taking the long way home

hoechst – sargans – hoechst

124km

alex continues her tour towards france, so i accompanied her to sargans. you can follow her on her blog on: http://nomadesland-globebikeuse.blogspot.com/

i want to thank all the great people who helped me along the route and made the whole tour as enjoyable as it was.

here a little sum up: 35.000km 365.000 alti meter in 1,5 years

central america: los angeles to panama 8.000km

south america: cartagena – buenos aires 15.000km

newzealand 4.500km

china: hong kong – lanzhou 3.300km

europe: helsinki – bregenz 4.000km

sigiswang – hoechst (austria)

100km 1046 alti meter

what a perfect waether for my “last” day on this tour. amazing views along the route through the car-free road “rohrmoos”.

schwaigsee  – sigiswang

90km 840 alti meter

finally the weather changes and we get an amazing riding day on the rolling hills, with nice views of the castles, lakes, mountains….

gmund am tegernsee – schwaigsee

84km 745 alti meter

again stop and go on the rolling hills in the prealps (as we try to hide out some of the heavy rainshowers). we check out the old town of bad toelz before we head for some more climbs.

grabenstaett / chiemsee – gmund am tegernsee

88km 880 alti meter

after a night on a park bench and lots of cold rain we appreciated the comfortable bed in the farmers bed&breakfast.

salzburg / rif-taxach – grabenstaett / chiemsee (germany)

86km 661 alti meter

a day of detours and zig-zag. the rain was supposed to stop at noon so we have a longer lunch break trying to hide out the rain.

wolfgangssee – salzburg / rif-taxach

62km 367 alti meter

we met some more nice people along the way, but got more and more into the rain again after the fuschel lake. so we were glad to meet martin and happy that we could stay at his place. pizza dinner, ice cream desert and a funny walk around salzburgs old town… what a great diverse day!

transforming a nice clean apartment into a big mess

lambach – woflgangssee

86km 605 alti meter

we follow the traun river to the traun lake and then to bad ischl. then it is a uphill to the woflgangssee.

grein / struden – lambach

108km 473 alti meter

we see lots of cyclists on the danube cyclepath (mostly going downstreams). the concentration camp mauthausen leaves a sad impression and us quiet for a while…

duernstein – grein / struden

70km 254 alti meter

lots of rain in the night and only a short dry period in the morning. just like 3 years ago when i cycled here. instead of some short summer rain showers it rains constantly and it got cold. we transformed a bus stop into a warm and dry shelter for the night as the hotels are ridicules expensive around here!?

vienna – duernstein

103km 271 alti meter

following the danube upstreams. passing the nice old town of tulln and the wine gardens after krems.

vienna – rest day

i got the chance of meeting some more friends which i haven´t seen for years!? (shame on me!) with the great help of the guys from “technische taten” i should be able to ride back to vorarlberg with my bike.

the big bolt is supposed to keep the broken bottom bracket together!?

nice welding job!

running sushi dinner with alex, marlies & maciek

vienna – rest day / sight seeing

42km 200 alti meter

riding around doing some sightseeing and meeting some dear friends!

berg – vienna

82km 288 alti meter

we followed one of europe´s cycle-highways, the danube bikepath to vienna.

10km < trencin – berg (austria)

133km 376 alti meter

a fast day on the road, so we checked out the old town of bratislava before entering austria.

mojs – 10km < trencin

108km 292 alti meter

a stormy night with thunder and lightning (and the noise of the rock conveyor)

another crack in the frame!?

orava lake – majs (8km < zilina)

112km 582 alti meter

we crossed the dam and followed the orava river ´til it joins the vah river which will be our guide towards bratislava.

wisniowa – orava lake (SK)

87km 845 alti meter

we got up at 5 o´clock to avoid the unbearable midday heat. on the way to slovakia we passed some nice mountain villages with wooden churches, block houses and traditional farmers…

hold the horses, but not the kings man 😉

krakow – wisniowa

46km 412 alti meter

again a very hot day on the road, so it was not only pure interest which made us visit the salt mines in wieliczka (constant 14-16 degrees C in the up to 125m deep caves & tunnels).

…. the long way down ….

everything is built out of salt

the very religious miners built chapels and churches

steep cobble stone climb at 40 degrees C

krakow – rest day / sightseeing

we had a great time with magda & maciek in the nowa huta district.  the guys at the bike shop didn´t have time to check our bikes, but they let me use their tools so i could do some service to alex´s and mine bottom bracket.

cracow – rest day

time for a blog update, bike maintenance and some backups…. and some sightseeing of course! (but only if the temperatures drop in the late afternoon!?) andrzej gave us a interesting walking tour in the old town and jewish quarter of krakow.

ogrodzieniec – cracow

69km 417 alti meter

the rolling hills are getting steeper and longer. it is obvious that we are getting closer to the mountains. we tried to escape the brutal midday heat with a nap in the park of olkusz. after some more hot hills we roll downsteams the pradnik river through the ojcow national park. after checking in at the hostel a nice walk around old district of cracow.

piasek – ogrodzieniec

61km 694 alti meter

we pass some nice leaf tree forests and pine woods. the trails are sometimes just some sandy tracks which are not really bikeable (especially with a loaded bike), although they are signed out as the cycling route!?

kamiensk – piasek

96km 465 alti meter

we started early and got to czestochowa for lunch break and some sightseeing before getting on the “trail of the eagles nests” (the runins of medieval castles lay like bird nests on small hills in the jurassic upland).

domaniewice – kamiensk

100km 392 alti meter

the bottom bracket suffered again in this sandy rolling hills / detours, so i exchanged the chinese 8mm bolt that kept the bottom bracket together for more then 5500km!?

to hot to put on the rain cover of the tent, but some shelter from the mosquitos and the morning dew version a

to hot to put on the rain cover of the tent, but some shelter from the mosquitos and the morning dew version b

gora kalwaria – domaniewice

93km 387 alti meter

we left the vestula river and followed the pilica river valley. the cornfields changed to fruit & vegetables fields (strawberry, cherry,….)

a fair price for cyclists!

finaly some sport after a day on the bike!?

warsaw – gora kalwaria

40km 104 alti meter

magda & maciek from krakow gave us some great tipps about the route and whats to see along it! we left late and it´s alex´s b-day, so we checked in at the only motel in the village and watched the soccer game on tv.

warsaw – rest day / sightseeing

time to update the blogs and look at the further route, as the weather in town is to hot and almost paralyzing. marek took us on a sightseeing tour to some off the not so touristy but very historical parts of town.

the artist and his sculptures

the only few remaining walls in ww2 in the jewish quarter.

kampinos – warsaw

72km 181 alti meter

we ride the last 44km to warsaw and i finally can pick up my maps/ books (thanks to markus, renars, stiefel, mile, ewa….!?) marek our warmshower host wellcomes us at his place and konrad gives us a very intersting tour in the old town and the new town.

murzynowo – kampinos

91km 208 alti meter

we ride through the nice old town of plock and hear about the 22 villages only in this area who suffered from the floods a couple weeks ago.

once again a broken front rack!?