Photos From Austria, Italy and Switzerland

Not terribly exciting, I'm afraid, since most of them don't have people. And they're in reverse chronological order!

Venice at dusk:


The road into Venice:

The view from my campsite on the roadside:

Italian mountain towns:

Attempt at a self-portrait:

I don't know what this tower was doing in the middle of a lake near the Italian-Austrian border, but it was awfully pretty:

Alps:

The Austrian-Switzerland border:

Austrian cycle paths are fantastic:

View from the top of Rischen Pass:

The tallest mountain in Germany:

Austria:

That's all for now!

-Ben.

Day 44: History Lessons

Yesterday was one of those days that seems to go by while you blink. I spent a lazy morning at the campsite swimming, blogging, and reading Guevera. (I've now finished Che's memoir, and finding a new book is top priority for today. A good book -- or any book, really -- is absolutely crucial to making solo cycling an enjoyable experience, I've discovered.) I also chatted for a while with a young-ish couple, the husband American and the wife Austrian, who had dropped their lives (and medical practice) in Colorado to move to Northern Italy with their young children. They were extremely laid back free-spirit types and remarked, when they learned where I go to school, that I might take life too seriously and work too much. I told them they were the first people I'd ever met who expressed concern that a 20-year-old cycling across Europe might be at risk for burn-out!

Anyway I set off at 11AM and found the cycling to be easy and flat. At noon I pulled into a restaurant looking for nothing more than a cold drink, but ran into a cyclist from Japan named Allan who I've bumped into several times over the past few days. An extremely experienced cyclist with an interesting life story (he's half-American, half-Czech, married to a Japanese woman and speaks German, English, and Japanese), Allan is also cycling the Via Claudia, though he started in Prague. He was eating a delicious looking salad which I promptly ordered, and by the time I pulled out of the restaurant the afternoon was well underway.

An hour or so later I arrived in Trento, a big city that is the capital of Trentino, which is in turn a district that comprises one quarter of the region of Tyrol. Split between Austria and Italy, Tyrol has a complex and fascinating history that I cannot possibly do justice to here. But to attempt a brief overview: Tyrol was a part of the Hapsburg domains during the Middle Ages, but beginning with the Napoleonic Wars was volleyed back and forth between Italy and Austria as a prize for the victor of the latest conflict. The Tyroleons themselves were not too pleased with being the spoils of war, and, having developed a powerful sense of autonomy under Hapsburg rule, they mounted a vicious guerrilla-style insurgency campaign against any foreign conquerors. (It would be interesting to know if counterinsurgency experts like David Kilcullen have used Tyrol as a case study.) The Treaty of Versailles split Tyrol between Austria and Italy, and today the region is a Euroregion, a term I had not heard before arriving here. I believe it indicates that Tyrol has a high-level of autonomy from both Italy and Austria. Like all great contested parts of the world (admittedly, I'm thinking only of Kashmir -- I have no idea if, say, South Osettia is beautiful), Tyrol is a stunning place and seems to me to be a real outdoors hub: lots of mountain biking, hiking, and, of course, skiing. Most Tyroleons speak both Italian and German, and all signs are bilingual. In South Tyrol, which is in Italy, German is definitely the lingua franca. In Trentino, further into Italy, there is a sudden and dramatic shift to Italian.

My relationship with Trento had two distinct phases. The first was very positive: I ordered a pizza, carried it to the river and ate, and then fell asleep in the shade. When I woke up it dawned on me that Trento must be (in English) Trent, home of the famous 16th century Council that marked the peak of the counter-reformation. Cool! I sat by the river and reflected on that for a while before setting off.

So began phase two of my experience in Trento, which was horrible. For some reason, my maps didn't include a detail of Trento, and navigating my way out was an absolute nightmare. I knew where I had to go -- namely, up -- and I could even see my destination for the night perched high on the cliff above me. Except for the highway, I couldn't find a single road that led in the proper direction. Normally in situations like this I will resort to riding on the highway if it is absolutely necessary, but this one seemed exceptionally dangerous and I could see that it wound through several tunnels on its way up the cliff. Even if I survived the road, I would surely learn some new Italian words from the passing drivers, if you catch my drift.

I spent literally two hours circling around looking for an escape route. It's not uncommon for me to struggle to get out of cities, but usually I am in the city center, where can at least enjoy old churches and plazas as I poke around. But in Trento I was circling the industrial outskirts at the confluence of several major highways. It was loud, busy, ugly, and exhausting.

Finally, on the verge of giving up for the day and finding somewhere to sleep in Trento, I found a walking path that led up the cliff. I pushed my bike for 15 minutes until the path emerged onto a busy road; busy, but workable. I hopped on the bike and started up the road, which went straight up the mountainside. Up and up it went, relentlessly higher and higher. Tired and cranky, I cursed Trento, cursed its mountains, cursed the tectonic plates that formed them, and then realized I didn't know enough earth science to curse anything more. Finally I pulled into Martignano, where I glanced at my map. Over 3 hours, I had covered 3cm -- less than 3 kilometers. Ouch.

It was 7PM and I decided to push on, since there was a nice looking lake about 20 kilometers away. After a snack and several bottles of water my mood was restored and I set off. Higher and higher the route kept climbing, until finally I reached the top of a small pass and descended down to the lake.

At 9PM I pulled into a nice campsite in Cristoforo, but turned right back around when I learned they would charge a ridiculous €25 for the night. (I was still bitter about having been charged €17 for the previous night's campsite, which is pretty exorbitant considering I only require 15 square feet and a shower.) Instead, I high-tailed it to the local park where I bathed in the lake and then chatted with a friendly family for at least an hour. The father spent quite a bit of time describing an alternate route to Venice. I acted interested, glad for the company, despite having no intention of diverting from my maps. They spoke no English, but I find that if I blend Spanish and Portuguese, I can usually communicate. Sometimes, though, I may as well be speaking Korean.

