So me (Andrew), Andrew and Andreas bicycled the Rhine River, more or less. It went something like this:

It ended up being about 1000 to 1100 miles over 18 to 21 days - depending on how you look at it - through Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France, Belgium and The Netherlands.

A slightly more detailed map is here: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3934489

Since it got started just over a month ago and since my inherent laziness senses some appealing symmetry in the following scheme, I will put up an entry each day more or less exactly one month after the events described occurred.

When did it start? When Andreas and I struggled up the Braunsberg as a practice run?

When I picked Andrew up at the airport and he was still sweepy the next day?

Or was it when the bikes had been assembled and we too had assembled at the minivan for a group photo?

Or after we’d tramped around Vienna so much that I had to put dollar bills in the straps of my sandals to ease the pain?

It probably started with the 10 (?) hour van ride from Vienna to Andermatt, Switzerland. Andreas, soon to be known as Dr. Dre, drove the whole way while the saintly Margit prepared for the long ride back.

Already inside jokes were being created.

Traffic jams near Munich. Last grocery stop in Austria. In the photo below, already we can see foreshadowed the titanic struggle between ‘dangerous thrift’ and ‘comfort’ that would soon be waged amongst the group.

The chocolate represents comfort. The anonymous 35 cent beans represent dangerous thrift.

We passed by Liechtenstein, keenly aware that, from here on out, we would be biking back across this terrain.

The scenery grew more wild but, more forebodingly, it began to rain as we climbed higher into the Alps.

We finally arrived at the Oberalppass and drove up the steep, serpentine road we would bike back down the next day.

And went down the descent that would be our rude, 600 meters over 11 kilometer awakening the next morning. As we went down in the fog, a lone, barrel-chested Swissman was one-handedly mowing the mountainside wearing neither a shirt nor any sign of fear. When I acquire The Island, he will be The Groundskeeper.

In Andermatt, we unloaded our stuff and bid farewell to Margit.

And then, in the cold, rainy night, we set up our tents, locked up the bikes and passed the night in shivers of excitement and coldness.