We have arrived in Istanbul and the first thing we find is a spot to lay our roll mats bags (or, in Ben’s case, car seat cover).
Best Island Hostel confusingly isn’t the best hostel around these parts of the mainland but it has a view which is certainly hard to beat!
The trip totalled 4581km over a period of exactly 50 days. I wish we could say our total showers was close to that figure but I doubt between us we’ve had that many!
We will use this week to re-acclimatise to life among normal members of the public. Start using a knife and fork again, washing clothes occasionally, wearing pants. I could go on. However, one more night out in the open seems only fitting.
There will be more to follow; a more detailed account of the past week, thankyous to those we have met and have helped us along the way, and lots of tips for future London – Istanbulers.
In the mean time, ciao!
Please everyone join the Euro! Not for any political or economic reason, but it makes life so much easier when travelling. Trying to remember the exchange rate for four different currencies before working out how much will be needed for the further 24 hours in whatever country you are in is enough to melt any remaining brain cells. But enough first world problems..
We find ourselves in Plovdiv, the 6th oldest permanently inhabited city in the world. Construction workers are constantly digging up perfectly preserved Roman remains, left after the Ottomans covered them in sand to destroy all traces of the previous civilisations. What did the Romans do for us anyway…
We have spent the past week travelling through some of the most spectacular scenery of the trip to date. Our last few days in Serbia were spent on the cliff-like banks of the Danube, cycling through the Iron Gate. There are two vast hydroelectric power plants along this section of the river which act as the only places to cross into Romania.
The whole region is cycle touring heaven, and although still relatively undiscovered there are plenty of comrades to be found on the roads. We spent a lovely couple of days riding with Phillip, Ula, Anna and Harald from Germany, as well as crossing paths with Alex and Josh who had come all the way from the USA via Finland and Ukraine. We took shelter from an almighty storm together in some lakeside holiday apartments and shared plenty of stories and opinions before going our separate ways. Rumours of even crazier travellers ahead were spreading, and these were confirmed the next day when we met a couple who had walked all the way from Brittany, en route to Jerusalem. Nicer, calmer and more inspiring people you could not hope to meet – I think we’re learning that slow travel is the way to find peace with your surroundings.
The Iron Gates
We had a quick dash through Bulgaria before entering Romania at Calafat via the most overly engineered bridge imaginable. What was originally a simple 3km road and ferry crossing turned into a 17km time trial on empty roads, unused either because the toll is too high or because of how ridiculously out of your way the road takes you.
However once into Romania we had a taste of what life in “The Wanted” must be like. Everyone seemed glad we came, high fives all round, kids running into the street to say hi and a generally chirpy response from everyone we met. We even had the pleasure of being invited into an older couple’s house for the evening, who, after a tour of their smallholding, called up reinforcements in the shape of a fourteen year old girl to act as translator. Mihaela was a massive One Direction fan and despite having never heard of Switzerland, knew of the city of Bradford as it was the home town of her favourite 1D man, Zane.
Mr and Mrs Ionescu
An early ferry to Bulgaria the following morning left us disorientated. Ben demonstrated by falling over backwards while standing still on a sloping garage forecourt, becoming tangled inside his bike. I think the owners learnt some colourful English that morning.
The following two days were some of the toughest we have had in the saddle. A climb to 1305m over was followed by a second to around 1100m squeezed into 50km or so. A camping spot at 1000m ensured yesterday was an easy day of flat or downhill riding into Plovdiv.
We are now only 200km from Turkey and hopefully only 5 days easy riding from Istanbul. Mega!
For the past few days Ben has constantly been pestered for autographs as, due to his considerable beard, the Serbian public recognise him as Tom Hanks from the film Castaway. Time for a shave…
We are five weeks in and it’s finally time for the chop. We had originally planned to get a haircut around the halfway mark but ran out of time in Vienna and found more interesting things to do in Budapest. So Belgrade it is and with Kylie Minogue playing on the radio, Ben stepped up…
Before
Next up was Edmund ‘Tintin’ Luke, who like a true cyclist eschewed the scissor cut option and went for a lightweight short back ‘n’ sides.
Before
After, looking slightly sheepish
It’s a late start for us today and a couple of days taking it easy on the bike. We will be back in Belgrade on Monday to speak at a conference organised by YugoCycling Campaign as part of European mobility week.
So our next stop is Bela Cyrka, in the Serbian lake district and just a stone’s throw from the Romanian border. Wild swimming aplenty in store then before we catch our train back to the capital on Sunday afternoon.
