Jurnal de călătorie

Prague: the day before departure

Today was my last in Prague.

As such I had to shop for supplies instead of visit. I ran out of Sultana crackers and other tasty goodies for the road. I needed ankle medicine and batteries. And most definitely I needed a road map. I found them all without lots of problems, so now I'm ready to pack and ready to move on. The snacks I bought at DM and I think the girl at the counter must have thought me mad to leave with a bag full of candy and granola bars and a small shower gel.

I managed to take a couple of pictures running from place to place and I even climbed (on the bike) to the Metronome and again to Mala-Strana, where, this time, I actually took the hard way. Unfortunately the pictures don't do justice to the gradients I had to work my way up to.

The map, is actually a cycling guide and I hope it will help me find my way easier than I did in Germany. Still, looking at the maps it worries me about the routes between cities. They are quite sinuous and I'm afraid that they will force me to increase the number of days on the road.

I have started making my baggage lighter and I hope to bring it down a couple of kilograms just by throwing away (such a waste) the maps of the previous cities I visited.

Raining in the centre.

The sea of tourists on the Charles Bridge.

That's where I came from.

A nice little square.

A building with an interesting façade.

... and arch at the back.

More ivy.

Lots of students... must be the Prague University.

Nice view of Legii, Karluv, Manesuv bridges (not necessarily in that order)

The Metronome is a good spot to take pictures from (1).

(2)

A close up of the Metronome.

Prague

Hello again. This is my third day in Prague, actually my second, as the first consisted in a long bike ride in the rain from a delayed train to a very hidden hostel. The train which was supposed to be a direct one ended up stopping in Plzen (I heard a rumour that it was because of the rain) and we had to change to another one in order to get to Prague. In the end it was OK, I managed to get to the hostel at about 11PM, checked in and sleep like a wet log.

Yesterday, however, was a pretty productive day. Having the bike with me really helped in getting a feel (literally) of the city and I think I should mention (with the risk of sounding more and more like a cry baby) that I fucking hate cobble stone streets. And the centre of Prague is just that, or bad side-walks. And short green lights.

Despite all the difficulties, I had great weather and a great ride through the city. A ride that culminated with a very pleasant 20 minutes up-hill challenge to Mala-Strana. A great park, with great big black-berries and where I managed to find a quiet deserted place to practise my harmonica.

A downside of the Paris of Central Europe is the tourist population. I was underwhelmed by the number of camera popping idiots infesting the streets around the Prague's castle, Charles bridge and the Astronomical clock tower. From little old Japanese women to hippies on Segways, from the girl in purple stockings to every other guy or girl on the street, they frustrated me by stopping in the middle of the road and taking shots of god knows what struck their fancy.

Vlatva

A zoom on the Prague's castle

Tourists moving in an orderly line...
on the bicycle path.

A bridge, Mala-Strana, and Prague's castle.

I had no idea you could see the Eiffel Tower from Prague.
It looks pretty damn close too.

The metronome.

Going up to the castle.

A fancy gentleman striking a light.

A quiet corner.

Fancy otomobiles for tourists.

A high view of the Praha 2 and 3 districts.

Ivy.

More ivy at the castle.

The joys of tourism filled squares.

White Fang(?)

Some decrepit old building in the centre of Prague.

The castle and the Charles bridge.

Gothic monument

A blueberry tree (I think)

Slovansky Ostrov

The National Museum.

Moving towards the centre.

The girl in purple stockings (and her brothers I imagine)

Flowers in the central square.

Quiet places are hard to find.

Central square.

The dark side of the Astronomic clock

More quiet.

A nice park.

And a nice bike.

An unknown church.

Praha 4 reminds me of some dark corners of Bucharest.

Nusle viaduct.

Swans

Sometimes it's good to be a kid.

On top of Mala-Strana

Playing the harp in a black-berry bush.

A creepy sun.

Descending Mala-Strana.

A nice view of the castle.

Finally the Astronomical clock.

A nice serving of Moravian cuisine.

Ten minutes later.

Another view of the metronome.

Day 10: Bayreuth - Nurnberg

Well, I'm now in the train to Nurnberg. I managed to change my clothes into something dry after the 30Km in the rain I had to ride between Kulmbach and Bayreuth. It happened in the toilet of the Bayreuth train station, with the mandatory wired looks from the occasional toilet user.

Even now, it pours really badly and makes me sad/happy that I'm not out there biking my little heart out.

The train tickets from Bayreuth to Nurnberg (including the bike's) were 15 Euros. From Kulmbach would have been 27. I would say that the difference was worth the ride in the rain for one hour (now, being dry, I would say it would have been worth it even at the same price).

