today. I will put them up later.

Tomorrow we head back down to the Rhein and then south to St. Goar. Should see some good castles in the next few days!

Spent the last 6 days

2005-08-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

Spent the last 6 days cycling the Rhein. We are camping tonight in Winningen & plan to cycle along the Mosel for the next few days.

Hamburg & Holland

2005-08-05T05:36:00.000-07:00

F.Y.I. - We have added photos to the More on Norway, Sweden & Copenhagen post.

We had intended to go directly from Berlin to Amsterdam but could not get a reservation for our bicycles so we decided to go to Hamburg instead. Originally we were planning on cycling from Copenhagen to Hamburg but going to Poland changed that. So we had cycle maps of Hamburg and thought we might ride from Hamburg all the way to Amsterdam. So we arrived in Hamburg on a rainy Friday afternoon and set out to find our maps that we had sent to an American Express office. We found the AmEx office and they directed us to another location where our package could be found. A whole bunch of things had gone wrong that day and both Heather and I were amazed that we had been so nice to each other all day. When we found our package at the AmEx office we were really excited that something had gone our way finally! But... we opened the package and the wrong damn maps were in it! My wonderful father had sent us exactly what we asked: "Please send the Hamburg to Amsterdam maps to Amsterdam and the Amsterdam to Zurich maps to Hamburg." Shit. Just one more failure in a long day of troubles.

Then it started really raining hard and we had no place to stay, no maps to cycle on towards Amsterdam and it was 8:00 at night. The closest campground was 50km out of town and there were no trains that would get us anywhere we wanted to go. So we booked a train to Amsterdam for Sunday morning and started looking for hotels. Heather asked at a few places and each time the clerk simply laughed and said that there weren't any rooms left in town. We didn't understand this until the 4th or 5th place we went and the lady behind the counter laughed really hard. Heather asked why she laugh and she told us that the largest bicycle race in Germany was this weekend. All hotels were booked within 20km of Hamburg. So we cycled to an area that I thought might be less desirable towards the industrial part of town. Heather managed to talk a clerk at this hotel we found into giving us the last room in town, so we booked it for two nights! We felt really lucky.

The next morning we got up and intended to cycle into Hamburg to check out the town and just have as relaxing a day as possible after the difficulties of the previous day. Of course, it starts raining really hard and we spend the morning watching CNN on TV since it is the only station in English. Around noon there was a break in the rain and we headed into Hamburg. We rode around for about 30 minutes before it started raining again but we just rode on. The center of Hamburg is actually a fairly nice place. It has canals and a nice square, lots of parks and trees. We wandered around town on our bicycles for a while looking for a place to sit down and relax. The sun eventually came out and we spent the rest of Saturday afternoon at a small food and drink festival near the town square.

Cycling in the rain in Hamburg

After hanging out all afternoon we headed to the town square to check out the bicycle race. The big race wasn't until Sunday morning but we did see the kids race and the special needs racers. There were vendor tents everywhere and we spent an hour or so just wandering through the crowd with our bicycles. People were really interested in our cycles because you can't get Surly's here very easily. We talked to a few folks and had a nice time checking out all the gear.

Watching the kids cycle race in Hamburg

Sunday we got up and caught the train to Amsterdam. We were met at the train station by Rena, a wonderful person that we were connected with through some folks we were planning on staying with in Rotterdam. Rena made us feel at home in her small Amsterdam apartment. We spent Monday riding around the city and in the afternoon went to the Van Gogh Museum. I have decided that I really like the Van Gogh stuff. No surprise I guess, everyone does I think. Tuesday we rode around the city some more, found the package that we had sent to the Amsterdam AmEx, hung out at a cafe on the square in the Red Light district and had a very pleasant day with great weather. That night we went out for South Indian food which was excellent and then Rena took us to the Red Light district to check out the scene. Very interesting but completely mellow which I didn't expect. I thought it would be one big party for some reason. Amsterdam is a great city that feels like a big town.

A canal in Amsterdam

Thursday morning we headed out of Amsterdam towards the coast. Holland has awesome bicycle paths and there are bicycles everywhere. Amsterdam is by far the best bicycle city we have seen and the countryside is no different. Almost every road has separate cycle lanes on each side of the road. There are signs everywhere with distances and separate stoplights. There are even bicycle land round-abouts. Really a nice place to cycle. We rode 60km (some of it in the rain) and ended up camping on the coast in a campground just outside the sunny town of Katwijk.

Opening a bottle of wine on the beach by our campsite

Thursday we awoke to beautiful sunshine, walked 10 meters to the busy cycle path that runs all along the coast of Holland, and headed south towards Rotterdam. The whole beach scene in Holland is wonderful since there aren't any cars for most of it. The whole of the coast is sand dunes which have been altered to provide a barrier to keep the sea water out. The dunes extend a kilometer or more inland and the only thing in the dunes are cycle paths. There are little towns every 10km or so but between towns you only see bicycles. No blasting stereos, no lowered cars with absurd mufflers driving around, only people on cycles heading to the beach. There are even huge bicycle parking lots!

The really nice cycle paths along the coast of the Netherlands

The mouth of the Rhine River! We will be cycling along (or near) the Rhine for the next month or so.

We followed the Rhine into Rotterdam and after 85 km of flat fietspad found the home where we are now staying. The couple we are staying with are avid cyclists and have done cycle trips all over the world including Chile, India, Iceland, USA, Hungary, Turkey, Pakistan, Africa, Australia, and many more. They have done enough cycling that they are now testing bicycles for a Dutch manufacturer and have a website where you can see some of the places they have been. They have some very nice bikes! Last night we had a wonderful dinner which Marco and Lisette cooked for us and enjoyed talking to them about their travels. We are finding out that the world is very small. Lisette works for ESRI, the company whose software I teach and use at the UW!

Today, Heather and I are washing our sleeping bags since Marco and Lisette have an electric dryer (the first we have seen in Europe), doing some work, and updating the blog. It is raining really hard outside so I think we will spend the day here working on our plans and then cycle out of town tomorrow either towards Brussels or along the Rhine.

Updating the blog in Rotterdam. Notice the photos on the wall from Marco and Lisette's cycle trip around the world.