When the family said goodnight, I spread my sleeping bag out on a picnic table and slept like a rock.

I've realized that for the past few weeks, I've been riding from the outskirts to the epicenter of the Roman Empire. The Via Claudia is marked occasionally by signs that tell about various aspects of the region's history. Some are terribly translated, but most of them are pretty interesting. This ride has turned into something of a refresher course in European history. A field trip if you will.

Will have to bring the blog fully up to date later. Time for some sleep!

Km cycled yesterday: 92
Km cycled today: 84
Km cycled total: 3154

-Ben.
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Day 42: Headed Down South

About 5 minutes after finishing last night's post the storm I mentioned came barreling down the valley and struck. It had no interest in introductory formalities, either -- the water came fast and furious, swept sideways by ferocious wind gusts. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you always set up your tent BEFORE you blog.

Naturally, I had not heeded those wise words (attributed, I believe, to Meriwether Lewis) and so began a chaotic race to assemble La Poderosa. As I mentioned last night, I had no idea if La Poderosa could even be assembled at all, seeing as one of her poles has snapped and the other is terribly cracked. Now, I'll grant you that having 0% of my tent poles in working condition didn't exactly inspire confidence in the tent's ability to protect me from a howling storm -- but La Poderosa earned her name for a reason! (Admittedly, the reason was sarcastic.)

After some frantic knot tying and creative (some might say desperate) placement of sticks and rocks, La Poderosa was standing on her own strength -- depending on how generously you define standing and strength. It was not a pretty sight, but it would have to do. I flung my gear inside and dove in behind. Outside, the storm raged and raged, with howling wind and ceaseless rain.

Yes, some water made it in the tent, but only a gallon or two. Yes, the wind knocked over my stand-in poles, but I only had to fix them 4 times. And yes, the tent roof did at times shake so violently that I thought it would lift off and go into orbit. But on the whole, I would say the night was an unqualified success, with both tent and occupant surviving relatively unscathed.

But now I need to rewind 24 hours and write about yesterday, which I am going to attempt to do very quickly!

I pulled out of my bed and break-a-sweat-fast (49% of my brain is telling me to delete that terrible attempt at a pun; the other 51% is too exhausted to vote, so I am leaving it in) around 11AM, having gotten only a few good hours sleep but eager to get moving: Switzerland was just 5 kilometers down the road.

At least it was supposed to be 5 kilometers down the road. I took a right turn at what I thought was the border and quickly found myself climbing a mountain that grew progressively steeper. It wasn't until I reached an unforgiving set of switchbacks that I knew for sure I was headed the wrong way: there were switchbacks on my maps, but not for another few hours. I turned around and coasted to the main road, where I found the Swiss border, and the correct right turn, about 5 meters past where I had first turned.

I had expected the border to Switzerland to be a bit of a nuisance, and I was prepared to show my passport, fill out some forms, solemnly swear not to build any minarets, etc. Instead, I found a lone border officer sitting in the shade. He took one glance at me and waved me through, refusing to stamp my passport even when I requested it.

In Switzerland, I cycled on the west side of the Inn River, which had turned from a chalky blue to a deep, murky brown overnight. The mudslide I encountered must not have been the only one.

Ten kilometers later I crossed back into Austria. I still had not decided whether I would spend the next few days in Switzerland or head straight for Italy, but I knew I wanted to climb the next pass, called Reschen Pass, the summit of which marks the highest point of my trip, and defines the border with Italy. If I wanted to return to Switzerland, I reasoned, I could just turn around and come back down the pass the next day.

It took me about an hour to summit the pass, climbing an old highway that is no longer much used because of a new tunnel. I stopped a few times on the way up to snap photos, but mostly just fell into a good rhythm, inching up at around 9 km/hr with sweat pouring down my face. The top of the pass is not so much a summit as a long plateau, and it's home to a beautiful lake. I took a ski lift to the top of one of the surrounding mountains and ate lunch looking down at where I'd come from.

The top of the pass marked the border with Italy, and so I entered my 3rd country of the day. The only indication that I was in Italy, though, was a sign on the highway that explained the various Italian speed limits.

I cycled for another hour or so (I am leaving out so many details from a really spectacular day in the interest of catching up here...) and then bought dinner (cheese, crackers, apple, strawberries) at a grocery store and rolled into a campsite in Mals, Italy, whereupon I encountered the aforementioned storm.

Spent this morning lazing about the campsite waiting for my things to dry. I have started reading Ernesto Guevara's The Motorcycle Diaries, which is really just an extremely poetic and thoughtful travel diary. It is superb. I discourage everyone from reading it because it will make this blog's prose seem (even more) commonplace and inadequate.

Last week I finished Jonathan Safan Foer's new book, Eating Animals, which is a raw and uncompromising argument for vegetarianism. Foer basically sets as his main target what you might call a Michael Pollan vegetarian, which is precisely what I am. (A Michael Pollan vegetarian -- my own term -- is someone who thinks that eating meat isn't inherently unethical, but that the quantity we consume, and the way we produce it, is problematic enough to warrant an extreme reduction in, if not complete elimination of, meat eating.) Eating Animals book is powerful and effective in many ways, and the writing is impassioned. You sometimes get the feeling that Foer pulled a Kerouac and wrote the entire thing in one go. At other times the argument is a bit disorganized, repetitive, and leaves big questions unexplored. (For example, if there is no way to ethically raise and harness animals for food, isn't veganism the solution? Foer never seems to consider becoming a vegan.) On the whole, it is a far less impressive achievement than Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, which in my mind remains the greatest examination of America's food system since Sinclair. That said, the book was effective enough to jolt me back into rigid vegetarianism, a path I had been lured from by the siren song of German sausages. It's tough stuff, this whole eating business.