The ankle didn't feel that bad today, but neither did in the first tens of Kilometers from the days before. Maybe this thing is a sign that I need to temper my rides a little, to decrease the daily distances from 140 Km to maybe under 100. Sadly, in that rhythm, it would feel like I'm never getting anywhere. Like I said earlier, I need to reevaluate my plan once I reach Prague and take a good rest.

The fact that I prefer the comfyness of the train to the rain outside makes me a bit sad, as this is a sign of getting older. Only old people are striving to lead comfortable lives, I was telling myself that a dry bed is all I need. This proves that besides the bed, I need to be dry myself.

Maybe the error is in the lack of planning. The Main route length took me so much by surprise, that it made me feel unprepared to just stop when I had enough and broke my confidence into pieces. Maybe if I would have researched better this part of the road, I would have known what and where to go, when to stop and sleep. Maybe all this need for planning is also a sign of getting older. I was trying to avoid that.

Once in Nurnberg it hasn't stopped raining, and after ten minutes of looking for the Tourist Information I was soaked to the bone... again. Still, with the nice feeling of being where you want to be, it was an enjoyable rain.

Here are a few pictures.

The tall road I imagine.

Trying to capture the morning mist.

Nice... grass basketball.

Enjoying the dryness of the train station with a fresh change of clothes and a nice cup of coffee.

Mathilda enjoying second class on the Deutsche Bahn.

Other people were more persistent it seems.

The hostel's kitchen.

A nice supper with leberwurst and ... erhm...something that can be used as bread.
Yes that is tea indeed.

Day 10: Kulmbach

You know it's really bad when your the only place you can cry about life is the internet.

So, the last four days really took their toll on me. The Main course route is a freaking hell. On the map, there are maybe 60Km between cities, but following it there were more than 140. From Frankfurt to Wurzburg 145 (by actually going on the main road and over some very nasty hills for 60Km), from Wurzburg to Bamberg 148 and from Bamberg to here 142 (granted this last one has about 20Km of going to the wrong direction and back).

The time never seems to be enough, I'm on the saddle from 9 hours a day and still it feels like I'm not moving at all. In Bamberg I didn't even have the time to visit, even though, it's one of the nicest cities I passed through so far (too bad for the hostel in the middle of nowhere and the steep hills to get there).

And here I am today, my moral is down, my ankle is really bad since yesterday, all my clothes feel damp, but luckily my knee is OK now that I changed my cages.

Another big issue for me is the rain... it rains since yesterday and the weather forecast doesn't look like it's going to end soon.

Even though I haven't accepted defeat yet, today marks a small victory for mother nature, as I'll go for a 40Km ride to the first train station in Bayereuth and I'll take the train to Nurenberg (which I'd love too see anyway) and then tomorrow I'll go to Prague.

In Prague I'll decide if all this is still worth it, or I'm just too old, too weak or too much of a quitter.

As always, here are some picture (and please forgive me if lately the most interesting to take pictures of was me):

Day seven in the morning.

The ducks come from the trucks.

Handsome devil, you have no clue what lies ahead!

Leaving the Main route, taking the main road.

I'm beginning to be able to take nice pictures.

It doesn't show, but that's uphill and raining.

2 Km down the road, more uphill, more rain.

This is without a doubt my favourite picture so far.

First sight in Wurzburg.

I was not beaten yet.

Vineyards

For such a small town, Wurzburg had quite a number of churches. Here's one.

A building far, far away.

Wurzburg.

Sunset.

Day 8 - on my way to Munchberg, or so I thought.

A gate.

Taking the ferry...

"Ohne automobil"

Well, it happens.

German dish. Forgot the name. The dumplings in the back tasted bad.

Day 9 beginning in Bamberg. Well, a hostel near Bamberg.

First problem of the day. Broken break cable.

Like I said, Bamberg is a nice city.

Blue Building.

I was lost, but I took a nice picture.

Before taking lunch.

Here I was about 10Km lost and wet to the bone.

20 more Km to go to Kulmbach. Saddest picture ever.

Day 6: Frankfurt rest day

Here I am in the sixth day of my travels and, since I'm not more resilient than God, it shall be a rest day. I had no idea how bad I needed this until this morning when I could barely wake up after an eight hours sleep. Not to mention the breakfast for two I scarfed down following nothing less than a dinner for two I had yesterday. But all in all it feels good. It's nice just to sit and be thankful that today, I'm not going to get rained on the road, but on the comfortableness of a terrace with a unfiltered beer before me, as such are the small gifts of civilization.

