So it was an easy couple days ride to get to Marlene's place in Innsbruck, after all the hills of Switzerland, I was ready for a break.
Austria
Had a great few days with Marlene, Alti and the amazingly well behaved and beautiful Leah, who didn't wake me up once. (Good parenting guys).
Thanks for looking after me guys and showing me Frankfurt. Great to see you both and meet Leah. thank your mate again for his amazing Bangladesh cooking!
Germany
Alti got me onto this car pooling website that works so well in Europe. So if you are going somewhere you can just post your drive online and essentially advertise seats in your car for a set price. Works awesome. got a ride to Berlin with this guy and he was such a top bloke he put me up for the night and gave me the run down on Berlin. Thanks again Phil!
I really loved Berlin. Its gotta be close to Barcelona as one of my favourite cities. Very dynamic, alternative and very well organised for tourists and very driven to be open about the history of ww2 and the cold war. I stood over hilter's final bunker which is now intentionally a very underwhelming street car park. Found the best hostel I'd stayed at so far and met a bunch of great people to enjoy Berlin with. I ended up leaving Berlin too soon to catch another ride to Prague.
Czech Republic
Prague was beautiful and impressive but its got this huge trashy party town side to it, english and german bachelor parties going on everywhere.
It kinda feels like the city is full of these middle class western european people who holiday there to live the high life and prance around and be seen.
Either way, another good hostel and hung with some more great people from the hostel. 3 nights in a row partying with the last one being an all nighter so I could meet my 5.30am car pool ride.
Germany
Of course fell asleep in car and woke up at petrol station and headed in not knowing which country I was in or which currency they wanted. Got dropped at Munich then bussed it back to Innsbruck.
Austria
Back to Innsbruck, via Munich where I caught up with Lena (the second Lena for those who didnt meet her in Australia). Thanks again Lena and her bf Thore for putting me up and showing me a great time. We have video evidence that Partyboy visited Innsbruck also :)
Day 1 back on the bike and it was a rough first day mostly climbing which my right knee hated and I struggled most of the day.
Italy
I crossed to Italy which wasnt in the initial plan in order to head east to Lake Bled in Slovenia. I intentionally missed the turn off as my knees were feelimg dodgy and the road south was all flat heading out of the alps so I figures would be easy kms to break my legs back in. Amazing how two weeks off the bike set my legs back. I felt really low over these 3 days despite the awesome bike paths and scenery. After seeing friends and struggling on the bike it was just hard going mentally. The sensor on my cycle computer to track the kms aslo died, and the replacement I bought doesnt automatically start, so I'm having to track on my gps intil I can find a third one that does that I want...
Friday I just somehow fell into the groove and felt great again and did 110km. I would have done more but my arse was feeling particularly sore and I found a awesome camp spot in this factory that had been abandoned after floods had hit it by the looks. I'm becoming quite used to sleeping in these weird places and thinking nothing of it
The next day I did 50km on my tender arse before stopping to inspect the damage. Saddle sores.....which is kinda a bad rash from riding for too long in sweaty cycling knicks (worn too many times between washes). Lets just say I had a bit of a Baboon look going on....
Anyway now its pretty hot I'm just gonna have to make sure I get my shorts washed out more regularly. In fact, Jock Murray, I have a feeling its those bloody Sugino knicks you so highly recommended....I also have an antibacterial creme to apply to the chamios that Ive already used several times but may have to break it out more often. Its more of a roadie thing apparently they use it all the time.
So I got a hotel last night in this town called Palmanova which is this star shaped fortress city built in the 1500's. Pretty cool but very small and quite. Great design though with this huge square in the middle of the town. Day off to update the blog, wash clothes and let my arse heal a bit. I'm only 20kms from the slovenian border so I'll cross tomorrow and hit Eastern Europe.
just a reminder that all my photos are unedited, unfiltered/cropped and all the rest. not my photography, switzerland just that amazing. these places exist!
the last kilometre of this tunnel, I may or may not have had a been police escort....
there was no bloody signage it was an autobahn....
they let me off. (cant see the aussie cops doing that!)
prague crew
hah yeah lena this photo gives you an epic he-man body
Super Thore
Crazy highway leading out of Austria, actually no,,this was after in Italy
bike tube vending machine, awesome.
a"kind of" sugar?
I checked out this military fort in Italy that was created to stop Napoleon. Apparently was meant to be impenetrable but never got to prove itself. Was pretty cool, they did a great job restoring it and retrofitting it for tourists. Big english signs out the front but of course only italian and german text on all the info boards so didnt get alot of insight.
italy did a great job turning another train track into a dedicated cycle route and a conveniently place apple farm to camp in.
lanes amd intersections, just for bikes!
this guy from turkey. not sure what he had packed in all that stuff
campground at a some lake
there was this great fort structure on this hill, signs were all in italian but it was great as nature is just taking over and also had the place to myself
I like the town name...
stunning camp spot. there were a few shitty old boats tied up which look abandoned but various guys did show up and hooked up there electric outboards rigged to car batteries to go for a fish. nobody went home with anything though.
1 comment:
Did you enjoy your stay in Arsie, Reid?
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