Well, that was a completely unintended side track! I'll try to resist a similar diversion when I say that before Eating Animals I read A Long Way Down, a novel by Nick Hornby. It was brilliant in every way. Highly recommended.

Anyway, I pulled out of Mals around 11AM and I can honestly say that I still had not decided whether to head south, further into Italy, or back into Switzerland. Upon hearing that I couldn't decide between those two options, my uncle passed along Yogi Berra's words of wisdom: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Now that is a piece of advice I follow every time I step into a German bakery (Strudel? Donut? Both, bitte!), but it is not terribly helpful for this decision. No, I was looking for some sort of sign, some divine guidance, a deus ex machina for my own little odyssey.

And it didn't take long to find one. Ten meters out of the campsite, an elderly man with a long ash-gray beard was straining under the weight of a heavy backpack as he walked south. On his backpack he had attached a large sign: "Roma." And so it was settled. I am headed for Rome.

Yesterday's riding was some of the most enjoyable of the entire trip. Since Norway, people have been telling me that in Italy there are no bicycle paths, that I'd be cycling on the side of the road. Well, so far at least, that is patently false. The cycling paths here are the nicest I have ever seen: winding through vineyards and small villages, and only rarely intersecting with the roads. It also didn't hurt my mood that I was going downhill the entire day, burning off the potential energy that I'd spent the last 3 days building up.

Looking back on old blog posts, I've noticed that I tend to use the same descriptions of the landscape over and over: green, hilly, beautiful. That is a reflection of my own inability to capture in words the incredibly varied geographies that I've encountered, I'm afraid. Let me try to do a better job describing yesterday's scenery.

I spent the day descending a long, thin valley. At times the slope was quite steep, and I had a great time racing down the twisting path. Other times the hill was so gentle that the only indication of a downhill was a slightly higher readout on my speedometer. On each side the valley is walled by forested mountains. High up on the cliffs, some parts of the forest have been cleared in little circles for farms and buildings, some of which are precariously set on almost impossibly steep mountainsides. Many of the mountains have rocky outcroppings that still house the ruins of fortresses and churches, dilapidated but still striking, even from a distance.

Further away, to the west, the Swiss Alps dwarf the nearer mountains. They are snow-capped and often enveloped in thick gray clouds that build up and then roll down into the valley.

The path itself leads through small villages that dot the landscape, interspersed with apple orchards and wine vineyards. The locals work the orchards under the scorching mid-day sun, the men often wearing nothing but the tiniest shorts while they do it. What a job.

I spent the first two hours cycling shirtless, and it will surprise no one to learn that the Italian sun leaves quite a burn. I will be sleeping on my stomach for the next few nights.

Around 7PM, I rolled into a campsite a few kilometers outside Kaltern. It is on a beautiful lake, and I promptly went for a swim. Then I took a shower, went for another swim, and took another shower. The clouds look harmless enough tonight, so I will give La Poderosa the night off and sleep under the stars.

In two or three days I should be in Venice, and from there I'll see if I can't poke my way down to Rome.

Km cycled today: 114
Km cycled total: 2978

-Ben.
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Day 41: Three Countries, One Day

I believe I groggily ended last night's post in Lermoos, Austria, where I slept under the stars with Zugspitze, Germany's tallest mountain, looming in the distance. As expected, La Poderosa (the €16 euro tent) has broken in one place. It's not clear if it will still be functional, and rather than find out, I'm just avoiding setting it up at all. Tonight may be the night of reckoning, though, as there are ominous clouds forming over the mountains in the distance.

Anyway, I set out from Lermoos bright and early the next morning. I briefly considered making a detour and riding the lift to the top of Zugspitze -- the view is apparently quite breathtaking -- but decided against it. Ahead of me was my first Alpine Pass, called Fernpass, and I wanted to be well into the climb before the day heated up.

There are two routes over Fernpass: the first is a gravel path, the second is the main road. Despite having acquired a sort of masochistic affinity for climbing on gravel, I opted for the latter option. But since the main road is the only way to cross into Austria's Inst Valley, it's pretty busy. I had two good incentives, in other words, to hit the road early: beating the heat and the beating the traffic.

It took me about an hour of slow, steady cycling to reach the top. Several times - thought I was done, only to find that the climb continued. When the summit finally came, it was very anti-climatic: no sign, no scenic look-out, just a steep, winding descent into the next town, Nassereith.

By the time I rolled into Nassereith, I was feelin' about half past dead. I wolfed down a ridiculously large meal, and then promptly fell asleep on a shady patch of grass until 1PM.

By the time I set out again, the day had turned hot -- one thermometer I saw said 37 C -- but the cycling was easy and beautiful. As long as I kept my front wheel pointed down the valley, it was hard to get lost. In general, I have started to worry and less and less about staying on the exact route dictated by my maps. It's amazing how easy it is to navigate with just the sun, and perhaps a river or mountain range, to guide you. As long as I have a rough sense of where I need to go, everything usually falls into place. And when I'm not constantly looking for route signs, I can relax and enjoy the scenery.

By 4PM storm clouds had gathered overhead. As it began to drizzle, I reflected on the fact that over nearly 6 weeks of cycling, I have only once ridden in the rain. The weather this summer has been about as perfect as I could have hoped for. And yesterday's rain was most welcome, providing much needed relief from the heat and sending up warm clouds of steam off the blacktop. Rain really isn't a problem when cycling, except for on long, steep downhills, when wet roads make stopping dangerous and difficult. Fortunately, a quick glance at the map told me I wouldn't need to worry about any descents for at least 3 hours!

Rain isn't dangerous, but lightning is -- or, at the least, it's absolutely terrifying to ride an exposed stretch of road on a large metal object with lightning overhead. After about an hour of drizzling, thunder started to rumble in the distance, and I watched as lightning moved closer and closer, until finally, I exercised, quite uncharacteristically, good judgment and sought shelter in the reception area of a campsite. My timing could not have been better: within two minutes, the slow pitter-patter of water had become a wall of water pouring from the sky, with thunder shaking the building.

