Month: September 2019

Having stayed in our campground for a couple of days, it was actually sad to leave, because we had met several wonderful people in the camping area. As I mentioned earlier, tent camping here is very different. You don’t get a particular site assignment. There is just a general area where everyone pitches their tents and shares amenities (charging stations, water pump, picnic tables, etc.). As a result, it is more social and we find ourselves engaging with the neighbors (despite the language differences) more than we ever have in the U.S.

We had one neighbor woman who was completely obsessed with our bike. She insisted on letting Mark take her on a trial run in the morning before we set off. It was hysterical watching her ride up the hill singing Queen’s “I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike” in English at the top of her lungs.

Today was a lot of ups and downs… both literally and figuratively. We went through lots of very hilly farm land and wooded trails. We encountered two detours that required us to do a lot of extra uphill pedaling. Along the way I stopped to admire gardens of wildflowers and cows engaged in mysterious business (see video below). After a lot of hills, we made it to Rheinfall (Rhine Falls), where there is a pretty spectacular waterfall.

For any of you that are still following us, the rest of this post will be bittersweet. It appears that today may well be the last day of our bicycle adventure, even though we only finished 1/4 of our planned ride.

We had an equipment failure on a piece of our setup that is pretty critical to move our gear around. Our tandem, created by Bike Friday (Ours is actually the Tandem TwosDay) is designed to fold and disassemble in order to fit into two rolling Samsonite suitcases that have been specially designed for this purpose. The bike traveled with us to Amsterdam in the suitcases and we carried our gear in backpack duffle bags. Once we were at our starting point, Mark built the bike, the duffle bags went into the suitcases, and the suitcases are attached to a frame with wheels to become the trailer. Perfect set-up, right…..?

Well, from the day the bike and trailer arrived back in the Spring, Mark has been concerned that the quality of the trailer did not match the quality of the bike. Even back in the summer when we were doing test rides, Mark had made modifications to the trailer hitch system as the tubing was starting to separate. You might remember that Mark was seeking duct tape on Day 4 to address this problem. Well, the duct tape solution survived, but the trailer frame didn’t. The metal axle sheared on a tight downhill curve, causing us to loose a wheel in a cornfield (in Teufen, Switzerland), and drag our suitcases along the ground, creating even more damage, before we could stop on the hill.

Friendly and concerned locals helped us get to a boat dock at the bottom of the hill where we could catch a small ferry to the town of Eglisau which has a train station. Luckily the Swiss train system is phenomenal, and we will be able to get anywhere we want, once we decide what to do. We still have over 3 weeks here, but now we are saddled with two heavy suitcases that no longer can be a trailer. So continuing with the current plan is not really possible.

On the bright side:

1. We had a awesome ride.
2. We are still in Europe and there are plenty of things we haven’t yet seen.
3. We are not discouraged and we will come back and finish this route someday.
4. We had already decided that the trailer was too heavy for any trip that had any significant hills and we were discussing ideas on doing “loops” in the future instead of starting and finishing in different cities so that we could leave the suitcases somewhere (a willing hotel or airBnB) and utilizing more pannier bags and racks to move our stuff (and further reduce unnecessary gear).

Thank you for following us on this abbreviated trip. We’ll update to let you know what we ended up doing.

As planned, we decided to take our first full day of rest. We waved goodbye to our UK friends as they packed up to head upstream. We walked to the grocery store to find something for breakfast and sat out on a bench to eat. The sun was out again today, so it felt good to soak up the sun. I picked out some yogurt and some kind of honey-waffle crackers to use as my spoon. The food selections at the grocery store are quite different here. I don’t know how much is influenced by the fact that we are in Europe, or whether it is more because we are in small town stores. It will be interesting to compare when we get to some larger cities.

We walked upstream about a mile along the Rhine to the town of Stein am Rhein (German spelling of Rhine). It is said to be one of the best preserved medieval towns in Switzerland. The buildings are truly remarkable and covered with detailed fresco paintings. Inside the buildings are some of the original walls and stone floors. It reminded me a lot of the old buildings in Italy. We were able to walk through the old St. Georgen Abby, including the old wood-framed building where the monks presumably made their wine. As with many of these old towns, a castle, Hohenklingen, was perched on the hills above the town.

We did a little shopping (decided on my Christmas ornament from Switzerland) and tried to find ice cream, but the only shop we found did not have chocolate (tragic). The vendor claimed the Swiss prefer strawberry. Not sure if that is true, but we saved our calories for some Swiss Chocolate. We ran into our friends from the UK, who had also stopped in town. Had a nice chat and said our goodbyes again.

Before the heat of the afternoon, we walked back to our campground for a little more R&R and catching up using the wi-fi. Walked back to Stein am Rhein again for a wonderful riverside pasta dinner at the Spaghetteria. One more walk back to the campground to get off our feet since we are back on the road tomorrow.

Sometimes things just work out. We quit early last night to avoid the rain, got our laundry done and our bellies fed. This morning the rain stopped right about 10:45 am and we were on the road by 11:00. It stayed dark and cloudy all day, but we only encountered a few spitting rains throughout the day.