Speaking of civilization, it wouldn't be the same without my tea, only today I had time to start my morning by brewing a nice cup. It surely felt good and I don't really know how I was able to survive only on coffee for the past week. This time crisis I experienced every day so far, was very much unexpected, as the logistics of finding accommodation proved to be a bit more challenging than I had planed for, and leaving me very few moments for myself. I have brought a couple of books and some prints I wanted to read, but no luck so far. I brought my harmonicas with me just in case that I find a nice quiet corner of nature to spook the wild life, again no luck. I was also thinking to get a portable stove to wake up in the mornings with a nice cup of tea with biscuits, but there was no more room for the stove and the time needed to make tea would bite really hard on my morning routine of packing, so... yeah, no luck here either.

Baring the useless 150g of tea and the 100 teabags in mind, I see that my luggage is filled with a number of things I don't really need that raise the dilemma of getting rid of some of them, or just keeping them for the ride as they hold sentimental or otherwise value. It's time to choose between travelling light and moving from Brussels to Bucharest on a bike.

This day was needed also because a couple of hundred kilometers ago some technical difficulties have finally arisen in the form of an achy right ankle which makes pedaling quite uncomfortable. This coupled with the inevitable bottom rash, in my case more like a whole new puberty for my behind, makes staying off the bike quite welcome.

With this opportunity I'll take the time to do a little retrospective of the last week and put into numbers what I managed to achieve so far.

I traveled a little over five hundred kilometers, 517 to be exact, not even one fifth of the full distance. Most of it was on national roads but I also had a short stint (2Km max) on a strip of freeway after I lost my way in Tienen and lots and lots of bike paths (most of them badly kept with gravel and cobble stone).

My mean speed varied somewhere around 20-21Km/h, but my peak didn't go over 55Km/h not even on the descent of the hills around Aachen and Düren. The lowest were around 10Km/h, on the slopes of the same hills. The steepest road was in Aachen, on my way to the camping site. It hold a sign of 13% and I could barely climb half of it's 5-600 meters.

My mean cadence was 90RPM, which would show about 5 400RPh, which for yesterday's route of 6:50h would be around 37 000 pedal strokes. For the full distance at 20Km/h is 139 590 strokes (so it should be no surprise my ankle hurts a bit).

Here are some pictures I too yesterday evening around Frankfurt's city center. As you can see I let my hidden inner tourist go wild.

Random shot of a red building.

Random while I was downing my supper.

Random shot of tall buildings.

Tower.

Random shot of a street

Some more tall buildings.

German square on a Sunday evening.

A tender moment on the key of the Main river

A nice night view of Frankfurt's city center.

A nicer view.

Days 4 and 5: The Rhine Eurovelo route (Bonn - Koblenz - Mainz - Frankfurt)

One word for it: don't. Unless you're a hyper active elderly couple with nothing to do and nothing to carry on your bikes. The road surface is bad (worse in some parts). The scenery gets boring after the first 10 on the edge of the cliff little castles you see. The cities are bad (in Koblenz I was actually reluctant to spend the night - talk about a full city of bad neighborhood, so I went down the road to Lornbach). The traffic poses problems sometimes, on the bike path (the aforementioned elderly persons) and on the national road.

On our way.

One

Two.

At about 20Km from Bonn, I finally found the Rhine EuroVelo route. (Yay! I thought to myself)

Nice, I said...
it takes me to places outside the main road.

Self-portrait of a cvadriceps.
I don't know what I really wanted to take the picture of, definitely wasn't this.

Nice road I said to myself. Oooh, look people too!

The already traditional coffee break.

... with self-shot.

Three.

The Koln-Mainz Rhine bike paths.

Hmmm, some sort of cobble stones, this sucks.

To the South.

Worse roads.

Getting close to Koblenz.

Finally a nice spot...

... to unpack...

... and try to get some tan on the white bits.

... and do the laundry...

Here are some pics from day 5, from Lahnstein to Frankfurt

Sunday morning.

Four.

Following my shadow.

Apfelstrudel met sahne.

Five.

Six.

Nice example of German architecture.

The revelation of Lorelei.

Seven.

I wonder how they deal with floods.

Eight.

Sunday afternoon in Germany.

This thing was very tasty, after the obligatory bratwurst.
Still don't know how to pronounce it though.

Traffic problems.

Arriving in Mainz.

Leaving Mainz.

Finally after more than 200Km of headwind, I finally get some tail wind too.
Yay, speed blur (I think I was doing ~35Km/h).

4 more kilometers to go

Whew! I arrived!

Day 3: Kornelimunster - Zulpich - Eustkirchen - Bonn

Whoa, does Google maps lie, or whoah... I'm such a bad route planner.