I spent an hour holed up in a back room of the building, napping and writing the first half of yesterday's blog post. When I peeked my head out, the water was still coming down relentlessly, and I began to wonder if I'd be stuck for the night. But soon enough the lightning had moved into the distance and the rain had softened, so I set off again. The storm had left behind a thick mist, so I wore 4 flashing red reflectors and two flashing headlights. I must have looked absolutely ridiculous -- but then again, when you're 6'6" and spend your days in neon yellow spandex, I figure its hard to sink much lower.

A few kilometers down the road the rain had triggered a massive mudslide that left a wide swath of trees uprooted and completely blocked the road. Amazingly, a front-loader was already at work clearing the mess. The driver was clearly having a good time. Several times I thought he was hopelessly stuck after he plunged the truck into at least three feet of thick, wet mud and rock. But every time the machine managed to wrestle it's way out. After a few minutes waiting, the driver took pity on me, shivering as I was on the roadside, and cleared me a special path through the mud by driving to the close end of the mudslide, lowering his shovel to the road, and driving in reverse. I followed a foot or two behind him, and in my wake the mud oozed back into place.

I then cruised the remaining 10 kilometers into the next town, called Pfunds, where I arrived wet, muddy, and a bit cold. I decided to check into a bed and breakfast, and spent the evening watching the world cup.

Unfortunately, my small room had no air flow whatsoever, and even though I turned the light out at midnight, at 2AM I was still lying awake in my own sweat. (To make matters worse, I did not fit in the bed -- but hey, what else is new.) Frustrated, I grabbed my sleeping bag and headed outside, where I promptly fell asleep on the driveway.

Pfunds was conspiring against me, though: the hotel was located just off the highway, and every 30 minutes or so a semi-truck would come down the hill, engine brakes in full force. Worse, at around 4AM, a car came screeching to a halt at the foot of the driveway, and I woke up in time to see the driver running in my direction. I sprung out of my sleeping bag, thinking I was going to have to defend myself (and having, of course, no idea what that would involve). Well, it turned out that the man was delivering a package, and he reeled back in shock when I popped up off the driveway, which I feel a bit badly about. But, in fairness to me, who the heck delivers a package at 4AM? (In fairness to him, who the heck sleeps on the driveway of a hotel??) He may never again carry a package up a driveway the same carefree way again.

What with the trucks and package deliveries, my sauna of a room suddenly seemed vastly more appealing. As I sweated my way to sleep back in the bed, I thought about what I would tell the hotel owner, a very friendly man I had chatted with for quite a while earlier that evening, when he asked how I slept. (I am the type of person who would tell a waiter my meal was fine even if I had been served salted dirt.) In my head, I rehearsed several responses, ranging from "Well, it was a bit hot, actually" to "Frankly, I get a better night's sleep when I toss a sleeping bag next to a cemetery."

The next morning as I ate breakfast, the hotel owner wandered up with a big smile, patted me on the back and asked "Well, did you sleep well?" I paused, smiled, and said "Very well, danke schon." He sat down and we spent a while chatting about the road ahead.

Well, I'm sorry to say it, but I will once again have to leave the blog one day behind. Not because of exhaustion (though I am exhausted!) but because there is an enormous thunder storm headed straight for me. If La Poderosa doesn't come through for me, it's going to be a long, cold night!

Km cycled today: 60
Km cycled total: 2864

-Ben.

PS: I realize that my title has been rendered irrelevant by this abrupt ending. Consider it a preview of tomorrow's post.
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Day 39: Austria

Well, yesterday started on a sad note: Felix, who has been quietly suffering from a persistent illness that we've taken to calling the Indian Stomach Viper, headed back to Paris in search of medical expertise. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery and perhaps even a return to the road in a few days!

We ended up spending another day in Fussen, and I began to feel like I was staying at a luxurious Caribbean resort. Of course, the experience was not nearly as enjoyable for Felix, and I feel a bit badly writing so enthusiastically about it -- but my days consisted of 4-5 swims in the picturesque lake outside our door and delicious meals at the Thai restaurant in town. Even after Felix's departure yesterday morning, I considered staying one more day. (It didn't help that the previous night I had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning chatting, swimming, and star-gazing with the hotel owner, a delightful, disheveled, and indefatigable man named Christian, and several of his friends and employees. Combined with an early start to get Felix on the road, I managed only 3 hours of sleep.)

In any event, I realized that if I stayed another night, I would very likely once again find myself crawling into bed as the sun was rising, and then stay another night to recover, and so on. I might, in other words, never leave Fussen. Worse things could happen to a person, but it was time to hit the road.

I pulled out of town around 2PM, after one last meal at the Thai restaurant, which I believe I patronized 6 times in the course of 3 days. Austria begins just one kilometer outside Fussen, but the border is completely unmarked and I did not even realize that I had entered a new country until 10 kilometers down the road, when I noticed that I understood even fewer of the road signs than usual. It was at this point that it occurred to me that I was traveling in a country whose language I do not even know how to say hello in. So far, I have been able to get by with my rag-tag collection of German phrases and, far more importantly, my English. It helps that I am riding through tourist towns.

The terrain quickly became hilly and steep as I neared the end of my first valley. The scenery was beautiful: verdant hills, mountains on all sides. Very hills-are-alive-with-the-sound-of-music type stuff.

About an hour outside of Fussen, I crossed paths with a mountain biker named Rhinehardt. A software executive from Munich, he was out for the day trying to, in his words, "drop a few kilos." He certainly chose the right place to do it. I let him lead us down the valley, and the quickly turned to steep gravel climbs and descents. I climbed much faster than Rhinehardt, but on the downhills the gravel forced me to go extremely slowly, so we ended up playing a game of hopscotch as Rhinehardt raced down the hills on his mountain bike. At a few points, the hills were too steep for Rhinehardt and far too off-road for me, so we pushed our bikes -- which is at least as exhausting as riding. Once you stop on a steep incline, you have no choice but to push the bike the rest of the way.