Spent the weekend in Hamburg

2005-08-04T05:14:00.000-07:00

Spent the weekend in Hamburg and saw a bicycle race. Amsterdam was really interesting and now we are cycling towards Rotterdam.

More on Norway, Sweden, Copenhagen, Poland & Berlin

2005-07-28T06:07:00.000-07:00

Just want to finish up my post on Norway and Sweden before I get to where we are now. Unfortunately we are at an Internet cafe that does not allow USB connections so I can't upload photos. I will add the photos later.

So the Fjords were really cool and we are glad that we went. The rail pass (called Scanrail) really paid off for us and we were able to travel to the fjords essentially for free. Since we knew we wanted to take the train to Stockholm and Copenhagen it made sense to get a pass and the pass gave us two more days of travel. Glad it worked out. We spent Friday the 8th taking care of things in Oslo like finding a place to stay in Stockholm, confirming housing in Copenhagen, bills, work, phone calls, etc.

The big surprise of the day was when we went to the train station to make reservations for us and our bikes to Stockholm. We found out that Swedish trains do not take bicycles! It's so incredibly stupid because they have such a wonderful bicycle network in the cities. And they advertise the hell out of these trains: "the X2000 with a double-hinged swinging booty for a smooth ride" or something like that. Who gives a poop if you can't take large luggage with you? Isn't that the whole point of trains? If I wanted to play sardine I would get on a plane. Someone should be shot.

Anyhow, enough of my ranting. This turned out not to be a problem since we had such a wonderful place to stay in Oslo. We just left our bikes in my 3rd cousins student flat and headed to the train station on Saturday morning sans-cycles. When we got to the train station we were informed that all the trains to Stockholm were booked. The fattest man in Norway who was sitting behind the desk was really unhelpful (like most Norwegian service people we discovered). I had to ask him "ok how about the next train?" and so on. We were informed by Tubby that we simply could not get to Stockholm anytime in the next week or so. Using my super-powerful logic skills, I asked if we could go through Gothenburg or something rather than directly to Stockholm. And guess what? "A train through Gothenburg leaves in 15 minutes on track 19, and will get you into Stockholm at 18:00." Moron. So we got on the train and headed to Gothenburg. When we got to the train station in Gothenburg it was full of punk-rockers and old farts heading to the Iron Maiden concert. Strange. Everyone partying everywhere. Our train actually left out of Gothenburg about 10 minutes late because it took them so long to clean all of the beer bottles and puke from the train.

We got into Stockholm and headed to the Zinkesdamm Youth Hostel (we booked a double while on the train with handy cell phone) just a few kilometers from Gamla Stan (the old city center). The Youth Hostel was amazingly nice and a reasonable rate so we booked four nights there. Since we didn't have our bikes to get around we bought a 3 day transportation and sights pass (The Stockholm Card) and toured around the city for 4 days. What a treat! Stockholm is by far the closest city to Seattle in terms of coolness. I think I could live there but maybe the winters are too long. The city is like one-third parks, one-third water, and one-third super-clean city. We really enjoyed the sights and museums there including the Royal Apartments, the Armory, the Carriage house, the Nobel Museum, the Nordiska Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Vasa Museum, the Skansen, the Stadhusset (City Hall), and just the city itself.

View of the old town center of Stockholm, Gamla Stan, from the tower at City Hall

While I could probably write lots on each one of these sights I will just tell you about our favorites. We really liked the Vasa Museum. This old ship was built in the early 1600's as the pride of the Swedish Armada. The King at the time wanted lots of firepower on this baby so he put two full decks of cannons on it (twice the normal amount). Since ship builders of the time used no plans or made any kind of drawings or calculations, they built the ship the same as any other. Well, on the Vasa's maiden voyage it got a few hundred meters from shore and the first gust of wind blew the thing right over. It sank instantly because of all the heavy cannons and lots of people died. The neat thing is that the Baltic sea has no toredo worms so the boat was well preserved until 1961 when they raised it. Neat place.

A typical street in Gamla Stan

Heather really liked the Nobel museum. It has information on all of the Nobel Prize winners with films and all sorts of other interesting facts. They also had a temporary exhibit on Heather's favorite Nobel Prize winner: Albert Einstein. We spent about 3 hours there the first time and actually went back a few nights later and spent another hour or two. Heather was inspired, as usual.

Stortorget square in Gamla Stan near the Nobel Museum

We really liked Stockholm and are fairly sure that it will be our favorite European city. We will have to see. Since we had a place to stay in Copenhagen from the 15th to the 18th, we caught a train back to Oslo on the 14th to pick up our bikes. We stayed in Oslo one more night and went back to this kick-ass Indian restaurant we had been to earlier.

Thank goodness for Norwegian rail services. They actually have one train that runs from Oslo to Gothenburg that does accept bikes. On Friday morning we took all our stuff to the train station and got on the 6:45 train. There are not reservations or anything for this train since it travels in two countries and their computer systems are different or something so it is just a free-for-all. There were people and dogs everywhere. Makes me realize that I am not eager to take a train through India or North Africa. We changed trains in Gothenburg (where we had been a week earlier) and continued on to Copenhagen.

Last year at the ESRI Conference that I attend each year in San Diego I met a Danish gentleman named Mikkel. Phil, Mikkel and I all had time to kill before our flights home and we went to Tijuana for the day. I told Mikkel of our plans to go to Denmark and he offered to have us stay with him. I called Mikkel and told him we would be in town soon and he actually met us at the train station with his 3 wheel cargo bicycle. Mikkel, Hanne and their new son live in a really nice flat very near to downtown Copenhagen. It was the perfect place from which to explore the city. Mikkel took some time to show us around the city and spent lots to time helping us with our travel plans.

Cruising around Copenhagen with Mikkel & Andreas

We had not been riding our bicycles much recently which changed once we got to Copenhagen. Almost every street has dedicated bicycle lanes and lights. We cycled everywhere. I bought a new seat for my bicycle since my other one was hurting after about 60 km or so. The new one is a Brooks old-school leather saddle that will take some breaking in but hopefully it will be better for long distance riding. Anyway, we rode all over the city just checking things out and spent very little time at Museums although we did go to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek which had a few impressionist paintings (our favorite) and the Statens Museum for Kunst which had a full history of Danish art. Mostly we just enjoyed relaxing with Mikkel.

