Pretty big day today. Luxuriated in the relative comfort of the hostel. Did Laundry. Went.

Traveled back through the old town of Basel.

Crossed the river a few times.

After some monkey business, we find the route and, suddenly, were deluged with francophone signposts and advertising. We had arrived in France.

We were now in Andrew’s World.

To fit the occasion, we stopped and had pain au chocolat.

Soon we found the Rhine/Rhone canal, which made for some of the nicest cycling of the trip. Often shaded, always straight with a nice consistency of riding surface and with slowboats here and there, the day was spent in pleasant pedaling.

We had lunch in Neuf-Brisac, which was one of my favorite towns along the way. The whole city is shaped like this:

Because it was built as an impenetrable fort by the French as a bulwark against the nearby Germans. Passing through the dried-up moats and high gates and seeing the grid pattern streets meant for maximum military efficiency, all of this made our stop at a Kebap stand seem epic. This is where I had my first french fail: Wanting fries, I asked for ‘pommes’ (pum-us) as the Austrians call them and then said “PUM” - which, I’m told, means ‘apple.’

More canal riding. Then a few Pssssssss flats. Then we found a campsite in Erstein, a massive complex of trailers and more trailers.

And we cuddled up with some of the folks and watched the World Cup final before going to bed. Damn you, Spain.

Woke up at campsite along the Rhine/End of the Bodensee. Went swimming in the early morning after watching one coot punk out two ducks.

After a slower start, we rolled on into a green, rolling countryside and one muggy day. We reached Stein am Rhein early in the morning.

The whole main square was filled with beautifully painted buildings.

We could see the monitor of the secretary in the Town Hall. He was watching the World Cup.

The building in the middle of this shot is a bike shop. Nice location.

I doubt this was actually the town of Gallingen…but let’s pretend it is. Gallingen was a semi-Waterloo. First, we start to climb a hill. About 10% of the way up this long, steep climb, Andreas and I realize we are going off route. Andrew trucks on up the hill. Being lazy, we call him on the phone to say we were off track.

Once we are reunited, we head back to the Rhine, cutting through a farm road and after half a rocky kilomter, we realize it too is a dead end. Damn you Gallingen.

After an hour or two, we made it to the Rheinfall at near Schaffhausen. This was the point where my last ‘Danube’ trip intersected the Rhine trip. The falls were impressive. I was hypnotized watching the flecks and whorls of white foam skitter across the rushing surface.

It was really hot. It was about midday at this point. And it was really hot. Actually, this turned out to be one of the hardest days because of the heat, the hills and the exertions of the three previous days were finally catching up to us. There were many hills.

Near some small town whose name I’ve forgotten, Andreas and I saw the frenemies for the first and last time. Klein was chilling outside a cafe. There was a water fight.

When we found a place to stop in Kuessaberg, we stayed there. This campground had a pool and a bar and we took advantage of both.

Having spent the last two nights outdoors, it was luxurious to sleep in inside. And so we did. Yet another step on the path towards Comfort. After enjoying the hostel breakfast and limitless coffee, we lazily geared up to go around 11am. And then there was the dreaded *PSSSSssss* sound of a flat tire that would become the Vuvuzela of Defeat that would become a leitmotif throughout the trip.

But then we were on the road, reaching the Bodensee/Lake Constance quickly.

Floodplain

Friends

Such a pleasant, lazy day. One might even have called it comfortable. When we got to Arbon, we lazed around in the sun and had lunch. Then we packed up, biked two kilometers down the coast and went swimming again.

Finally, we biked on to Konstanz, which was a cool university town that oozed with history and stuff. And they had food there.

And we met the famous Beardstroker of Konstanz while eating Greek. I gave him his ticket for The Island. He is definitely in.

It was getting late when we left. We’d been a bit too relaxed this day - perhaps too comfortable - and now, as the sun went down, there was a slight panic about where to camp. We found a campsite on the map in Steckborn and hauled Arsch to get there by about 10pm. But not before Dre took this pic.

Much more comfortable night.

We woke up and had a leisurely breakfast, having met the Frenemies the night before.

We’d lamented not having a TV to watch the Netherlands-Brazil World Cup game. Turns out, there was a Dutchman camping in Carrera who’d had a radio in his RV. D’oh. He was excited to tell us that Holland had won.

We decided to push hard today and try to reach the Bodensee at the Swiss/Austrian border, making this our last day in the Alps.

Today started out with more climbs, games of chicken with tractors and exquisite views of the Rhine carving out valleys and gaining new adherents from feeder streams and rivers.

There were a few sketchy pitch-black tunnels. Lots of narrow roads hugging the mountainside with only a small guardrail between you and the abyss.

Having bested the mountains, we were rewarded with the longest straightaway descent of the trip. It reminded me of my favorite sections of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. Got to hold 40+mph for a few minutes.