I assumed Rhinehardt knew where he was going (we quickly left the Via Claudia) and he did, in a general sort of way. Still, it was clear that he was following a mountain biking route that added plenty of extra climbs and was not exactly designed with my thinner touring tires, and fully loaded rear rack, in mind. Fortunately, I had replaced my rear tire in Fussen at Christian's insistence -- had I been riding with the old tire, there's no doubt I would have been sidelined with flats.

I had also replaced my brakes in Fussen, which was a good idea but had bad short-term effects. Brakes take a few hundred kilometers to work optimally, as the brake pads shape themselves to the wheel's rim, and that meant that my braking power was limited on the nearly vertical all-terrain descents we encountered. Rock climbers often use special exercise tools to strengthen their grip; I've always found them painful and boring. Instead, I propose the following to any climbers looking for a good grip exercise: get on a bicycle with 50lbs of gear on the back and find an extremely steep, rocky, slippery descent. Now, make sure your brakes are not fully operational. Also, make sure there is a cliff on the side of the path that you will go flying off of if the bicycle gets out of control. Repeat 25 times. After yesterday's ride, my wrists were so exhausted that I couldn't hold my own silverware.

I spent the night in Lermoos, a very pretty tourist town (I'd estimate that 80% of the buildings were hotels) that sits directly in the shadow of Zugspritze, the tallest mountain in Germany.

I had intended to bring the blog all the way up to speed, but a description of today's ride will have to wait. Watching the World Cup go into two overtimes ate into my blogging time, and now I am falling asleep as I type.

Tomorrow I'll cross into Switzerland and then Italy. I still have not decided if I will spend the next week in Switzerland, or if I'll head directly South. Suggestions would be much appreciated.

Km cycled 2 days ago: 15
Km cycled yesterday: 60
Km cycled today: 92
Km cycled total: 2804

Until tomorrow!
-Ben.
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Day 35: All Roads Lead to Milan

That, at least, is where I've booked a flight home from, departing July 25th. Felix and I have some major route decisions to make in the coming days, and it's not clear if I'll arrive in Milan by bicycle or train. Very preliminarlily, it looks like we will abandon the original plan of making a right turn into Switzerland and instead continue straight south, possibly to Venice. Either way, can hardly believe that I've only got two weeks of cycling left! For his part, Felix may continue cycling after I leave, heading in the direction of Montenegro to meet his family for vacation. Sounds like a neat trip.

A brief update on what we've been up to, and then some photos:

Left Schillingsfürst around 9AM two days ago, still following the Romantic Road, which has proved to be a great cycling route. Mid-day we passed through Dinkelsbühl, a town that dates to the 7th century. During the 30 Years War, the town was conquered by the Swedish, and became officially Protestant after the Peace of Westphalia. Conflicts between Catholics and Protestants continued for several centuries though. The town miraculously escaped both World Wars unscathed, so these days it's a really nicely preserved example of a medieval German town. Plus it has a really cool name. The day ended twelve hours later when we arrived in Donaüworth, the start of the Via Claudia Augusta.

The Via Claudia Augusta is a trade route that dates to the beginning of the Common Era. It connects the Danube River, in Donaüworth, with the Adriatic Sea, in Venice, and the Po River, and was the first major route that crossed the Alps. It should be a lot of fun to ride.

The next day, we planned a massive day from Donaüworth to Füssen, which lies at the foot of the Alps, about 1km from the Austrian border. Felix, who has not had the benefit of 2000km of 'warm-up' cycling, decided to take a train for some of the way, which was a wise choice, since the first 100km of cycling ended up being rather dull. The scenery was nice but not jaw-dropping, and the towns were unremarkable. To make matters worse, I managed to get lost several times, adding a good 15km of riding to an already sufficiently full day!

At lunch time, I chatted with a Ukrainian man in a small-town bakery. As it happened, he was from Odessa. I told him I was the world's leading expert on 19th century British travelers' experiences in Odessa. My sarcasm I'm afraid, was lost in translation, and he kindly pretended to be impressed that I was knowledgeable on such an important historical topic. (For the record, the actual leading expert on Odessa, and the travelers who passed through it, is Patricia Herlihy at Brown.)

About 50km outside of Füssen the landscape changed dramatically: suddenly the Alps came into view on the horizon and the terrain turned into beautiful rolling green hills. The beautiful scenery meant I was less irritated when I once again became terribly lost. By the time I arrived in Füssen at 9PM, the odometer read 185 km, by far the longest day yet this trip.

Felix and I watched the Germany-Spain game with a huge crowd in Füssen. Watching Germany lose while surrounded by 300 die-hard fans was a bit of a downer. But our spirits were lifted when we met the owner of the hostel we were staying at, named Stefan, who drove down to town to pick us up. We had agreed to meet in the common room of a different (fully booked) hostel and after waiting just two or three minutes, Stefan slid into the room in a classic, Kramer-style entrance, and shouted "Are you the USA people!?" He seemed to be the one German in Füssen that night whose spirits weren't dampened by Germany's defeat, and we spent several hours chatting with him about his youth in East Germany. His English is poor, so it was a bit of a struggle to understand what was a very complex story, but it seems he was imprisoned by the communist government for anti-communist activities. Eventually, his release was "purchased" by the West German government. He now runs a bicycle shop and hostel outside Füssen. We finished the night with a midnight swim in the lake behind the hostel. In the distance, we could see the Neuschwanstein Castle. Great way to end the night.

Today we are taking a day off in Füssen. Spent the morning sleeping in and going for a swim, and then this afternoon cycled up to the Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle.