Say, this tablecloth would make a great football shirt..
An early start in Croatia. First of what will be many coffee stops today, it’s a chilly one! The aim today is to make the 120km to Serbia. More to follow…
Here's our route for today
Welcome to the EU!
Germany and cycling go together like curry powder and sausage.
Nevertheless, we had to leave and pursue our Turkish goal. Since joining the Danube at Vilshofen (Germany), we crossed into Austria just outside Passau and have been winding our way towards Vienna for a couple of days. Both sides of the river have very good, signed cycle track, we have been following the Austrian R1 and we occasionally see a EuroVelo 6 symbol.
We had been warned before leaving for this trip that parts of the Danube had recently flooded. We saw first hand how high the water reached when we stopped for a drink in a cafe in Passau. There was no inside seating, the place having been six feet underwater in June. The owners had done remarkably well to get things up and running in such a short time, the pictures on the door showing how damaging the flood had been.
Moving towards Vienna there were constant signs of destruction. It is a credit to the Austrian cyclist’s organisations and tourist board that so much of the cycle track is back up and open. We have experienced only one large diversion and one short section which is still covered with silt and tree debris in the 300km or so from Germany.
A highlight of the past couple of days was joining a cricket practice in Linz. We had had a nightmare few hours caused by splitting inner tubes and wonky wheels and were pedalling out of town with glum expressions when, on approaching a motorway underpass, we saw a bowler steaming in. He was pretty rapid, though the batsman seemed unperturbed by his pace and gracefully guided the ball through extra cover. We watched for a few moments before asking if we could find a place to field. We were gladly excepted and were soon streaming in ourselves. Slightly less pacy and indeed accurate we held our own – it’s not easy bowling in cleated cyclung shoes! Ed was offered the bat and was thankful for the “you can’t be out on your first ball rule” when the stumps clattered to the ground.
The Linz 1st XI in action
We said our thank yous and were on our way. A short spin later and we found a perfect camping spot on the banks of the river and cooked dinner in the sunset.
An industrial sunset
The following day we had an unbelievable morning. We had managed 75km by 11:30, helped by a group of Austrian cyclists who were starting a six day tour and allowed two pannier clad Brits to ride their train and catch their draft. Ben, the courteously young man that he is, did his turn at the front of the peleton much to the amusement of the Austrians.
More flat Danube riding through the spectacular Wachau valley was the flavour of the afternoon and we finished our day just outside Krems, sipping on a bottle of Gruner Veltliner bought from a local vineyard.
A short 70km spin into Vienna in the morning where we have enjoyed some indoor camping. On to Bratislava today along our favourite European river.
It has been a tough few days for furious green ideas. We have experienced our first significant mechanical problems alongside some challenging terrain and a turn in the weather. The cycling, however, continues to improve!
After our rest day in Konstanz we took the ferry across the Bodensee to Meersburg before racing the 50km or so down to our real start point at Lindau. Lindau marks the beginning (or end) of the 420km Bodensee-Königssee-Radweg, a route that follows the foothills of the Austrian Alps along the southern German border, taking in some of the minor climbs amongst some breathtaking scenery.
The ferry crossing to Meersburg
It’s is a more challenging tourist trail than those which follow the Rhine or circle the Bodensee, but worth every climb. As ever, the route is fantastically signed – our map was only useful for picking out lunch/beer stops 20km or 30km down the road. Some signs will even have the gradient of ascent/descent marked so there are no nasty surprises. We had a Kompass map (8.99€) which marks steep gradients and has a profile overview so you can choose to miss some of the larger climbs if you wish.
Our one criticism of the route so far is that there is no distinction between minor roads and unpaved forest trails. This meant we spent around 25kms on Sunday crawling along at less than 10kph on bumpy tracks, just waiting for a spoke to snap. We even had a river crossing to negotiate!
That said, the views have been spectacular. We have climbed above 1000m, and rarely dropped below 600m since the Bodensee. It is worth noting here that if you’re thinking of coming this way, bring some more wintery cycling gear as the weather can turn quickly at this height, as we found out last night!
Bivi bag failure!
We are only able to complete half of the Radweg as we must head north to Munich, but if anyone is looking for a challenging four day/week long cycling holiday, get to Lindau and head east!
Boys will be boys..
So a few absent days due to a lack of internet. They have been fairly frustrating for us.
For Ben, battling against the boredom of flat, pothole and traffic free cycle track has taken its toll. We called up reinforcements in the shape of Trivial Pursuit and have seen a mild improvement in character.