Enjoying dinner with Mikkel in their garden

Wind turbines in Copenhagen from the Polish ferry headed to Swinjouice

In Oxford we met some really nice people from Poland and we were invited by one of them to come and see Poland and stay at his home. Heather and I were really interested in doing this because Peter is a forester for the Polish Government. Like I said in my post of July 20th we took a ferry from Copenhagen to Poland and then cycled from Świnoujście to Łukęcin where we spent the night. On Wednesday the 20th we cycled the rest of the way to Kolobrzeg. Peter met us in downtown Kolobrzeg and took us to his home just outside of the city about 10 km to the east. Peter has a very nice home in the country and he was a wonderful host. I think Peter likes having guests since he is a little way from the city.

Poland is a very different place from the UK and Scanadanavia. It's sort of like going to Mexico but with a socialist structure to help the really poor folks. We cycled most of the way along the coast which was very nice. Poland has some sort of law about building on the coast so there aren't any buildings within about 100 meters of the beach. This makes for a beautiful coastline that is completely forested, even in the cities! Take notes USA. The only thing within 100 meters of the coast are old bunkers and lookouts which are everywhere. The whole coast of Poland that we saw was at one time or another a military base, either German or Russian. What a crazy thing to have these military installations everywhere that are just abandoned.

An old pillbox along the Polish coast. There was room inside for may two soldiers with machine guns. These kinds of things are everywhere along the coast.

Peter's home is about 1 km from a Russian air base that had only closed 10 years earlier. Many of the Russian people that worked there and their families still live there so the whole place is open and you can just go into these old bunkers and stuff. Crazy place. We cycled along some of the runways which are longer than any I have ever seen. On both sides of the runway there are these grass-covered bunkers which used to hold airplanes. The Polish people believe that there were atomic bombs stored at this airbase when it was in use. When you ask a Pole about how they feel about all this occupation and the military and communist ways they will all say "that's life" with a smile and genuinely positive attitude. I like Poland. We may have to see more of Eastern Europe as we head further south.

On the beach just west of Kolobrzeg at an old Russian airbase (not the one near Peter's home, another one)

We had dinner with the family of one of the other people we met in Oxford, Marek. Peter drove us to Marek's parents home (Marek was in Poland) and we spent the evening talking about all sorts of things. Grandma made the dinner which was really good starting with noodle soup and then some meat roles, beats and salad. It was nice to have a traditional dinner with a family that spoke almost no English. Peter's English is good enough for him to communicate but Marek's 16 year old cousin came to the dinner and spent four hours translating for us.

Dinner at Marek's parents home

Peter spent the day on Friday showing us around the forest that he manages. He is the sole person responsible for all of the activities in his forest. He decides what gets cut, where seed come from, what will be planted and even does the cruising of standing timber and scaling of cut logs. He drives a little Ford Pinto like car all year round in the forest even in meter deep snow! He showed us all aspects of forestry in Poland and the different ways that they do things depending on the site and other factors. For the most part, they use selective harvest techniques and multiple light-touch entries but occasionally use patch cuts which may be one hectare in size. There aren't any rules or regulations but since all foresters in Poland work for the government, you don't need any. Even private landowners must use a free government forester.

Peter showing Heather some of the species in the Polish forests. Thanks goodness for Latin scientific names!

Harvesting trees Polish style with an old Russian tractor that constantly breaks down

On Sunday we went to a party on the beach in Kolobrzeg which had live techno at full blast. The weather was nice and we spent the day on the beach with thousands of other partiers dancing to techno music. It was a blast. That night we went to Peter's parents flat in an old communist-era building and had dinner with them. Started dinner with soup and then moved to some fried meat things and coleslaw. Again, very good food. Then Peter, his dad and I proceeded to drink a bottle of vodka one shot at a time saying "na zdrowie!" each time. I think poor Peter had a little too much but I felt fine. Thank goodness. You must know how to drink in Poland I guess, Russian influence maybe? Fun anyhow.

Partying on the beach at the "Sunrise" festival

On the 25th we caught a train to Berlin on a 1950's Soviet jobby. Nice roomy train with plenty of room for bicycles. Just like a train is supposed to be. Take notes Sweden. After changing trains twice (in Białogard and Szczecin) we arrived in Berlin without a place to stay at 11:00 PM. After searching for a while and stopping in to many hotels we found one which gave us a private garage for our bicycles and a very nice room. You have to splurge evey now and again. Breakfast included though which is good.

On the roomy Polish train from Kolobrzeg to Bialogard

We have spent the last few days touring around Berlin on our bicycles. Berlin also has good bicycle lanes and lights but not as good as Copenhagen. Since we didn't think we were comming to Berlin we didn't bother to get a Rick Steves book for this area. After waking up on Tuesday and trying to figure out what to do and where to stay we realized how much we rely on and enjoy the Rick Steves books. I felt like I was missing a leg. So we spent a couple hours trying to track one down in Berlin with no luck. Oh well. Now we know. We spent the rest of the day cycling around the city dodging rain and looking at the sights. Berlin is really cool but still kind of scary. You go into East Berlin and it is like another world. Think of all the ugliest 1960's and 70's buildings you have ever seen (like UW's Seig Hall) and pack them onto huge nicely treed boulevards. It's so strange. There is construction everywhere to replace all of the infrastructure that the GDR never maintained. Things are changing fast. It's really neat to see. Tuesday evening we met up with a friend of Marek's for dinner and had a nice time discussing a Polish person's life in Berlin.

Yesterday we did the tourist thing and cycled first to the Deutsches Historisches Museum where we learned about the National-Socialist government and how they legalized the robbery and extermination of the Jews, and saw an exhibit about how the German people dealt with the war and it's consequences. It was very informative and thought provoking. Heather and I both learned a great deal. Next we cycled along the old site of the wall (is is marked with a brick line on the ground) to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. This museum was built in like 1948 right after the war and they have all sorts of stuff on the history of the wall, escapes and life behind the wall. It's neat because the museum exhibits were all created as it happened so everything is in present tense. Makes you feel like you are back on 1961 when the actual wall went up.

Cycling along the old location of the wall. Most of the area where the wall used to be is still undeveloped.