Now on to the photos which, as usual, are horribly out of order:

The view from Neuschweinstein, the 'fairy-tale' castle:


View of the castle from below:


View of the castle from further below:


Felix heads for the water this afternoon. We are camped about 50 feet from this beautiful, sky-blue lake, just outside Füssen.


The view from the descent into Füssen:


First view of the Alps!


A milestone on the Via Claudia Agusta. For months, I've been looking forward to seeing this mile marker, thinking it was the original stone column. Instead, it is an imitation, and appears to be made of plastic. Oh well.

Cycling on the Romantische Straße, or Romantic Road:

The view from our campsite outside Würzberg:

Felix on the Old Bridge in Würzberg:

All of the bridges in Bavaria have statues of (what I assume are) saints. The bridge in Würzberg has eight, and all are particularly striking:

I jump off a bridge outside Würzberg for a swim in the Main:

Another bridge statue:

One last look at the Wiser River, my cycling companion for nearly a week:

Felix and I took a swim in this nice pond during a screaming hot afternoon:

Yet another bridge statue:

Yet another Felix:

Felix jumps into the Main:


That's all the photos for now. Tonight, we will camp behind the same hostel we stayed in last night, and tomorrow we'll set off for Austria and the Alps!

Km cycled yesterday: 185
Km cycled today: 24
Km cycled total: 2637

-Ben.

Day 31: Road Romance

When we woke up this morning, it didn't take long to figure out what the rustling sounds we'd heard last night were: a bird had discovered our protein bar stash and had eaten several, leaving the wrappers for us to take care of. Each of those bars has 42 grams of protein -- so that is going to be a very, very strong bird.

Felix and I have developed an interesting wake-up routine that must be a real sight to see for the folks who camp in our vicinity. First a bit of backstory: In Bamberg, I bought us a 2-man tent for €16, which seemed like a great idea at the time. (A good tent costs about 10 times that much.) And actually, the tent is not as bad as it could be, and if it doesn't break in the next few days (that's a big if) it will have been worth the money. It is essentially a giant tarp supported by two very thin poles, each of which seems to be constantly on the verge of snapping. We've named the tent La Poderosa, after Che and Ernesto's banged up motorcycle.

Because La Poderosa is nothing more than a thick plastic tarp, it is not breathable at all. Thus, on a cold night, the moisture from our breath condenses on the tent roof and drips down onto us. It's very refreshing.

Anyway I am still getting around to describing our morning routine: The other consequence of having a tent with no breathability is that it gets very hot inside. The sun rises here at around 5AM. Felix and I wake up around 7:30AM. That means that for about 2.5 hours the tent slowly morphs from a comfortable (if damp) room temperature to a scorching hot, sauna-like oven. So the resulting routine looks like this: the alarm goes off and we wake up and find ourselves drenched in sweat and barely able to breath. We then tumble over each other as we try to hurl ourselves out the (tiny) tent door as quickly as possible without leaving our sleeping bags. Safely outside, we sprawl on the cool wet grass for about 10 minutes, panting and enjoying the feeling of breathing. By this point, the morning sun has also superheated our sleeping bags, and we are left with no choice but to get up and moving. The whole process involves a considerable amount of shouting and we've gotten more than a few strange looks as we come shooting out of the tent only to flop right back down outside. It does get us moving though.

Today's ride took as along the Main for another 20km before we crossed the river on a small ferry and headed due south. It took some time to find the path, which was poorly marked and did not have the same name as what our map indicated. We debated whether or not it was the right way, and eventually Felix convinced me to give it a shot. For about 30km, we followed the path as it moved from light gravel to recently paved, very smooth blacktop, all very sparsely signed and completely empty except for us. We really had our fingers crossed that we were headed the right way -- but, at the same time, the riding was absolutely spectacular, with vineyards and wheat fields and rolling hills and valleys in every direction, so we weren't inclined to stop and check the map. Lo and behold, we soon emerged in Beiberhefeld (or, as we called it, Justinbeiberville), which is where we had hoped to end up.

In Beiberhefeld, we joined the Romantic Road, which is a route that connects a whole series of towns in Bavaria that are considered quintessentially German: churches, castles, and mountains everywhere. It's a major tourist destination in Germany, since it traverses some classic sites, like the so-called Cinderalla Castle in Fussa, where we hope to be in two days.

Mid-afternoon we pulled into Rotenburg, a city that is preserved in its medieval state. Hitler apparently considered Rotenburg the paragon of German cities, and the Nazi youth would take field trips there. (I learned from Lisa that, these days, every German high school student is required to visit a concentration camp. Quite a contrast.) During WW2, the town was spared from destruction because the Nazi general in charge of defending it ignored Hitler's orders and surrendered, rather than have the town demolished by artillery. At the same time, American officials at the Defense Department were apparently aware of the town's historical import, and actively avoided harming it.

These days Rotenburg is a massive tourist hub. After a steep climb into the town, Felix and I rolled into the city center, bumping our way down the cobblestone streets. We immediately noticed that Americans were everywhere, and a few minutes later we learned why, when a high school band started in on a concert in the main plaza. They were from Colorado, and Rotenburg was the last stop on a 16-day, 8-country tour. We enjoyed watching them play while we ate some ice cream in the shade.

We spent about 3 hours in Rotenburg, walking through the churches and soaking up the medieval vibes. Around 5PM, we left and rode 20km into Schillingsfurst, which is home to a massive fortress high on a cliff that is visible from miles away. Felix promptly fell asleep while I went for a swim in a nearby lake. Great way to finish the day.

I'm wrapping up this post at the end of the next day of riding (camped in Donauworth), but updates on today will have to wait, since I'm beat and planning on a pre-dawn start tomorrow.

