Itinerant Philosopher

Those of you following our eleven-month adventure solely via this blog have probably been wondering if we’re still alive. We are, in fact, still breathing. But we’re no longer cycling. We’ve completed that portion of our travels and are currently touring England (by car).

Starting on March 17, over the course of 27 cycling days, we pedaled *just* under 1,000 miles (981 miles, or if you’re not American, 1,578KM) from Nantes, France, and reached Vienna, Austria, on May 1. We took the train for a few segments (skipping a few hundred miles) because it was either pouring rain or bitterly cold. After one majorly miserable cold & thoroughly soaking day of riding, we decided skipping ahead by train on challenging weather days was an excellent option. 

The official EuroVelo 6 route took us along the Loire and Soâne rivers in France, the Rhine in Switzerland, and the Danube in Germany and Austria. This made for minimal climbing (except for two days that ended with freaking long, steep hills). We were usually in sight of the river, though EuroVelo often took us along paralleling canals, through dazzlingly yellow mustard or rapeseed fields, light-dappled forests brimming with birdsong, and not-quite often enough, vineyards and fruit tree orchards.

We’d initially planned to continue cycling past Vienna on to Prague and then on to Amsterdam (with a brief interlude for Joy’s early-May teaching engagement), but there’s a lot to see in Europe! We ended up averaging just over 36 miles each day rather than 50. Most days we mixed cycling with visits to historical sites, museums, chateaus, or cathedrals. Or we just explored the beauty of walking along tranquil cobblestoned villages and hamlets, where many of the houses are older than the US. We also hadn’t taken into account that the Spring of 2023 throughout Europe was going to be especially cold and rainy which often meant waiting until 10am before setting out in still finger- and toe-numbing cold. As a result of our slower pace, a few weeks into our ride we decided that ending our cycling in Vienna was a reasonable place to hop off our bikes.

We stopped cycling just as everyone else seemed to be getting on theirs. As we mentioned in an earlier post, around Easter we finally started seeing other touring cyclists. Throughout April the number of other folks out cycle touring really started to ratchet up. We noticed that 80% of them were on electric bikes. We also noticed a lot of solo women touring cyclists, as well as a fair number of older couples traveling by bike.

Cycling highlights and a few lowlights

We have many wonderful EuroVelo 6 memories, and several adventures that we would have missed if we’d been traveling by car. In addition to cycling through the middle of two French deer hunting parties we described in a previous post, here are a few other favorite memories:

• In France, we stayed in a winery-turned-guest house run by a Michelin-starred chef who’d had enough of the Paris restaurant rat race. Dinner that night, in what had once been a cave for aging wines, was one of our gastronomic highlights. 
• The many times we decided it was time for a break and settle down in a boulangerie for an expresso and a flakey, buttery croissants or a just-perfect pain au chocolat.
• Repairs to a canal lock in France sent us on a brief detour. Within moments the path went from nice hard-packed fines to wet, sloppy mud several inches deep. The mud was doubly awful — both slippery enough that even walking was treacherous and clingy enough that a thick layer clung to our shoes and wedged itself between our wheels and fenders so the tires stopped turning. It took us about 10 minutes to drag our bikes 100 yards through the mud, then an additional 30 minutes to scrape off enough mud from our wheels, brakes, and shoes to get going again. You know things are bad when Joy is swearing. (If I’m swearing, it just means I’m awake.)
• Cycling along a canal that went up and over the Loire.

