Days #25-34 – Almost there

To hell with pictures

I am out of luck with Internet for the time being. First it was a Mac, now I need administrator rights to plug my GPS. I uploaded some new ones (from Schopfheim until Lindau) but the rest have no GPS tag and cannot be uploaded to LOCR, maybe I’ll do it in another PC later. It is not a bid deal anyway because I am not taking as many pictures as before. I don’t know, somehow it all starts to look the same. Perhaps you say a very cool and old church in one of my last pictures? Well every town has a cool and old church… and a cool and old house, many of them actually. It is slowly not so impressive anymore. It still looks beautiful, but not worth a picture. I think I am a bit tired of the ride already, but it is almost over!

Summary of 9 days

I haven’t written in a long time, now it is hard to summarize all this time without writing an essay. I’ll try to summarize the important things. The last thing I wrote is that we arrived in Lindau. It was a bit weird there but good in the end. The last sprint to Lindau took a heavy toll on Daniel. He biked as hard as he could dreaming of Kässspätzle (sort of pasta with melted cheese) and counting on not touching the bike for some days… je je… surprise surprise, Katja has no car anymore! And she lives in a hill, a steep hill. We had food for the day we arrived but the next day Daniel could barely walk, and he had to bike the hill back up after shopping. That certainly put him in a bad mood for the day, bad “surprise”.

We did manage to have a good rest in Lindau. We stayed for 4 days (much more than planned) and Katja joined us on the biking to Sonthofen (1 day). After Lindau we’ve had plenty of hosts that have made the ride much easier. In Sonthofen we had Katrin who took us swimming (water in Europe is ALWAYS cold, but sometimes it is a necessity). Then we went to Reute, that is actually Austria but just besides Füssen, the land of the fairy tale castles. There are three huge castles nearby. One of them, Neuschwanstein, the most impressive, is the original inspiration for Disneyland’s castle… but is much better than Disney’s!

We stayed in Reute for an extra day but not for rest. Our host Beate was so increadibly nice, we just had to stay. She seemed so happy that we were there and she had that kind of good vibe, you know? She took us to see the castles at night, took us to another castle on the next day… Anyhow, it was wonderful… just to give you an idea of how good she treated us, look at the pic of what we found on our bed. A friend we met in Girona (who should have been our host in Immenstaat) dropped by in Reute and we toured the castles together.

Last free camping

We had our last free camping near Bad Tölz. There was a camping place nearby and of course we could have afforded it. But we realized that we haven’t payed a single euro for accomodation in Germany, not a cent!!! Most have been couchsurfers or friends and a bit of free camping, I find it unbelievable. On this last camping we found a hunting hut where we wanted to sleep, but 5 minutes after the mosquitoes were bitting through Daniel’s clothes. I don’t know why Europeans are so scared of tropical insects… the mosquitoes and flies here are much more aggressive than what I am used to!

Host’s parents

Not all of our couchsurfers and friends have been available, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t had hosts. Their parents are often just as friendly and hospitable! In Bad Endorf we were hosted by Vanessa’s (friend from Passau) parents and in Burgkirchen by Elisabeth’s (couchsurfer). We were served dinner and breakfast by both, and treated like at home. That is a great thing about camping so much, you can appreciate so much more the nice details that your hosts do for you. We are very thankful.

Flag is gone :’(

I am not sure how… you judge… It has happened only once that the wind took the flag away, that was when we set a new personal speed record, and that was a strong wind. But when we got to Burgkirchen, there was no wind and we were not riding that fast. We got to the house and our hosts saw the flag, then we went to the bakery and the butcher, left the bike outside, and when we arrived back home… the flag was gone. The stick is still there, but no flag. I know there was no wind because Daniel was sitting on the floor studying the maps and no wind moved the carefully ordered maps. Did the flag fell while (slowly) biking to the bakery? We searched the street (500m) 4 times and found nothing… did someone steal the flag…? I don’t know… but the flag is gone.

Finally in Passau!

This concludes another stage of the trip. Germany is finished! We were making numbers and if we can hurry up a bit, we only have 4 biking days ahead of us!!! 4x biking and we are there!!!!! Thank “god”!!!! It is now not just the physical fatigue, that is normal now, I feel mentally exhausted. Making the effort every day, things look alike… in which direction is Ithaka now?

Stats

Day #25: Rest (Lindau)
Day #26: Rest (Lindau)
Day #27: Rest (Lindau)
Day #28: 74km – 4:20h (Sonthofen)
Day #29: 60km – 3:30h (Reute – Austria)
Day #30: Rest (Reute – Austria)
Day #31: 128km – 6:37h (Bad Tölz)
Day #32: 79km – 4:14h (Bad Endorf)
Day #33: 62km – 2:42h (Burgkirchen a.d. Alz)
Day #34: 114km – 4:49h (Passau)

Grand total: 2203km – 117:20h