Km cycled yesterday: 96
Km cycled today: 130
Km cycled total: 2432

-Ben.
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Day 31: Ein Gut 4th

Got rolling yesterday a bit late in the morning. By mid-afternoon we were in Fulda, the mouth of the Fulda River, and the point at which our route left the German river network. That was a shame, since following a river, we've learned, ensures three things: 1) easy navigation 2) flat terrain and 3) good scenery. For the rest of the day we had the latter but definitely not the flat terrain.

At 4PM we stopped cycling and joined a large group of Germans watching the World Cup game projected on a screen in a clubhouse. I confess that I began to nod off at times, but woke up with a start each time the Germans scored, unleashing utter hysteria among our viewing party. It's difficult to describe how intensely the fans react to a goal, or even a missed goal. It's at once exciting, hilarious, and terrifying.

Besides being hilly, the day was also extremely hot and humid. Felix is coming from Delhi, were he dealt with temperatures as high as 45 Celsius. I, on the other hand, can feel the energy melt out of me as soon as the temperature crosses upwards of 30 degrees. We pulled into camp at 6PM and spent the next 15 minutes pouring cold water on our heads.

Fortunately, today was a different story: overcast and cool for the entire day, we made great time, despite a mid-morning flat tire on Felix's bike. By noon, we had joined the Main (rhymes with 'mine') River, which meant smooth, flat cycling, aided by a tailwind. We stopped mid-afternoon at a bridge and took a swim. Felix decided that it would be a good idea to jump off the bridge, which he promptly did while I watched from below.

Felix made the whole thing look so fun that I decided I should join in, so I climbed up to the top of the bridge and promptly discovered that it was really quite a long way down. But by this point a small crowd had gathered to watch the tall American jump to his death, so there was no going back. I climbed over the railing and hurled myself off -- and lived to tell the story. It did sting the feet a bit, though.

We carried on down the Main to Wurzberg, where I ate my favorite Bavarian meal: bratwurst, sauerkraut, and a wheat-based beverage. Then we spent about an hour exploring the city, which is really quite striking. It was almost entirely destroyed in the course of 17 minutes during a British bombing raid in 1945, but the major buildings and monuments have been reconstructed just as they were before the war. We also stopped for a round of gelatto. Carbo-loading -- very important, you know.

Just down the river we found our campsite, where we arrived around 6:30 and set up a tent right on the Main, with a view of the Marienburg fortress. (I strongly recommend searching 'Wurzberg' on Wikipedia just to enjoy a taste of our surroundings.) With time and energy to spare, we decided to toss a frisbee, and that quickly turned into a challenge over who could toss a frisbee across the river. Only one way to find out: Felix set off to swim to the other side (a good ways away, fighting a strong current) while I gave myself a pep-talk and did whatever else you might do if you had just bet that you could throw a frisbee across one of Germany's larger rivers. Alas, it was not to be -- my throw fell short, as did Felix's return shot.

As we chased down stray throws, though, we noticed a bridge about 300 meters up the river, and, given the great success of our earlier bridge jump, along with the strong current, decided it might be fun to jump off the bridge and float our way back to camp. We walked to the bridge but a depth-check revealed that jumping would be a poor choice, so we waded in and floated our way home, the sun setting over the steeples of Wurzberg in the distance.

Despite our best efforts to explain to people that today is a major holiday in the US, we were unable to convince anyone to put on a fireworks display for us. Instead, we're enjoying a 10PM bedtime and looking forward to another early start. Tomorrow's route takes us through Rothenburg, a fully restored medieval city, which we are looking forward to.

Km cycled yesterday: 85
Km cycled today: 120
Km cycled total: 2236

Happy 4th!
-Ben
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Day 29(?): Friends In Bad Places

Felix and I enjoyed a hot, humid and hilly day cycling along the Fulda River. We moved slowly at times as Felix adjusted to his new gear (he bought his bike, I believe, three days ago) but he was soon an old pro at clipping into his new pedals. Gear shifting technique remains a work in progress.

We both huffed and puffed our way up the few (small) climbs we encountered -- today was the first time I've seen anything steeper than a rolling meadow since Sweden.

We arrived at our destination for the night, a town called Bad Hersfeld, around 8PM. I was famished and ordered an array of different types of sausages from the open air market in the town plaza. Felix was too tired to eat so he took a nap on the bench across from me as I ate.

Just as Felix had worked up the energy to track down some food we spotted a friendly German couple admiring our bikes, and waved them over to chat. We ended up talking with them for well over an hour, poring over maps of the days ahead, and got some great advice on our route to Donauworth, where we will begin our ride south into Austria.

Daylight was fading and we were without a place to sleep, so we headed for the youth hostel marked on our map. It turned out that the hostel was only for card carrying members of a particular organization -- something we might have known were we able to understand the pages of helpful notes, all in German, that accompany our maps.

We cycled down the street to look for a park or field where we could pitch a tent, and in rapid succession met a series of incredibly friendly locals. The first was a doctor who we chatted with for quite a while before he began hunting for other local hostels on his iPhone. As he was doing that, we bumped into a few of the doctor's neighbors who offered us a patch of grass to pitch a tent in the yard. And then, just as we were about to accept that offer, we met an elderly man who spoke flawless English (a former English teacher, he told us -- would love to know more of his story) and who pointed us towards a large field that, he explained, was owned by the youth hostel but is completely unused. We settled on the latter option, and took a certain satisfaction in knowing that we would sleep on the property of the hostel that had shunned us.

Sleeping spot located, we headed into town to explore the Friday nightlife, enjoyed ourselves for a few hours but quickly ran out of steam. Felix is now sound asleep, and looking very comfortable on a mattress that he found nearby. I am matress-less but intend to be as contendedly unconscious within about 30 seconds.

Km covered today: 112
Km covered total: 2143

-Ben.
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5-Day Recap, and Felix Arrives!