We grabbed some dinner in the trendy student area of East Berlin and the headed to Parliment (the Reichstag) to see the new building. This building is the one that was burnt (probably by the Nazi Party) and then used as an excuse to start the whole anti-Jew and anti-Communist movement. The building sat unused for many years as a bombed out structure and then was redone when the wall fell. The dome that use to be on top of the building was replaced with glass and you can walk to the top of it, all the time looking down into the Parliment chambers. Very symbolic. The message being that all Germans should keep a close eye on their government and get involved.

Brandenburg Gate from the Reichstag

Tomorrow we head for Amsterdam! We of course have photos off all these things and I will edit this post with the photos when we get to an Internet cafe that allows USB connections. I hope all is well with you, where ever you are!

Sognefjord, glaciers, waterfalls, mountains!

2005-07-23T17:42:00.000-07:00

In the morning we ate some granola, took a hike around the town and up to a small waterfall and then caught a ferry to see the Sognefjord. The fjord was amazing and very dramatic. The water is this beautiful turquoise color and the mountains just come right up out of it and rise to over 1200 meters. There were five towns on the fjord that mainly depend on tourism and farming. The farming was on steep slopes and sometimes 500 meters or more above the water. Imagine the commute down to your boat since there were not roads to all of the farms. There are waterfalls everywhere and Heather took like 400 pictures. Glad we have digital!

Sognefjord

Waterfall in Sofnefjord

The ferry dropped us off in Gudvangen where we caught a bus to Voss where we got back on the train to Oslo. The road to Voss was very steep following the spine of a ridge with 13 hairpin turns. Again we passed through some wonderful high-elevation meadows and saw many glaciers on our way back to Oslo. This was by far the most touristy experience we have had on this trip. It validated that we both prefer cycling in rural areas, camping, and when in the cities hanging out with locals. It was entertaining to watch the crazy group dynamics of hundreds of pushy people speaking seven or more different languages loaded onto trains, boats, and busses.

Alpine meadow in Norway

Poland & Blog Updates

2005-07-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hello from Poland! We took a ferry from Copenhagen on Monday night to Swinojuice (or something) and spent the last two days cycling to Kolobrezg. We will be staying with a guy we met in Oxford who offered to have us come to Poland and see the forests he manages. So, we are here. The weather, landscape, and vegetation remind both of us very much of South Carolina and Georgia. It is hot and humid with sunny mornings and super rainy afternoons with thunder storms.

We were planning on camping last night but it rained so hard on us for like an hour that we were totally soaked. It was comical how wet we were. Fotrunatly, Poland is like the Mexico of Europe and everything is really inexpensive. We stayed in a 4 bed room in Lukesin for like $25. Poland is worlds different from Scandanavia. The whole of the coast is one big German military ruin and the cars are straight from Russia. Very different, but cool. We are having a blast trying to communicate with people that know zero English. We only know one word of Polish - juncuya or thanks. I think we have met two people now (after talking to maybe 20) that knew any English at all and it was very little at that. Good times.

A Polish beach town near Lukecin. It was sunny and rainy every day we were in Poland.

I plan on finishing my post about Songefjord and then all the way through Sweden and Denmark but it will have to wait until we get better internet access. Hope all is well!

We are in Lukecin Poland.

2005-07-19T13:24:00.000-07:00

We are in Lukecin Poland. We plan to cycle to Kolobrzeg tomorrow to see the forest management here and a forester we met in Oxford.

Kristiansand, Oslo, Rånåsfoss & Flåm

2005-07-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

F.Y.I. - You can now post comments without a Blogger account. Just remember to "Choose an identity" of "Other" and tell us your name, or if you already made an account, you can still use that.

Hello from Copenhagen!

We last wrote from Kristiansand, Norway after cycling for many days. We had gone into a photo shop to transfer our photos to CD and we met a wonderful gentleman named Johanas who offered to take us out on his boat the next evening to see the area called Blind-leia. We met him and his daughter the next evening near the old town fortress in Kristiansand and went for a cruise around what must be the most expensive real estate in Norway. We had a wonderful time seeing all of the old houses and learning about the history of the area. Heather enjoyed playing with his daughter while Johanas and I talked about all sorts of things.

Heather & Johanas

A typical area of summer cottages in the Blind-leia

The next morning we checked out a few more sights around Kristiansand before catching an afternoon train to Olso. The train ride to Oslo was nice. The land looks very much like the Cle Elum/Alpine Lakes/North Bend area. We arrived in Olso around 22:00 that evening and decided to cycle to our home for the evening with Anthony (a hospitality club connection) just south of the city center. Anthony was very kind and told of us his experiences in Norway over the past few years. Anthony moved to Norway from England and is currently teaching English so it was interesting to get his perspectves on the country.

In the morning we caught a 9:00 train for a 45 minute ride to Rånåsfoss to meet some of my extended family. We were the only ones to get off the train in Rånåsfoss and were met by Per Wien. Per is married to Anne who is my second cousin, one generation removed. We started the day in Rånåsfoss with a nice (and I think typical Norweigan breakfast) and talked about Norway, Seattle and our two families. It was quite nice.

Typical breakfast in Norway: brown bread, cheese, caviar paste, soft-boiled eggs, cold cuts, tea, coffee, jelly and maybe a few other things

After breakfast we headed down to the Rånåsfoss power plant where my grandfater's cousin Gudrun's husband worked for many years. Knut showed us around the power plant which was fascinating. It has been in operation since 1921 and generates 6% of Norway's electricity. Almost all of the equipment including the generators are original equipment from the early 1900's. Amazing.

Touring the power plant with Knut and Knut Jr.

Guess who made the generators in 1921

The Rånåsfoss Dam

After touring the dam we headed to Knut and Gudrun's home for some tea, coffee and waffles with jam. Most of the family that lives in Rånåsfoss came over including Gudrun & Knut and two of their daughter's families, Anne and Liv.

Some of the family

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out in Rånåsfoss and even went to the local community pool for a swim. The pool appeared to be the social hub of Rånåsfoss since there are only about 300 people living there. Beautiful small town with trains every hour to Olso. Great place to live. We had planned on heading back to Oslo that evening but the family invited us to stay at Liv's home since they were heading to their summer cottage that evening anyhow. On top of that, if we stayed, they would drive us into Oslo the following day (Sunday) and show us around. So we stayed the night in Rånåsfoss in a very nice house.

