20 days in the Baltic

I really didn’t get a whole lot of time to explore the Baltic as I was doing a lot of training and getting ready to take over the ms Noordam 20 days later.

What I did see of the Baltic was amazing, the weather was really good and the views were amazing. Work was good and I have a strong feeling that I will be back in the Baltic in the future.

One thing that was really annoying was the fact that I didn’t have a Russian visa or seaman’s book so i couldn’t get off the ship in Russia. next time.

Riding out of Passau, Germany

When we got there we rode into the tourist information center and asked for a cycling map of the Danube, here is another tip, they give detailed books on how to ride down the Danube for free, they have everything in them from maps, to bike repair to food to camp grounds, all good stuff.

One of the many bike ferrys for crossing the Danube

So we set off, it was a hotter day but that is fine, I liked it better when it was hot than raining anyway.

The plan was to make as much ground on the first day so that we can take our time for the other days. There was some really amazing terrain and castles around which was great to see.

The Danube

So we rode 80km through towns and villages along the Danube, there were many other riders however they were a fair bit older than we were.

Our tent on the first night

The first night or camping there was thunderstorms, the weather could change really quickly, I had read about June / July thunderstorms but I figured it would not be a problem. It was not a problem because we were sleeping when it all happened. It was a big day so we went to bed early so we could get a good start in the morning.

1) buy a tent
2) find a map of the Danube
3) organise trains to Passau (where we were starting the ride down the Danube through Austria and into Bratislava).

We rode from the tent into the city and looked around for a bit, the train was easy, the other two took some time. Lucky for us we went to the city information centre in the middle of town and they showed us where a bike shop was (for a map) and where we should be able to get a tent. Things were looking good.

The Danube

Well we found the tent place, it was sort of a mountain design outdoors type store and had prices to match. Ryan wanted a thomas the tank engine tent but unfortunately no one in Germany knew of Kmart or thomas the tank engine so that was out. We did end up buying a proper tent because we needed it for the ride down the Danube and EXIT festival in Serbia, so we figured it would be a good investment, also we bought cooking stuff because we wanted to cook the whole way to save some cash.

We then rode onto the bike shop which was not as much help, they did have a thick book on cycling the Danube but it was in German, not so good. So after another look around we could not find anything and decided that we would just wing it when we get to Passau, as that is where a bulk of people ride from.

That night we went back to the tent, interneted it up and had some of their hippy food.

After locking up our bikes we had food and found out that the internet was free. Booyah. Much facebooking to be done.

We went to bed quite early because we had been travelling all day and the pain of having to reorganise trains mid trip was hard work.

Day out in Munich…..organising for the Danube ride

Time to get on the train......we can take our bikes on right?

The rest of the train ride was fine, it was long but fine. Lesson learned about high speed trains. Lessons are happening a lot on this trip.

Riding around Freiburg

We went for a swim at a lake near Matt and had a look through some vineyards. Freiberg and the surrounding area is really nice, as was the day before riding through the black forest.

Beer time

After a swim and seeing a lot of naked Germany people everywhere we drove into France for a look, it is crazy how quickly you can be in another country, by car anyway, by bike it takes a bit longer. At this point we started to try out the local beer and have some lunch that we threw together on Matts car (I hope that olive oil has come off).

Black Forest cake in the Black Forest

That night we rode our bikes around town, Freiberg is really bike friendly as it is a student town. There was a lot of activity because it was a Saturday night.

Bikes at the Pool

The next day we got up at noon and rode to the public swimming pools as it was another scorcher. The pools were packed but it was a nice day to lay on grass next to the pool. We also got Black Forrest Cake which was really nice, there were only a few places that had it in town so that was lucky.

somewhere in France

That night we watched the Euro 08 Spain V Italy. Spain won and Matt let the Italian restaurant down the rode know about it.

Spain Wins

Other than that it was a bit of a quieter night as the next day we had to get a train to Munich.

Bye Matt

It was good to “recover” at Matts from the Amsterdam and is defiantly somewhere I would like to go back to.

We caught an overnight train from Amsterdam to Stuttgart, then from there trained to frauidenstratt. Until this point there had not been many (any) hills, this was about to change. Getting off the train we could see that there were hills everywhere, not to mention the fact that we had not really slept much the night before.

The Black Forest (hills)

So we started out and after a few false starts we made our way in the right direction. And hit some hills but then had some awesome down hill slopes to go down. We soon learned that the area we were riding through was ski fields during the winter.

Drink Break

On the map it turned out that we would have to ride 97km from frauidenstratt to Freiberg, which is ok because we had already done that on a few legs…..but there were no mountains. This made me angry.

We continued to ride and had a few more wrong turns, then stopped for lunch as a small shop. After lunch we headed towards a mountain that had a sign saying 4km 20% gradient (trucks use low gear). There were no cycle paths anymore so we were on the road riding up this hill. After a short amount of time it was quicker to get off and push, so we did.

real dumb

Freiburg

I slept that night and they all went out, sleep was a good choice.