Last summer, I think it was in Wyoming, my cousin Jay and I decided it would be fun to switch bicycles for an hour or so. Well, we did that and rode for about 100 yards before the whole experience was too unbearable to continue. Jay memorably described riding my bike by comparing it to riding the type of motorcycle where the handlebars are above eye-level. For my part, Jay's pedals were so uncomfortable that I felt as if my feet were pointing straight at each other. In reality, of course, my handlebar was perhaps an inch higher than Jay's, and his pedals angled just a few degrees differently than mine.

This is all to say that when you've ridden a few thousand miles on a bicycle even the slightest change makes a tremendous difference. So when I set out from Verden with my new pedals last Saturday afternoon, it took me most of the day to adjust. My knees hurt and it took me forever just to clip my left foot in. Besides a memorable lunch in Neinburg -- a city so completely built of brick (roads, buildings, walls) that it felt like a very dignified lego creation -- the day passed rather painfully and without excitement. I pulled into a campsite after only 80 kilometers.

I took advantage of my early stop and finished the 2nd Steig Larsson book. The book was, in a word, terrible. In two words, gruesomely terrible. A sample sentence: "He keeled over in pain as her steel-toed boot slammed into his crotch with 120 kg per cm of force." Poetic.

Another highlight comes when the novel's heroine solves Fermat's last theorem in the middle of an attempt (spoiler alert!) to assassinate her father, and shrugs the whole thing off as if it had been obvious. I'm sure Andrew Wiles would be delighted.

Anyway, it was nice to be done with that book. I do not intend to read the 3rd.

The next day was, as I wrote, one of my favorite of the whole trip, though not for any particularly noteworthy reason. It was Sunday, and cyclists were out in force. Not racers or people exercising, but families and couples dressed in casual clothes out enjoying the view. I stopped at a brunch buffet that had been set up on the river bank and spent nearly 2 hours relaxing, people-watching, and making many return trips to the buffet table.

By 4PM, though, things had changed. Germany was playing England in the world cup, and I can honestly report that I may as well have been cycling through a ghost country. The only signs of life were the buzz of the vuvazoolas through open windows and the occasional shouts of joy when Germany scored. I could practically keep score based on the yelling I heard when passing through towns.

There actually was one other person not watching the game that afternoon: a fighter jet pilot. He apparently decided that with the rest of country indoors, it would be a good time to practice his air show tricks. (I am have no clue if the pilot was a man or a woman, so forgive me for assuming he was a he.) Anyway, I nearly went into cardiac arrest when his jet came screaming down a wheat field right over my head. It was as if Hitchcock were filming North by Northwest 2, and had replaced the crop-duster with a fighter jet (and Cary Grant with me). Anyway, the pilot spent almost 30 minutes doing pretty unbelievable loops and spins right in front of me -- I found a shady spot and enjoyed the private show.

The next day I cycled the 30km to Holzminden and hopped on a train to Bamberg to visit my friend Lisa and her family, a side trip I've been looking forward to, well, basically ever since I last visited them 18 months ago.

The visit was exactly what I needed, and consisted of two and a half days of poolside relaxation and extensive sampling of Lower Franconion cuisine. As a result of my stay in Bamberg, I have a new tent, new haircut, and clean laundry -- the latter two items thanks to Lisa's mom Gabi, to whom I am eternally indebted.

Lisa is headed off to France with friends on Friday, and her boyfriend, Sebastian, set off yesterday on his motorcycle, planning to take back roads and arrive on four days later at the same place. As we were preparing dinner on Tuesday, Gabi realized we needed bread and charcoal. Sebastian volunteered to make a run to the store on his motorcycle, and invited me along.

Now, I like Sebastian a lot, and I'm very grateful for his offer to take me for a spin. But he was -- how shall I put this -- he was not exactly sympathetic to the fact that I have spent the past month more or less living on a vehicle that accelerates only as quickly as my legs allow (that is to say, slowly). We shot out of the driveway and rocketed through the streets of Sand (Lisa's hometown), and I held a deathgrip on the back of the bike and prayed I would live to see another day. After what seemed like hours (and was, in reality, 3 minutes), we arrived at the grocery store, and I hurled myself onto solid ground and promised myself that I'd never ride anything but a bicycle again. Sebastian, for his part, laughed and remarked that we hadn't even left town. If we'd made it to the highway, he said, "we could have really gotten moving." I assured him that wouldn't be necessary.

Anyway, with great difficulty I left Bamburg on Wednesday, sorry to say goodbye to the Strasser family but excited to see Felix. Unfortunately, Felix sent word that morning that he had hit a snag, so we decided to meet in Hann. Munden, 82 kilometers down the road from Holzminden.

On my end, everything went according to plan and by 4PM I was riding south again. There are few better feelings in the world, I think, than getting back on a bicycle after two days off. I don't really know how to describe it, except to say that it feels like being allowed to breathe after a long time holding your breath, or stretch after a long time on an airplane. With rested legs, everything seems to fly by. Even if it's humid and hot (which it was) everything seems gorgeous and exciting. Suffice to say, it was nice to be back.

I arrived in Hann. Munden around 8PM and found Felix -- well, Felix found me, actually, and scared me half to death when he shouted my name -- doing laps around the train station. We celebrated his arrival with a meal in the town plaza and a trip to the ice cream shop before setting up camp on an island campsite. As the sun set, we tossed a frisbee and shared stories from the summer so far. It is good to have some company again.

Hann. Munden marks the mouth of the Wiser River, which now forks into two smaller rivers, the Werra and the Fulda. We will follow the latter for the next two days. The terrain is becoming hillier as we move south, and over the next 100 kilometers we will ascend slowly but steadily to 500 meters. The mountains are coming, no doubt about it.

Km covered Monday: 28
Km covered yesterday: 82
Km covered so far: 2031

Until later tonight!
-Ben.
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