The next morning after a nice Norweigan breakfast we drove into Olso with Per and Anne. They showed us where all the interesting museums were and took us up to the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. We were actually able to to the top of it and look down the ramp. I have no idea how anyone learns to ski jump because it is a long ass way down those things, and then you have to launch off the end of it and fly for another long ass way. Crazy. You can't even see where you are going to land when you head down the ramp.

Looking over Oslo from near the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Notice the grass roofs

Oh yeah, and the other thing was the Liv and Tony's son Fredrik had a student flat in Oslo that he would not be using until August that we were welcome to use! So we moved in. We spent the next few days touring around Oslo seeing the Fram polar expedition ship, the Olso Maritime Museum, the Kon-Tiki, some Viking ships, traditional homes from around the countryside at the Folk Museum, the Norweigan Resistance Museum, the Akershus Castle and Vigelands Park. Oslo is quite a nice city and I think has about half of Norway's population. We really liked it, but it was expensive.

The Kon-Tiki raft from Heyerdahl's famous expedition

A viking ship from around 815 A.D. that was uncovered near Oslo in a burial mound

Stave church at the Folk Museum

Before leaving Norway Heather really wanted to see some fjords. We had bought this railway pass in Kristiansand because it was going to save us some money on our Kristiansand-Oslo, Oslo-Stockholm, Stockholm-Copenhagen trips. This essentially bought us 2 free trips since we could use the pass 5 days out of 15. So we caught a train (leaving bikes in our Oslo flat) to Myrdal which is about 5 hours from Oslo towards Bergen. In Myrdal we caught another train that runs at a 1 in 18 grade (this is steep for standard trains) down to Flåm.

On the train to Myrdal

We arrived in Flåm with about 1000 other tourists that had come on the train and on a huge cruise ship. We ate dinner at a park on the water of this very small town and then went in search of a campsite. There was a campground in the town but they charged like $40 for a piece of grass. So we walked around the end of the fjord to the opposite side from the town and found a nice peice of mossy ground just next to the water. Perfect, our best campsite yet.

Our campsite in Flåm

Sunset in Flåm

We slept great and got up the next morning to catch a boat and see the fjord...

It is a beautiful evening

2005-07-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

It is a beautiful evening in Stockholm. We spent the day in Gamla Stan, the old town. We plan to stay here through Thursday.

Been in Oslo since Friday.

2005-07-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

Been in Oslo since Friday. Spent time with more family, very nice. Now to Sognefjord via train. To Stockholm on Friday we think.

Kristiansand, Norway

2005-06-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

F.Y.I. - Photos are now clickable and much higher quality thanks to GOOGLE! I love those guys.

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Kristiansand where we arrived last night after a 101 km ride from Farsund. After 5 days of cycling Heather and I both needed a rest. So we are staying in a cheap motel (590 kr!) in the city for the next two nights. A little about our journey here and the last few nights in Bru...

So on Tuesday night we headed back to the family cabin on Bru and did indeed eat whale meat. It was excellent. Kind of like a cross between a really good cut of beef and maybe a little liver or something. Not fishy at all. Very good. We ended up eating, drinking and talking till about 3 in the morning with Per and Anne-Grethe. And, as with each previous night, we were invited and encouraged to stay another evening. This encouragement to stay kept us in Bru until Friday when we decided we absolutly must leave or we would not see the rest of Eurpoe! On Thursday night we had a large bonfire to celebrate Saint Hans day. Some of Anae-Grethes family came down to Bru for the evening. I do not think anyone cares too much about Saint Hans as this is the least religious country in Europe but it corresponds well with the solstice. The thing to do on Saint Hans day is have a big fire. So we did.

Saint Hans Day & my 30th Birthday fire!

We got up on Friday and made breakfast for the group which consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, bread and a fruit salad. This was quite different from the usual bread with cheese and meat and possibly soft-boiled egg that we had been having. I think they enjoyed it. In any case, we caught a bus through the 6 km and -232 ft below sea level tunnel to Bru and spent the rest of the day cycling down the coast. We saw some beautiful scenery, crossed an old suspension bridge, went through some really dense forest (on the coast) and say lots and lots of sheep and cows.

A fun spot on the North Sea Cycle Route! But hard to cycle.

Some really densely managed trees on the coast.

Cycling along the coast. Why no houses? The beach is all car sized rocks.

On Friday night we ate dinner in a small cafe in Virgestad. While we were waiting for our food some locals invited us to site with them "if we were lonesome." We were not lonesome but jumped at the invitation. They invited us to camp in their garden which we turned down and we headed to the Brusand Campground. Should have camped in the garden. It cost us 150 kr (like $25) to stay in the campground. Their idea of camping over here is different too. You get showers, tv, kitchen, laundry, a store, and all sorts of other stuff that doesn't seem like camping to me. So no more campgrounds for us! We decided to make the most of the money and spent the morning showering and enjoying the lovely beach there.

Breakfast on the beach at Brusand.

The view of the coast from Brusand.

We cycled out of Brusand vowing never to camp in a Norweigan campground again. We cycled past some really interesting terrain on Saturday. It is like being in the Alpine Lakes but you can see the coastline. You are above treeline at only 200 meters!

The strange coastal alpine area.

So that night we decided to take advantage of the "any-man's right" and camp for free. We were headed down this road in Rekkefjord to see if we could find a place to make camp and ran into a local who directed us down an adjacent road to a nice place. We had it all to ourselves and ate crackers, fish and cheese for dinner.

Our free camp in Rekkefjord.

On Sunday we cycled past many small towns on the coast. These towns were usually at the end of a fjord and didn't even have a store or post office. Some looked to be vacation homes, others were permanent residences. Very beautiful place. Make me want a boat to explore the endless inlets. You could spend a lifetime and never see all of the coastline of Norway!

A typical small Norweigan fjord town called Sorlandset.

And then the hills started getting really steep. So steep that they had to make tunnels in the 1900's so that people could get from one fjord to the next. This of course makes for difficult cycling and with me carrying all of our stuff (minus the 2 water bottles and 2 sleeping bags on Heather's bike) it was tiring.