For me a broken spoke has proven that I did indeed eat all the pies, and have most probably got a few more tucked away in my panniers. This has caused a delay to a day which started so well with a 11km descent before a dip in the bath water warm Rhine.
So, we sit in Bad Säckingen, just on the german side of the river after a few navigational mishaps in Switzerland last night, waiting for the bike shop to open to true up my back wheel. No idea how far we’ll get this evening, so time to relax..
Zen hasn't taught us anything about attaching spokes
In our seven days’ riding so far, we have notched up the following juicy little numbers :
Distance covered : 867 kms , 210 of those on one epic/ill-advised day from Saint-malo to Brussels
Vertical climb : 7562 metres. That means that although we’ve been going through what they told us were the low countries, by tomorrow we’ll have cycled up (and down) Everest.
Us looking smug.
Max Speed : 64.5 km/h (it sounds more impressive than 38 in old money)
Countries visited : 5 (yes, Luxembourg counts)
Showers taken : 1
Athough this was the winner of today’s on road caption competition, It was bone dry, a scorcher, more parasol than umbrella.
Our day started with a parting of ways. Our domestique left us mumbling something about an unfair split of prize money so we were left to fetch our own water bottles. 600+ miles done, he hopped on the train and later, we’re told, did a ‘victory lap’ of Brussels, and a few hours spinning the other side of dover ‘for the craic’. Expect Hamlet cigars to be on the Wada banned substances list shortly.
The trusty domestique - Tom
A morning of smooth traffic free trails led us towards Schegen, a village that’s in Luxembourg, France and Germany all at once, and is known the world over for its fantastic area. As ever, close to the country border all signage disappears as each country helpfully assumes the other will cover that section. Nevertheless, proud Europeans that we are, there are plenty of non-border photos coming up at our next computer stop.
Then we entred Germany. And it was so terribly German. Call me Clarkson, but we enjoyed perfect signage, cracking traffic-free paths and wonderful hospitality. We followed the Saarland Radweg for most of the afternoon, which included a wee siesta and a spot of cricket using tiny apples and a rolled up mosquito net. No sticks of rhubarb here. We even found a backstreet icecream shop selling hooky cornetos at bargain prices! Oh Germany.
Lunch à la McEldowney
We sped onwards towards Saarlouis, undertaking some of the toughest climbing thus far, arriving in town just late enough for all the shops to be shut. Cheeky meal out, where Ben was delighted to find that Germans make pizzas out of fadge (potato bread) before a nightime spin along the river to own camping spot, which might just have a nice view in the morning. Joyous.
A room with a view, possibly
Tomorrow we head into wine country.. the main aim being to teach Ed how to spell Gewurztraminer. More posts coming soon, including our impressions of EuroVelo so far, and our Sweat-o-meter of the facilites offered to touring cyclists in each of the countries we pass through.
Belgium even had a cure for cyclist's foot
So we’ve been in Belgium for the past few days. Ben feels very much at home, not because he has Belgian heritage, but because he has been living in Brussels for the past year or so.
Local knowledge should therefore have ensured getting lost would stop at the French border. Think again.
After a breezy spin through southern Flanders on some of the best cycle track so far, we hit Eddy Merckx country. The route turned “sportif” to say the least. An icecream van at the top of one steep climb our only restbite in what turned out to be a hellish afternoon. Sixteen hours and 205kms later we arrived a Ben’s place.
After our mammoth previous day we thought we deserved a rest. The first bed, shower and proper meal since London helped recharge batteries and enabled us a bit of planning time. The plan was to spend the next two days journeying towards Luxembourg.
Don't door me or i'll keep making this face
View over Saint-Gilles, Brussels
In the morning we enjoyed a leisurely tourist route through Brussels before meeting the EuroVelo team at the ECF HQ. We were greeted with tea and medals before finally setting out for the day around noon.
With ed lancaster aka mr. EuroVelo
Ben had a quick chat with some friendly tarmac while the rest of us enjoyed a superb forest trail south. The afternoon was unusual in that we didn’t get too lost before stopping for an evening beer in Namur.
As darkness fell we prised ourselves away from the bar to find a suitable spot to bed down. After climbing for a while we stumbled upon a track which provided enough cover for the three of us.
The prices weren't steep but the gradient was
We now sit in a cafe having been on the road for a couple of hours, following the river Meuse south to Dinant. Next stop Rochefort, famous for such originally named beers as rochefort 6, rochefort 8 and rochefort 10. Once some of us stop faffing…
I swear there were some cigars in here...
Furious Green Ideas 