Now we wove through small villages on gentle up n’ down hills and bike paths cutting through cornfields. Felt video game like. Quite fun.

In “some town whose name escapes me at the moment” we witnessed the formation of the actual Rhine river where the ‘Anterior Rhine’, which we’d been following, meets up with the ‘Posterior Rhine.’

Blazed past Chur, the Big Town in the area and entered the Rheintal, one long, extremely windy valley that we’d spend the rest of the day trying to exit.

We grew hungry and decided, perhaps foolishly, to eat in Liechtenstein. Recently, I saw in the news that Snoop Dogg tried to rent Liechtenstein for a week. They said they were willing but would need earlier notice. Well, after we biked more than halfway across the entire country - literally - in search of a restaurant, I’m definitely Pro-Snoop Dogg. I hope during his one week as King he will shake things up there.

Man cannot live on castles alone, Liechtenstein.

After lunch, we stretched, started pedaling, sneezed and were out of Liechtenstein. After a few kilometers following the Rhine in Austria, we stopped and had another swim. Just as cold. Just as refreshing.

When we reached the Bodensee, we were all beat. And the hoped-for campground turned out to be non-existent. Eventually we found a hostel in Hard. Despite feeling guilty for surrendering so easily to Comfort, it was quite comfortable.

That night we watched Germany lose their shot at the World Cup Championship. The Germans in the crowd were quite low while the Austrians celebrated heartily - for a German loss is an Austrian win.

So part one featured the Ascent, which lasted from about 8pm to 10pm. On top of the pass, we had a coffee and a snack and then started the Descent. But first, Andrew got to fulfill his childhood/adulthood dream of a headstand atop a mountain. His yoga teacher’s critique? Keep the ankles together.

And, of course, it started to rain lightly as we started to descend.

Foreground: Cow. Background: Source of the Rhine.

Once the slick, serpentine descent was over, it was time for a much more enjoyable, much more gradual and enduring descent through the valley that opened up before us.

A German I met on the last bike trip in an abandoned Uranium mining town in Wyoming on the rooftop of Monk King Bird Pottery once described bicycling up the Rocky Mountains as “peanuts.” The following picture demonstrates which legume his precious Alps are:

We had lunch somewhere. Andreas and Andrew ate at a restaurant while I ate groceries. Already, I could feel myself succumbing to the Forces of Comfort. After lunch, the path turned off-roadish and gravelly, much to Andrew’s road bike’s chagrin.

Our trip still a young and fresh, we took a swim in the newborn Rhine. It was icy cold.

Somewhere on this gravel road I lost my small, gray bike computer. A word to the wise: Don’t lose small, gray objects on 5 kilometer stretches made entire of small, gray objects. Dre and Andrew took a break while I scoured the gravelly landscape searching for the computer, cursing my clumsiness. Thanks to the well-wishing of two kindly old Swiss ladies, the computer was found. I found this when I returned:

These are clearly the Agents of Comfort.

And the day kept going.

And the Rhine was already growing in size and stature.

And, after a few more hours, we called it a day at a campsite in Carrera.

A cold night with a glorious awakening. Andrew, who’d risen earlier to wander about Andermatt, woke me up as the sun was rising over the hills.

Here’s the view from my tent door.

Warning: I took many photographs this day.

After breakfast and a warm-up and a quick check of our bikes by this bridge:

We started the Big Climb. Theoretically, after this climb, it would all be downhill afterward.

Wisely, we chose to tackle the most concentratedly difficult section at the very beginning. The following are pictures taken on the long ascent:

Whew.

And as we finally reached the summit, the clink and clank of bells proved that the cow signs were appropriate.

And finally, we reached the summit nearby the glacial lake that spawns the Rhine.

And because of the excess of pictures in this post, I’ll pause here and split the day into two parts.

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.

A short breakfast with my hosts followed by thanks and well-wishing, immediately followed by a second breakfast in a cafe near Hauptplatz Linz. The sun was out and shining and the Hauptplatz was filled with an open air bazaar where bright and shining people sold and bought eccentric bric-à-brac.

While crossing over the ever-wider Danube, my mind was on Melk, the small town roughly halfway between Linz and Vienna that was my goal for the day and the final staging ground for the final push to Vienna the following day. But, upon reaching the other side of the river, I saw for the first time a sign with the distance to Vienna written on it: 239 km. And I knew it was time for the metric Dub Cench* (term coined for 200 mile bike day. My travel buddy on the TransAm trip finished the trip by biking 200 miles in one go from Charlottesville to the Atlantic Ocean and I wanted to emulate such an epic ending).

So I stocked up on groceries at a Billa (And I was so happy to shop at a Billa again, as it’s my cheap grocery store of choice here). Salami, cheese, bread, canned tuna,orange juice, a head of broccoli and a GORP of peanuts, raisins, chocolate, raspberries and blue berries would fuel the venture. My bags were stuffed.