An old tunnel through Jossinfjord. A new wider one is now in use but you can still cycle through the old one.

So Norway has this thing about taxes, oil and tunnels. On Sunday we saw more construction projects than you can imagine. Think of a place with a population the size of Washington (~4.5 million) spending money on the following: 3 Narrows Bridges, a dozen or so Viaduct replacement tunnels and maybe 4 12 mile long floating bridges all in the same year. This seems to be about what the Norweigan Government is doing. I don't know where they get all the money. It's crazy.

A new tunnel that leads to a suspension bridge, like 8 more tunnels and a few more bridges. Must cost at least a few hundred billion US dollars.

We arrived very tired in the town on Flekkefjord and looked for a grocery to re-fuel. As it was Sunday nothing was open and we ended up eating some really shitty hamburgers. It did the trick though and we made it out of town a ways to a old logging landing where we decided to camp. We had a lovely view from the camp but there were quite a few midges. We are always hoping for a little wind in camp to keep the bugs away.

The town of Flekkefjord. All the houses and shops were white. They did this in the 1800's I guess. Trendy thing at the time because white paint was 70 times more expensive than the traditional oranges and reds.

Our camp outside of Flekkefjord. I had to collect some grass and make a soft spot since the ground was so hard.

We cycled out of camp on Monday hoping the hills would not be as bad as the previous days but... they were. We went through some really beautiful areas but short-cut the cycle route a bit by sticking to some more direct but busy routes. It was a wise choice as the lady in the tourist information office told us. We made it into Farsund and enquired at some hotels about staying there but they were like $150. This place is too damn expensive! So we headed towards the beach and found what we now think is a nature preserve. Not too sure if we were allowed to camp there but I can't read Norweigan. So we did our best to leave no trace.

View from camp in Farsund.

Breakfast in Farsund. Had to try the baked goods. Yummy.

On Tuesday we had hoped to make it halfway to Kristiansand. Given the previous days relatively short distances (like 50 km) and big hills (over 3400 ft total ascent previous two days) we thought two days would be enough. Not sure if it was the thought of a cold beer, a shower or that we strayed from the cycle path but we made it over 100 km to Kristiansand! In that 3 day stretch we did over 10,000 ft vertical ascent. We now have some hope for Switzerland but must get stronger.

Eating lunch in the main square in Kristiansand.

We are spending today catching up on work, email, blog and other things. We were just at the photo shop to get our digital photos put on CD because none of the internet cafes or libraries allow CD burning. Copyright issuesI guess. At the photo store we were invited to go on a boat trip to Grimstad with the guy who was helping us. So tomorrow night we will check out Grimstad. Heading to Oslo via train on Friday as it's getting expensive in this country. We were planning on cycling all the way there but now we are thinking it might be nice to move on. I think we have gotten a good taste of the Norweigan people and geography.

Hope all is well wherever you are! We will write more when we can...

Had a great 30th with

2005-06-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

Had a great 30th with a bon-fire in Bru and a seaside cycle to Brusand. Camping in Rekefjord near Hauge tonight. Only 700km to Oslo!

Photos from Scotland to Bru

2005-06-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos to accompany the previous post.

The view from camp in Glencoe, Scotland

The Scottish Highlands from the train to Glasgow

Fixing my wheel which got out of true after only 275 miles! Larry N. - told ya!

Our cabin on the Fjordline Jupiter where we crossed the very calm North Sea

During our brief stay in Bergen Norway we happened to see the King and Queen get of of their really nice yacht, the Norge

The ship we traveled on, the Jupiter

Abandoning ship at the Oil Museum

The Bergersen Family cabin on the island of Bru just North of Stavanger

The Family. I am related to Per Bergersen on the left. He is my second cousin once removed.

That's it for now. More soon...

Bru, Norway

2005-06-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

God dag from Norge! It has been a while since we have been able to update our blog from a computer and guess what: I forgot to bring the darn camera cable today so there will be no pictures in this post. Hopefully we can upload some more photos soon!

While we were in Manchester we stayed with some very nice people that Jim McLaughlin met while he was there. Chris and Anna made us feel at home, cooked us a wonderful "pasta bake" that Chris doubted because the noodles were funny. Turns out that Anna had bought the noodles and they were wheat-free. Good cook and good food and if you are interested, the wheat-free noodles tasted the same to me. I spent Saturday the 12th at the Manchester Science Museum which was interesting and Heather went to a hen party (bachelorette party) with Anna. I watched an excellent BBC program on the Natural History of the British Isles and got inspired to go to Scotland. I highly recommend this show and you can get it on DVD's. The way the show was put together was really good and it's funny to see how the British do a science show. Much different than how it's done in the US.

So on Sunday we got on a train and headed to Glasgow Scotland via York and Edinburgh on a Virgin (Branson) train. Very nice and very fast trains. I think they go about 140 MPH or so. We arrived in Glasgow at 9 or so in the evening and thanks to our Rick Steves book got a room at a nice hotel for cheap. It's fun not to know where you are staying until you get there! In the morning we ate some cold cereal with ultra-pasturized non-refridgerated milk (we do this most mornings) and headed to the train station. Spent the next 4 hours on a train to Oban which is a small little town on the West coast of Scotland. We cycled the rest of the day to a place called Glencoe where we set up camp in a cloud of midges. This sucked. So instead of eating the food we had bought in Oban, we headed to a bug-free pub and ordered some haggis. There are pubs everywhere in the UK. In towns with 4 people there will be a post office and a really nice pub. Great country. Anyway, the haggis was not very good but Heather liked her leg-of-lamb. Glencoe was beautiful and I'll post photos when I can.

We woke up early on Tuesday and cycled to Fort William where we caught the train to Edinburgh. Cycling part of the West coast of Scotland was a bit out of our way but for sure worth it. We saw some active forestry operations which was interesting. They plant all the trees in perfect rows even on the most steep ground and they beat the hell out of the ground when they log. Interesting to see the differences. We planned to camp just outside of Edinburgh but when we got off the train it was raining so hard that we wimped out and pulled out the Rick Steves book. This was a good move as we stayed at a great B&B and the owner drove us downtown that evening to a pub where a bunch of locals just get together and play music. It was great fun.

