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European Cycle – 3 ½ months

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  This trip stemmed from my desire to go to the World Cup in Germany but due to not earning much money working in a Peruvian restaurant I figured the cheapest way to do it would be on a bike. Also, when I finished my cycle across the UK I felt fed up of cycle touring but I soon forgot about the hardship and when I reminisced about the experience I yearned for more. I decided to make the trip length longer than 4 weeks and to add a bit of spice by going to Germany via Rome, although during the first few weeks of the trip I seriously doubted my decision to do another tour.

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I only spent 2 nights in a hotel room on the entire trip (not including time in the Czech Republic and Germany when I was visited by loved ones). The 2nd night was only 5 days after the fireman incident when I wasn’t feeling so good and really needed some warmth. I struggled to cycle all day battling against hills and annoying weather as well as feeling progressively worse, then when I stopped to take a leak I was electrocuted by a Fence, so when I cycled into a small town and found a room for €30 I couldn’t resist.

   Sleeping a night in the warmth did me good, I cycled on feeling much better but things didn’t get easier as I continued to battle the cold, wet weather, crossing really hilly land and problems with my diabetes. I got stuck up a mountain after Aurillac having to sleep in a little wooded area in Carlat to hide from the rain, which didn’t help as next morning I woke up shivering in a puddle. Some of the highlights of the last decade are moments that I look back on and think bloody hell that was hard, how did I manage that? Many of these moments are related to cycle trips and some of the conditions I have made myself camp in, for this reason Camping in Aurillac is one of my highlights and the day after was a turning point as the weeks of rain and mountains relented.

The ‘Grotte de Lascaux’ caves were impressive with its cave paintings that are tens of thousands of years old, then after that I cycled through the Cevennes National Park to reach Nimes. I quickly admired Nimes and Arles with the impressive aqueduct and other Romans ruins  then went straight through the dilapidated Aix en Provence, finishing my third week by arriving at the Mediterranean coast in Toulon. From Toulon I continued cycling along the hilly Mediterranean coast taking 3 days to reach Italy. I passed through Cannes and Nice quite quickly as they were a little too touristy and then I ended up sleeping a night in a strange park in Monaco which was full of sculptures.

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After Genoa it was quite a bit hillier so I didn’t make as much progress as intended but I was at least 2 days ahead of my plan so didn’t need to panic. Food in Italy was more expensive (more than double France) so I ate Mackerel and banana sarnies, yoghurt and cheap biscuits, compared to France’s delicious muesli, baguettes and cheap tuna. I went through some cool tunnels until a cop told me I couldn’t and made me climb from sea level up and over a 900m pass.

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Not much happened between Rome and San Marino although Urbino was a very nice medieval, gothic-style town with sloping streets much like Siena. It rained for fecking days causing me to sleep in an abandoned house one night because I was so soaked my feet were wrinkled.

Venice is annoying to get to on a bike, I had to piss around to get from the SS309 to the 4km long bridge and when you’ve crossed the long one to arrive you are faced with 400 bridges that cross all the canals. For this reason I locked the bike up and took everything that was worth anything and spent 3 or 4 hours walking around a lovely and unique city. It’s great having no cars and the mix of roads and canals lined with bridges makes it very pretty, the gondolas were cool but there were loads of tourists.

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I then spent a couple of days cycling inland to the Dolomites, a really pretty mountainous region before continuing towards Slovenia, although it took me a few days as I ate some dodgy mackerel sandwiches and spent a day lying in a field groaning, sleeping and excreting.

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On day 47 I managed to cross the border into Slovenia but the cycling was very difficult, I had to stop on a regular basis to lye down and soak up some pain.

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The beautiful Slovenian countryside

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Austria – 12 Days

    I crossed the mountains into Austria but it was quite a struggle cycling while still recovering from being ill. My stomach was dodgy and digesting annoyingly slowly, making enough gas to power a hot air balloon and it also ached like mad, especially when I was climbing. My heart just wasn’t in it, but Crossing the Alps was a highlight because I started to feel better and the scenery was fantastic; alpine woods, log cabins, hills, rivers, all very pretty. Other highlights were the town of Halstatt and Seeing an American Family Take Photos of Themselves Outside mc’donalds, I like the moments when I come across people living a completely different existence to me.

    The Alps are tiered, so I had to cross two different passes, one at Flattnich and one at Obertauern. On Night 51, I made a bed of straw, 1cm thick, on the floor of a wooden hut/barn, set in a really nice valley at the foot of a huge climb.

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Before cycling onto Salzburg I Wandered around the gorgeous Unesco world heritage village of Halstatt, nestled on a lake in the Austrian lake district.

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The old centre of Salzburg was nice, also a world heritage site with lots of nice building, including the bright yellow house where Mozart was born. Salzburg is famous for Mozart and ‘The sound of Music’ but I haven’t seen the film and couldn’t pick out a Mozart number for love nor money so I soon continued on cycling. I spent a couple of days following the river Danube until I arrived in Vienna where I stayed 4 nights with a travel buddy from South America then on day 62 I cycled 63 miles north into the Czech Republic.

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A huge palace in Vienna

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Czech Republic – 19 Days

The towns and cities were dirty and looked very communist and the roads had huge cracks and holes in them. This didn’t help my progress but luckily I had plenty of time until I was to met my girlfriend in Prague for a 9 day break from cycling.

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I left Prague at midday on Day 80 by following the river along a bad cycle path which went over tree stumps and through little gaps in the bushes. I was cycling along when a guy came running up to me asking for help, it was quite funny because there was a German guy who had been cycling along, had hit a stump and fallen into the river. He was ok, just shocked and of course I helped pull him and his bike out of the river.

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From Koln I cycled towards Aachen in order to cross into Belgium, I camped a night in Naturpark Hohes Venn-Eifel just before the border and crossed early the next day. I was descending down to Liege on a road full of holes when a bump threw one of my panniers off its rack and into the wheel. It snapped two spokes, meaning a total of three, and the trip was finished.

   I cycled to Liege and found the train station just in time to catch the train to Costende, in fact I was really lucky as I arrived at 12:01 and it was an 11:58 train that was running 8 minutes late. On Wednesday 5^th July after 3 train rides, a ferry crossing and a night’s sleep on a train station platform I was back at mum’s house, penniless but ready to enjoy nice food and showers before finding a temporary job to pay for a flight back to New York and Queens.

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