• We were nearly always serenaded by birds (a benefit of cycling far from roads & cars). It made me realize how little birdsong we typically hear at home. On rare occasions we’d hear a cuckoo call, and we’d pause in anticipation of more Cuckoo song (which sounds just like those famous German clocks). Sometimes the mixture of tweets, chirps, whistles, coos, trills, and warbles was so melodic that I’d stop cycling and take off my sunglasses so I could really focus on the sound. I bet you’re thinking, “Take off your sunglasses so you could hear better?” Why, yes! Joy bought us each bluetooth sunglasses. That allowed us to play music (or podcasts) while we cycled, yet still be able to hear things like approaching cars or chat with each other when we rode side-by-side.
• EuroVelo6 took us through the middle of Austria’s famous Wachau wine region past vineyards of *just* leafing-out Grüner Veltliner vines that will eventually produce full-bodied, pepper-tinged whites or vines that will turn into delicious rich & steely Riesling. Although we were far too early to see grapes on the vine anywhere along our route, we greatly enjoyed drinking local wines at both lunch and dinner. We had imagined more of our ride would be through vineyards but lots of grapes prefer steep slopes for sun exposure and drainage, so trading off cycling past still-dormant vines for a flatter road seems like a fair trade-off.
• Spring time in Germany and Austria means wild garlic. We’d started seeing wild garlic soup on menus in Germany. In Austria our route often took us past beautiful, swathes of tiny white-flowered wild garlic which give off a lovely soft aroma rather than a pungent odor. It was always nice to pedal past another patch blanketing the forest floor.  
• We spent a night at Weltenburg Abbey, which sits on a dramatic bend of the Danube river. Weltenburg is considered the oldest monastic brewery in the world (operating since 1050), and its beers often win “World’s best dunkel” awards. Our room looked right out onto the Danube, and the birdsong was amazing. It would have been romantic if we weren’t in an Abbey. Everything about the room was designed to deter any potential hanky panky.    
• In Austria’s remote and sparsely populated Eferding Basin, steep cliffs come right up to the Danube and the tiny villages that dot either edge of the river are few and far between so there’s not a continuous road down near the shore. One day our route required three 10-minute ferry trips and two bridges back and forth across the Danube.
• The city of Lucerne is over-the-top idilic. Its “perfect cuteness” feels like a Disney-managed theme park. We enjoyed the cruise we took on the lake, and were stunned to learn that the lake water is so clean you can drink from it.  

• Early on we noted that we were cycling past a lot of swans. When we lived in the Bay Area, and even more-so in Oregon, seeing a swan at a park lake isn’t exactly rare, but it’s not that common either. But in Europe we were seeing a lot of swans. We didn’t see swans every day, but almost every day, and usually a bunch. A few days before reaching Vienna I decided I’d do a “swan count.” In our first hour of cycling l counted 34! That happened to be a particularly “swan-y” section of the Danube so we settled on 50 swans/day. And we decided we saw that many on 20 of our 27 cycling days. For those of you who are math-challenged, that’s 1,000 swans — which is more than one swan per mile we cycled! 
• We were so grateful for the EuroVelo system. Routes were almost always really well marked and we were often  riding along either dedicated bike paths or at paths restricted to mixed pedestrians & bike traffic. We appreciated how often benches and picnic tables were set up along the paths. And I particularly appreciated the cycling way-stations that provided bike repair stands (with air pumps) sheltered seating, and restrooms. Even with those restrooms, I still managed to “wild pee” my way across France, Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. 
• We expected Easter in Europe to be different from the US. It was. In Germany & Austria, they decorate eggs the way we do. But instead of hiding them, they hang them for trees in their front yards — like Christmas decorations. People left them hanging for a looong time after Easter, so I’m guessing that they were either fake eggs or they’d sucked the contents out. While we planned for things to shut down around Easter weekend, we didn’t realize that everything shuts down for the whole week after Easter. By Easter Thursday I was thinking, “C’mon, man! He’s been alive again for days. Open up!”
• The always delightful surprise of discovering something that reminds us that we weren’t in the US, like vending machines along the side of the road that sell baguettes, or fresh local produce, or bottles of wine.
• Our last day of cycling, which should have been a “victory lap” ride of just 28 miles, was one of our worst. We faced severe headwinds all day with consistent 30MPH gusts. The ride should have taken roughly two hours. Instead, it was an arduous 3+ hours, made even more frustrating by watching all the wind-aided day cyclists barely pedaling as they zoomed by in the other direction. Joy secretly reveled in the fact that they’d all have to ride back in the other direction to get home. I spent the day smiling at these people and whispering at them, “Fuck you! I hate you all!”
• Visiting Mozart’s house in Vienna and then attending a concert in St. Peter’s Church where a string quartet played some of his pieces.