Wednesday we planned to go to the Edinburgh Castle and then leave town but the train station wanted like $100 to store our bags and the Castle had no coat check so we got on the train and headed to Berwick-upon-Tweed back in England. This was really the first time that the bikes had been a liability but it saved us a bunch of entrance fees to the Castle so it turned out ok. We got to Berwick and then cycled south about 30 miles to Beadnell where we camped about 200 ft from the beach. It was the best camp site yet.

We had planned to cycle on Thursday but when we woke up it was raining so hard that we just stayed in the tent all day and then went to the local pub for dinner. It was much needed rest we found out as we both took naps. Traveling can be tiring! Friday we had to catch the ferry in Newcastle to Norway and it was 60+ miles away so we cycled 20 miles to the closest train station. We completely lucked out as the train we needed had already gone (according to the schedule) but it was 30 minutes late and we got right on! Otherwise we may not have made our ferry. We got to Newcastle (a very industrial city, think Pittsburg) and started to cycle 10 miles to the ferry dock. Of course, the one thing we had planned for the entire trip and Heather gets a flat tire! Heather patched the tube while I shopped for food for the ferry. Nice patch job but when I pumped up the tire the valve stem broke. I put the plastic protecter on which seemed to be holding and put both Heather's bags on my bike. We made it about 2 miles before the tire was totally flat again. With the ferry leaving in less than 1 hour and we are still 3 miles away it was a little stressful! I managed to put in a new tube and get the tire inflated in about 3 minutes and we made the ferry with plenty of time.

The ride across the North Sea was as smooth as it gets. You could have waterskied the whole way. We had a nice cabin with a view and slept very well. We arrived in Bergen the next afternoon and since the ferry was in port for 3 hours, we got off and explored Bergen for a while. Highly recommended, must go back. We got back on the ferry and arrived in Stavanger around 11:30 that evening. The ferry docked within view of our hotel so we cheked in and then headed out to see the nightlife. This place was out of control! Major party scene even for a Saturday night! It's funny too since a beer costs about 85 kroner which is like $15. Europe is different too in that text messaging in way bigger here than in the US. So these totally wasted people were comming out of the bars, reaching for their phones to check text messages (or send one) and then just falling over sideways! Very funny to watch. I saw this happen at least six times.

In the morning we went to the Stavanger Oil Museum which was way cool. It also explains why we had an electronic water dispenser in our room and other luxurouius things. There is a lot of oil money in Norway. Everything is so nice, but also expensive. They have so much money from oil (and taxes) that there are bicycle crossings that go under intersections, tunnels all over the place to islands and if you can make it out of stainless steel, they do. Quite amazing.

On Sunday evening we connected with my second cousin - once removed and headed to the island of Bru to the family cottage. In the process we took a bus through a tunnel that was 6 km long and 232 meters below sealevel at its lowest point. Crazy. Bru is very nice and we are having a wonderful time with my relatives here in Norway. We spent all night Sunday and all day yesterday (till 3:00 AM) just talking and sharing stories with them. So interesting to meet people you are realated to and learn about their lives. Per (my cousin) works for a Dallas oil company doing exploration work. He takes helicopters all over the North Sea to different oil platforms and boats and drills wells to determine how much oil can be expected to to come from a certain field. It sounds very dangerous but exciting. We have been enjoying some traditional Norweigan food and tonight Per and Anne-Grethe will be cooking some whale meat. Can't wait!

That's it for now. I'll post photos soon (if I can remember to bring the darn cable!)

Cycling the East coast of England

2005-06-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

Train to Oban, bike to camp in Glencoe. Bike to Fort William, train to Edinburgh B&B. Train to Berwick, cycle to camp in Beadnell.

Change of plans - off to Scotland!

2005-06-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

Train from Derby to New Mills, camped in Hayfield. Rode to Manchester, stayed 2 nights. Trained to Glasgow, Scottish highlands in AM

Derby

2005-06-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

We had a fantastic day yesterday cycling from Litchfield to Derby. The weather was perfectly sunny and not too hot which made for a very enjoyable ride. We spent last night with some engineering types here in Derby and had a wonderful night out talking about all sorts of things. Today we are heading up to Sheffield and then on to Manchester tomorrow.

Heather thought it might be interesting if we posted the routes we are taking. This link will take you to the Sustrans National Cycle Network page where you can see exactly the routes we have taken. Yesterday we were on route 54 in Derbyshire.

Stratford-Upon-Avon

2005-06-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

Cycling between Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon.

We spent last night in Stratford-Upon-Avon (after cycling from Oxford a mere 62 miles) at a B&B. We Enjoyed Warwick Castle today which is a very nicely done and well maintained castle complete with wax figures and all the sights, sounds and smells of a 17th century fortress. We will camp in Lichfield tonight. Beautiful sunset.

Trying on the garb at Warwick Castle

Sunset at camp in Litchfield

Oxford

2005-06-05T15:23:00.000-07:00

Here is a photo of us in front of the Hotel we stayed at in London.

We took a train from London to Oxford on Saturday and are now staying with a wonderful bunch of folks in Oxford. The gentleman who owns the home (Tom) is actually out of town but he offered to have us stay at his place anyhow. A couple of his friends are here from Poland and we have had a great time with them just hanging out and talking. Such interesting people! I think Heather has been talked into going to Poland to stay with one of our new friends. He is actually a forester in Poland and has a large house near the cost. May have to make a slight detour... but we knew this would happen!

The place we are staying in Oxford:

Tomorrow we are off from Oxford to Statford-Upon-Avon for our first real day of biking. It's going to be a long 62 miles I think! Fortunatly it is our longest biking day in England so subsequent days should be more leisurely. Hope all you party goers that went to Ara's last night aren't having too rough a day!

We Made It!

2005-06-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

We arrived in London today via 777. Luke was very excited to fly in a nice and dependable Boeing plane. The flight was smooth and assembling the bikes was even better. We took the train into the city and rode our bikes from the train station to the Victoria/Westminster area where we are staying. We walked to Westminster Abby across the Thames river and around Parliment. On our walk we enjoyed the beating retreat parade which was to recognize the armed forces and the Queen's birthday. We enjoyed a delicious Indian curry meal and are ready to catch up on some sleep. Unfortunately we did learn we will not be able to send photos to our blog from the phone. So we will update images when we are at computers where we are able to download photos.