On my odometer it clocked at over 100Km (and Yay!, I'm mostly fine after) while Google was saying 80Km. And I rejoice about being fine as the road included from the start to Zulpich a very hilly section, which made me drop to a measly 10-15Km/h for a good while. Still, as long roads go, what goes up, must come down... and up again sometimes, and in the end it got evened out mean speed wise.

In Bonn, I needed a bike-shop and luckily the lady at the Tourist Information Office knew about one. I had my chain lubed because the squeaking drove me insane for the last 160Km.

Once at the hostel, after I took off all the luggage and I decided to go out for the night, I almost broke my neck. Heheh, that was because I was no longer used to how light my bike is and how little force it requires to turn. So the first 100m were a wobbly mess that made me laugh so hard that I had to stop. After realizing what a muscle man the past three days made me and I started go light on the handle bar, I also felt wings in my legs, like the past 100Km didn't even happen. Thank god I forgot the odometer in my room, as I think I broke some speed laws on my way down from the hostel (did I forgot to say that the last 3-4Km from the center of Bonn to the hostel are all up hill?)

Before packing.

Tofu mini-wieners (a small package of suck). This thought me to read the fracking label on stuff before buying.

A different Mephisto.

Uphill.

Still uphill.

Enjoying a cup of coffee in Deuren.

Slightly downhill.

Lost. That's what you get when you follow bike signs.

My first genuine, side of the road bratwurst.

Approaching Bonn.

Well, hello all...

The Rhine.

A desired flat image of Bonn. (There is some a lot prettier than this)

Day 2: Liege - Aachen - Kornelimunster

So, here I am in the third day. I must say, yesterday was hard, despite the (apparently) short distance: 55,5 Km on the map, about 65 on my odometer. This was apparent, right from the start at Liege the first kilometers to the N3 road towards Aachen, consisting of some fair climbing (I must thank the lord for my lowest gear™). This kept up all the way to Aachen, which of course was all surrounded by hills. The worst was something marked at 13%, which unfortunately I wasn't capable of climbing with my bike, not even on my lowest gear.

The weather was bad of course, raining in Liege and again during my rounds in Aachen searching for a camping site.

Speaking of camping sites, they mainly sucked. In Aachen there was an official one, which was unsupervised and allowed anyone to put up a tent for a morning collect of 10 Euros. The high price turned me off a bit, as during my research I found something in Kornelimünster (a measly 10Km away) with 3 Euros a night. Heheheh, was I on lady luck's bad side... The 10 Km were one big hill and it's descent, duh, and at the location the land-lady asked me for 9 Euros instead. Still I must admit that the location was great (you can see in the pictures) even though only because I'm young it was worth it. What made it worth it some more were the very cool cats at the place, I only managed to take a picture of only one and the freshly milked milk(?) that ended to be part of my nutritious supper and breakfast.

Here are the pictures.

Whoa, 900m.

The zoom on this camera really works!

You can see how excited I am.

Fucking liars I tell you, between those two cities there aren't 45Km.

Average 21.6Km/h

Aachen in the rain.

Downhill to Kornelimünster

Up at the camping place, between the light and dark.

View of Kornelimünster.

Mmmm, food.

More food.

Day 1: Brussels - Liege

In retrospect I got a bit greedy with my first day, so I went directly for Tienen, Sint-Truiden, Liege (117 Km). Of course as bad first day go, this was exceedingly bad as everything that I feared for during my travels happened: rain - check, getting lost while in the cities - check, arriving to late for finding cheap accommodation - check, people snoring - check.

Here are some images I took:

Last minute preparations courtesy of Michel from CyclesIMP.

Plane on the N3 to Leuven.

What I managed to see from Leuven.

Welcome to Liege (the province). There were some 30 more Km to destination.

My orange monster. The reason why I needed to stop at CyclesIMP was to add front paniers, as I could barely move the bike with everything on the back.

A very tired image of the one some call the Bio-Racer.

Liege after the rain. I forgot to mention that it rained all night, so I'll leave to Aachen in damp knickers and socks.

Mmmm, breakfast of champions. However this champion would like some meat in his plate.

So, in about 30 minutes the trip to Aachen starts. It's going to be a short one, 45 Km if I believe Google Maps, but I hope to make it there in one piece.

Day -1

For some reason it's autumn in Belgium. The temperature is around 22-23°C for a couple of days and the sky is in a matching cloudy disposition, with the occasional rain falling now and again to mess with my plans. But for me the weather doesn't really matter any more, tomorrow is the day. Rejoice people that kept asking me "when are you leaving?" because tomorrow I'm leaving. I'm feeling that I'm already late, but it doesn't matter because this will be fun even in the rain, even in the cold. Actually I'm realising that this type of weather matches my disposition and will motivate me to get my ass on the road.