Silent but Deadly

We never heard other cyclists call out an equivalent to the “on your left” warning as they passed us or pedestrians. I had practiced calling out, “à ta gauche” for France and  “Zu deiner Linken” for Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, but decided using my bike bell was more efficient and didn’t suffer from poor mispronunciation.

I’ve always been extra cautious around pedestrians and want them to know I’m approaching from behind. All along our route I would ring my bell well in advance because I didn’t want to surprise folks. Even so, I surprised folks. It struck me as odd how often pedestrians would jump with panic at the sound of my bell. Sometimes walkers would thank me as I passed by. But mostly they seem bug-eyed. 

Conversely, other cyclists often surprised and scared the crap out of us when they’d zip by, unannounced. E-bikes, in particular, were bad because they cover a lot of ground quickly. Several times we experienced cyclists overtake us and then squeeze into that space between us and on-coming bikes or pedestrians —  reminiscent of driving in the Bay Area.

A week after we’d finished cycling I was talking with a group of Swedes attending Joy’s Amsterdam class. One student mentioned that in most Nordic countries, it’s rude to use your bell. Cyclists only use their bells for emergency situations, the way you would normally use your car horn. That explained why I never heard other cyclists use bells and why pedestrians were freaked out when I used mine!  

Amsterdam cyclists, on the other hand, are seriously into their bike bells. I wandered around Amsterdam one day while Joy was teaching and got “dinged at” a few times for stepping into a bike path. In my defense, many European cities use paint to designate sections of sidewalks as bike paths, so it’s easy to accidentally cross into one if you’re sightseeing.

Post cycling/transitions 

We arrived in Vienna on May 1. Neither of us had visited Vienna before, so we spent 3 1/2 days sightseeing. We had wanted to take a train from Vienna to Amsterdam, but finding trains that would allow the bikes complicated things. We ended up taking a train to Cologne, Germany, where we spent another 3 nights sightseeing. On May 7 we took a series of three trains to get from Cologne to Amsterdam, which required mad dashes up & down train stations stairs, lugging our bikes and bags, to manage very short layovers.

One of the joys (no pun intended) of getting back to Amsterdam was that we were no longer limited to a small set of bike-related clothing. With the return of our extra luggage we’d stashed with Joy’s colleague, Joy was reunited with her underwear and I was reunited with my Bose sunglasses, which we’d accidentally left behind in Amsterdam. (Joy had arranged for an alternative pair of Bluetooth sunglasses part way through our ride, but I missed the higher-quality Bose sunglasses she’d bought me.) It was like a mini-Christmas morning when we opened up our suitcases and reveled in extra shirts, pants, socks, shoes, and underwear.

While Joy taught her multi-day class, I arranged to put our bikes and all related gear (helmets,  panniers, cycling clothes, tools, etc.) into long-term storage near the Amsterdam airport. It took me half the morning to thoroughly wash the bikes (their third washing on this trip, and there’s still some of that French mud stuck in hard-to-reach places), oil our chains & pedals, and check and tighten all the associated cycling bits and bobs. We decided to leave our bikes in Europe. We’ll likely ride our bikes around Europe in 2024, and it’s way cheaper to leave them in storage here than to ship them back and forth.  

Running 11 Month Travel Totals To Date:

For purposes of this post, I’m only counting stats up until we returned to Amsterdam (May 7). Four+ months into our eleven month trip we have been in (though Joy missed out on Mexico):

• US  States: 7 (Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi)
• Countries: 8 (US, Mexico, Cuba, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria)
• Different beds slept in: 53 (60 if you include same hotel/house but different rooms each visit), which averages, depending on how you count, a different bed every 2.1 or 2.4 days.