Spent the weekend in West Virginia

2005-05-31T07:49:00.000-07:00

p class="mobile-post">We spent the holiday weekend in West Virginia at this cabin. The place we stayed was like a huge ranch and it had zeebras, goats, lions, tigers, kangaroos, and a bunch of other mispalced animals. Very strange but fun! We went white water rafting on the New River on Saturday and had a blast. Apparently, West Virginia has some of the best white water in the world although it's more brown than white.

Today we are back in Chicago packing up for our flight to London. We leave tonight and arrive in London at 11:00 AM on June 1st. Talk to you soon, and thanks for all the comments. It's great to hear from you.

Updating our blog with a cellphone?

2005-05-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

We are planning on sending updates to our blog using our cell phone. This is a test posting and photo from my parents house looking at Freemont.

Countdown to Europe

2005-05-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

So we managed to rent out our house to a wonderful couple (and their 2 year old son) that just returned from Nepal. They are due with a second child very soon and needed a place quick! We are looking forward to seeing the newest addition to their family when we return. Everything else is just about wrapped up. My last day of work was Friday and Heather is done today. All of our bags are packed, the bikes are in boxes and we are ready to take off on Wednesday.

First stop... West Virginia! What? I thought you were going to Europe. Well, we are but we wanted to spend a little time with our midwest family first. So river rafting in West Virginia is supposed to be pretty good. We shall see. We fly into Chicago and then drive with Heather's sister Cathleen to WV. We actually fly out of Chicago on May 31st and arrive in London at 11:00 AM on June 1st.

Second stop... London! Once there we plan to spend a few days in the city and then head north to Liverpool. From Liverpool we will high-tail it to Newcastle on the opposite coast and catch a ferry to Stavanger Norway. We plan to see a few of my Norwegian relatives as we cycle along the coast ultimately ending up in Oslo. Beyond that, we only have a general idea of where to head next.

That's it for now and thanks everyone for all your help in getting us to this point. Friends, co-workers and family have all contributed to make this adventure happen for us, thanks.

Ordered Touring Bikes

2005-03-16T16:54:00.000-08:00

I had no idea how many bike shops were in Seattle until we started looking at touring bikes! There are of course lots of production frames like the Trek 520, Cannondale T2000, the Fuji World and the ultra heavy duty Koga Miatas. We also visited R&E cycles which custom builds Rodriguez frames that fit in a box, and Elliot Bay Cycles which builds really, really nice custom Davidson frames made out of whatever you want. Of course, the Davidsons were also really, really expensive. I don't think we could have gotten one for less than $3,000!

So I started doing some research on the internet and looking for info on long distance touring frames, touring setups and equipment, and information in general about what folks like and don't like about their touring bikes. So, after tens of hours of research it appeared that there were about 4 options in the price range we were interested in. The Trek 520 was a really nice bike that rode well and had fairly decent components but the brakes weren't all that great, and the racks were aluminum (which apparently tend to fail on long trips). The great thing about the Trek though was that it was relatively inexpensive. However, I was interested in something with a little better components and a longer wheelbase.

We ran across the Atlantis by Rivendell which by all accounts I could find, is a great frame and comes well built from the factory with decent components (if you choose, you can get just the frame). The problem is that they only make 400 a year so they are hard to get, and they cost a lot. Handmade frames just cost lots of money. The Gunnar Rock Tour is another example of a great handmade American bicycle that is built for off-road touring but fell into the expensive category.

So... after talking with Larry at Perfect Wheels we settled on the Surly Long Haul Trucker. Everything we read indicated that people loved this frame, and since it only comes as a frame, it gave us the opportunity to build our own bikes. The frames aren't made in the US, which I feel kind of bad about, but the price was right and there was lots of testemonials about the quality of the frames. We did some research on our own and worked with Larry to identify good components. We even got some brand new vintage brakes from the early 1990's that folks seem to think were the best ever made. Below is the list of components and some pictures of the bikes.

Frame: Surly Long Haul Trucker
Fork: Surly Rigid, 1-1/8", Sage Green
Headset: Cane Creek S-2, 1-1/8", Silver
Stem: Salsa Moto Ace, Clamp, length/angle varies, Black
Handlebar: Salsa Pro Road, Size Varies, Black
Brakes: Shimano XT2 Cantileaver (New Old Stock), 2 sets of XT2
Brake Levers: Shimano Ultegra Brake Levers, BL-R600 Road Levers
Front Derailleur: Shimano XT, FD-M761, 28.6mm, Silver
Rear Derailleur: Shimano XT, RD-M750, Long Cage, Silver
Shift Levers: Shimano Dura-Ace BarCon Shifters, BS77
Cassette: Shimano XT, CS-M760, 11-34T, Silver
Chain: SRAM PC59 or 89, Silver
Crankset: Sugino XD, 170 or 175mm, Silver
Chainrings: Sugino XD, 26/36/46T, Silver (Could get 48)
Bottom Bracket: Shimano XT non-splined UN-73, 68 x 118.5mm
Wheels: Shimano XT hubs, AeroHeat Velocity rims (black), Double butted spokes, 36 spokes, 26"
Tires: Continental Touring 2000, 26 x 1.75"
Saddle: FI'ZI:K Rondine, Made for touring
Seatpost: Ritchey Comp (or similar for correct fit), 27.2mm, Black
Seat Binder: Surly Constrictor, 30.0mm, Black
Racks: Tubus Cargo Rack, Steel
Panniers: Ortleib Back Roller Classic,
Cables: Shimano XTR Brake & Derailleur, Jagwire ? brake adjusters
Pedals: Shimano SPD, M-520 Mountain Pedals
Fenders: SKS, Silver
Misc: Headset Spacers, handlebar tape, cable hangers, waterbottle cages

The bike before fenders or racks

The Sugino cranks

Old school XT2 brakes from Harris Cyclery

XT Hubs, cassette, and derailleur

Surly Long Haul Trucker with Tubus racks and SKS fenders

Rack and fenders

With Ortleib bags

Handlebar bag

2005-03-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

Can you bike through Venice?

Started planning last night

2005-03-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

So we started planning the trip last night. If we spend one night a week planning for the next six months, we will have to plan 7 days each night! It's fun though, first step... new bikes!