Ironically, deciding to bike twice the planned distance in one day actually made me much more laid-back and casual. When you know it’s going to take all day, why rush? I had a first-lunch or third-breakfast in the park of forest and running trails extending from Linz down the Danube.

When it was a reasonable hour, I phoned my next CouchSurfing host to say that I wouldn’t be stopping in Melk. She was glad for the call, wished me well and was understanding…though I don’t think she understood why someone would voluntarily bike such a distance.

The wind was against me for quite a while. This was overcome by enthusiasm and energetic music. There was some cognitive dissonance when “Funky Town” was playing as I realized I was passing the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

After a week of gloom punctuated by all-too-brief sunshine, the weather was perfect. Everyone else knew it. After having the Danube virtually to myself for a week, suddenly everyone and their Onkel was out riding today. Twice I ran into cycling groups (not carrying bags, of course) and I drafted off their peleton for as long as I could manage.

After 110 or so km, I got to Melk.

The Monastery at Melk marks the entrance to the Wachau, which lived up to its reputation this day. The 30km valley extending from Melk to Krems was bursting with color. There were hills terraced with vineyards. Ruins of castles perched atop hills.

Blossoming Apricot Trees.

I would love to go back in the fall.

My favorite church along the whole route might just be this one in Duernstein.

Somewhere in there I had my second or third lunch or first dinner.

The sun started to set near Krems.

Despite feeling the need to get as far as I could before the sun went down, I took some time to revisit Krems. I’d visited last year, briefly, after seeing Aphex Twin perform there.

Even found the bench where I’d spent the night by the train station between the concert, which ended around 3 a.m., and the 7 a.m. train the next morning.

Got lost trying to cross to the southern side of the Danube. Ended up on the Autobahn for a bit. Asked an old lady for directions only to find that she wasn’t even sure where her own house was on the map. I wanted to give her a big hug.

Finally got out of Krems. Took this picture from the bridge to the southern side of the Danube, the side on which I would stay for the rest of the trip.

Hard, hard riding to get as much distance as I could while the light lasted. The wall of tiredness had already been passed and I now pedaled the way I imagine bacteria’s flagellum operates: pure, unthinking impulse.

Somewhere near Traismauer, it was clear that the sun was all but gone. I stopped to use the last of the light to put on warm clothes, double-up my socks, queue up talks on Zen Buddhism on the mp3 player, have a last snack, finish up the orange juice and, most importantly, tie my front light to my helmet with bungee cords. This was the last picture I took before wrapping up the camera in a dew-proof bag:

There were still about 60km to go at this point but you have to go slower in the dark.

Listened to this.

I wasn’t sure how much battery my light had left, so I only used it when necessary. For the most part, I kept my bike on the thin, relatively greyish line extending out in front of me and kept it from the black sections on the side. Especially the side to my left, which would be the river. There were strange noises. Sleeping ducks were awakened, flying off in splashy alarm across the unseen river.

Got seriously lost near a power plant and, when the way I was on turned out to clearly not be the right path, I considered just stopping and setting up my tent in the dark. After losing about 40 minutes, too tired for real panic, I retraced the path and finally found where I’d gone awry.

Scared off a family of deer around Zwentendorf.

Caused the amusement of children playing hide and seek on the street in Pischelsdorf.

Near Tulln I found, rather implausibly, another person riding in the dark. A guy named Siegfried (the names used on here are all fake, btw) was heading my way, so we rode together in the pitch black for about 30km to Greifenstein. Turns out we had a lot in common. He’d bike toured in the US when he was my age. He was about 55 years old. Used to be a mountain climber until he broke his leg in Switzerland. Married his nurse from the accident. The conversation in the dark was perfect and surreal. Just our voices, the soft hum of bike chains and the ambient noise of the nightscape.

Knowing that I’ll be leaving Austria soon, I’ve been worried that I haven’t learned enough German. Talking in the dark with an unseen Austrian interlocutor, talking about things that I really cared about with someone I really wanted to understand and somehow managing to both understand and be understood, well, this event took on symbolic importance to me. I wouldn’t have been able to do this one or two years ago. It was an organic test arising from life’s weird curriculum and, somehow, I’d passed.

Around midnight, we had ‘dinner’ at a bar along the river near Greifenstein. We both parted ways near the hydroelectric dam.

Well now I was in familiar territory about 20km or so north of Vienna. I often bike this path in the light of day, so it was genuinely fun to do it in the dark and I got to Klosterneuburg quite quickly. When I saw the lights of Vienna, the blinking red light on the Donauturm and Millenium City and just the glow of the city itself on the Danube, and when I passed by Leopoldsberg and Kahlenberg and Doebling, where I used to live, and then got on the Donaukanal, which is part of my daily commute, and smiled at the Spitellau incinerator and even the familiar graffiti covering the underside of the Autobahn and it all seemed like a graduation ceremony or a homecoming or the final transition to the final song of a great album…well, I’ve only felt that way a few other times in my life.