The Hostel really worked out perfectly for us, with a place to store our bike, a great breakfast and the flexibility to use a meeting room to charge our electronics and wait out the rain. It was a little more “self-service” than a hotel… we had to return our bed linens and bring down our own garbage, but it was a unique experience. I’d definitely do it again.

On our way out of Friedrichshafen, Germany, we went by the Zepplin Museum to grab a few pictures. Even though the rain had barely stopped, the area was filling with tourists.

The scenery has changed in the last few days. There are no more mountains… even in the distance. The terrain is very level, although there are still smaller, rounded hills in the distance. We rode through some very large and commercial looking vineyards and farms, as opposed to the smaller, family farms we had been seeing over the last few days. We followed along the coastline of Lake Constance, past waterfront parks and some very exclusive waterfront homes.

We biked into the town of Meersburg, which is a medieval town with a clock tower an a very distinctive arch. Up on the hillside stands the Altes Burg which is said to be the oldest inhabited castle in Germany, built in the 7th century.

From Meersburg, we took a ferry across Lake Constance. We met up with a Harley dude from Switzerland who tours Europe regularly (“I work a little, then I travel a little”). He gave us some good advice on places to stay and things to see over the next few days. Departing the ferry, we got a finger-wagging from the ferry terminal staff because we clearly did not understand all the signs telling us which way bikes should go. By the way, the universal street signs we have been taught in the USA are not universal at all. LOL

After a short way, we crossed back into Switzerland and were once again riding through small farms and vineyards. Our strategy of eating a late lunch or early dinner failed miserably, as apparently, nearly every restaurant is closed on Monday. We bike through Berlingen, Steckborn, and Mammern hoping to find a place to eat, but finally gave in and biked to our destination of Wagenhausen where we got our first Rhine River waterfront campsite and spotted our first Rhine River tour boat….. apparently the Rhine becomes navigable after the Lake. It is a great campground, with amazing, warm, showers and a restaurant on site that was actually open. Camped next to us is an entertaining couple from the UK, Jane and Mike, who are doing the same trip as us, but traveling in the opposite direction. We ended up joining them for dinner and drinks and a lovely conversation in English.

We are considering taking our first “break day” of the trip tomorrow to enjoy the nearby town of Stein am Rhein which is accessed by bridge across the river. We could both use a day off the saddle.

We finally are getting adjusted to the time change and got on the road at a decent time this morning (about 7:30 AM). Mark was concerned about the design of the trailer hitch that came with the bike, worrying that it is starting to fray so soon into our trip. He managed to secure some duct tape (which is apparently universally know by men from all nationalities, despite the language difference) from a kind German man at our campground. Soon, we were waving goodbye to our toothless neighbor with his wolf hound and heading off for another day.

After a very short ride (we needed breakfast), we rode into the Lindau, Germany which has roots in Medieval times. We were looking for tourist information center, which was not open until ten, so we took our time exploring the town.

The harbor opening into Lake Constance is protected by barriers on both sides with only a small opening for ships to pass. One side is a majestic Bavarian statue of a lion and the other is a lighthouse, both built in the 1800’s. It was a marvel to watch the seamanship of the ferry boat captains maneuvering through the opening into Lake Constance. We walked through town, taking in all the interesting architecture. I was particularly impressed by the colorful painting on the side of the old Town Hall. It reminded me of the fresco paintings in Rome. As it was Sunday, most of the stores and buildings were closed. We grabbed some sandwiches at a small bakery in the train station.

As we biked further around the shore of Lake Constance, we stopped to walk around the grounds of Schloss Montfort, an old Moorish-style castle that is now used as a concert hall, restaurant and wine bar. The grounds were beautiful, containing different varieties of weeping willow trees, some which I had never seen before.

The rest of our bike ride took us through farms again, like yesterday, we were biking on paths cutting right through the fields. But unlike the farms of yesterday, these were predominantly orchards and vineyards. We saw apple trees, pear trees (green and Bosc), plum trees, red grapes, green grapes, blueberries and peaches (or perhaps nectarines). For the first time in my life, I saw, in action, the crazy machine that bales the hay and wraps it into bundles to drop in the field… it looked like a trick from a Dr. Seuss book. A few of my favorite views of the day were an alpaca farm, along with a long stretch of “community gardens” which the inhabitants used from everything to trampolines, to vegetable gardens to Victorian gardens. Presumably, these were folks that didn’t have access to a yard where they live and so they “rented a yard” in another part of town.

We arrived at our destination in Friedrichshafen early. We decided to have a short ride today because 1.) it was time to do laundry again and 2.) we wanted to try out a Hostel because there is heavy rain coming, and there was one in this town. In another Sunday misfortune, we couldn’t find the tourism office and once again depended on the kindness of strangers to point us to the local train station. Once we got there, it was closed, so we once again depended on the kindness of strangers to find the Hostel (as I had used up my high-speed allowance for the day, so Google was not cooperating).

We found and checked into the Hostel. Not a bad place. The room itself looks a lot like a college dorm room (bunk beds and all), but we have all the amenities we need …. a shower, laundry facilities, free wireless, a bike cage, and free breakfast. We wandered out before the rain started to find a 5-star local pub, and once again shared pizza and beer (I see a theme here). We’ve been super lucky with the weather so far and are hoping tomorrow’s predictions will hold so that the rain will be cleared before noon, giving us time to move on.