The final count was 229.5 km and around 11 hours in the saddle.

Finally time to return to home sweet Austria. On top of the hill that my host called home was a castle from which we could see most of Passau.

The left hand side of this photo shows the Drei-Flüsse-Eck where three rivers, the Danube, Inn and Ilz converge.

A view of the Dreiflüsseeck.

As I crossed over the river(s) to the Austrian side, it was tempting to ride down the Inn to my former home in Braunau am Inn. Time is mean. But, after a few song on the mp3 player, I was back in Austria. Upper Austria. Almost immediately the hills seemed to grow larger, to crowd the river and to bristle with evergreens. Almost reminded me of Hallstatt.

About this point I realized I’d lost my sunglasses somewhere. I seem incapable of not losing sunglasses on any sustained voyage.

The weather improved and the scenery seemed to grow in scenicity as a response and challenge to the brightening sky. I had lunch here at the Schlögener Schlinge, a famous meander consisting of two 180 bends in the Danube. The only thing that kept my mood in check was self-recrimination for having lost yet another pair of sunglasses…and, with a text message from Olaf, my last couchsurfing host, who had found said eyewear, spirits were high as the bike was hauled and hidden in the forest before I hiked up the hill through the surrounding woods.

Stream along the path.

Near the top.

Schlögener Schlinge

Stayed there for quite a while. Eventually had to tramp back down the muddy path in my biking cleats to find, thankfully, that my bike had not been stolen from its leafy hiding place.

The section after the Schlinge was quite beautiful but, with rain clouds on the horizon, much hard riding was necessary to escape the feared deluge. Better soaked from sweat than rain.

Got to Linz before the storm broke and was calling my next couchsurfing host from the city center before the rain finally came.

My hosts had two other surfers with them this night, so that the assembled cast sitting down for a vegan meal included two Austrians, one Jordanian, one Lithuanian and an American. We took turns curating various YouTube videos showing the respective absurdities of our home countries. They went out on the town to hang out with other members of the Linz Couchsurfing scene but I opted to slump into bed early.

~100km.

Was around 160km or 99.5 miles. Wish I’d done another half mile for roundness’ sake.

The day began at Phil and Ingrid’s, yet another intensely friendly and draining couchsurfing experience ending with the standard, intensely friendly farewell.

Filled with caffeine and various pastries, I compared this morning-lit Regensburg with the nighttime version Phil had shown me the night before.

Die Steinerne Brücke

Seems to me the phrase “Old Europe” conjures up in Americans certain images of cobblestones and charming decay, statues and faded pastel facades, cafes and narrow alleyways, all with Places of Historical Importance strewn haphazardly around the quaintly nonsensically laid-out city center. Regensburg is the most archteypical Old Europe city I’ve seen so far.

David vs Goliath Facade

Regensburg survived centuries of warfare unscathed and its current citizens seem to revel in merging antiquity with modernity. I would go back. But it was time to go.

No sooner was I down the Danube when this imposing impostor swam into view:

Valhalla

Kitschy Majesty.

Good Ol’ King Ludwig had some more tricks up his sleeve. Despite being out of place, this Parthenon copy was truly imposing and impressive to bike towards and climb up to. The Valhalla temple, named after the beer hall where victorious and valiant Germanic pagan warriors went upon death, featured busts of “laudable and distinguished Germans” and speakers of the “Germanic tongue.”

This music seemed appropriate.

As with most everything Ludwig had built (and many things in German history), the impressiveness has to be taken with a grain of salt. The idea of ‘Germany’ (and nationalism in general) was invented in the 19th century and monuments such as this one were one of many methods of creating ‘The German Nation’ by concretely manifesting a Romantic mythology to both unify and create the ‘German people.’ German Nationalism has had, to put it ubermildly, a mixed track record.

The steps up to Valhalla were covered in shattered beers bottles. If I were a young punk German kid, I could think of no cooler place to illicitly drink.

The rest of the day was a blur. I kept on it hard, knowing this would be the biggest day of the trip (or so I thought) and that Olaf, my next couchsurfing host, would be awaiting my arrival at 7pm.

Listened to “Blonde on Blonde” for the first time in its entirety somewhere in there. 90 miles later, I met Olaf in Passau, a German Venice right on your border, Oh Beloved Austria. Olaf led me up a hug hill, which was a challenge after a long day of riding, where his farmstead/student housing overlooked the city. We had dinner, lightened my load by finishing off the Weltenburg beer, and talked politics, travel and Egyptian hip-hop over a hookah.