Tag: Bicycling

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.

Still recovering from the initial travel to get the the Alps, we tried to get moving early, but it was 9:45 local time before we actually got on the road. The ride today was mostly along the Rhine River. I have learned that the Rhine gets it milky-green color from the calcium in the limestone that it carries as sediment. There is even a Benjamin Moore paint named after this color (that I will definitely incorporate into one of our bathroom remodels). As we passed into the principality of Liechtenstein, we passed Guttenberg Castle, on the cliffs high above. Our first stop was Vaduz which is the capital of Liechtenstein. It is very much a tourist spot, as there were busloads of people there and tacky gift shops on every corner. We wandered around and admired the scenery. We explored the outside of Vaduz Cathedral, but couldn’t go inside because there were services in progress (as we could best interpret from the sign posted outside in German). We passed by the Government House of Liechtenstein and into “tourist central”, complete with a little train to deliver tourists from one end of town to the other. I may have slipped into a couple tourist shops to score a christmas ornament from Liechtenstein, which has become my collectible of choice. Don’t tell Mark that I added weight to our load as we are already working hard to pull our load now. We grabbed some fresh bread, ham and cheese from the local Coop (which appears to be the local grocery store/convenience store) of the area, and sat on the curb to enjoy our makeshift meal. From where we sat, we had a great view of Vaduz Castle, which is the private residence of the Prince of Liechtenstein.

Back along the shores of the Rhine River, we crossed back over to Switzerland and biked for what seemed like hours. It was nice and level, but the paved path turned to gravel and we encountered construction and heavy wind. It felt as if we were traveling at half-speed. The tour book we’ve been using suggested an alternative route that would have taken us further up into the mountains, but we took the easier route deciding it was fine to view “Heidi-land” from the road. We’ll have to rely on the guide book to see the house restored to match the fabled home of Heidi. The hillsides were dotted with the cutest houses that reminded me of the setting for every Brothers Grimm fairy tale I had ever read. After tiring of the gravel, we stopped and spoke to a Swiss native, trying to determine if the path was paved on the other side of the river. She didn’t speak English, so we used our best charades to describe gravel and pavement and she convinced us it was indeed paved if we crossed back over. After following her advice, we found out that the path on the other side of the river was indeed paved, but only to the bridge we crossed. However, we were going in the other direction from which she had come. We were right back on gravel paths again, no worse for the wear.

Finally crossing into Austria, the bike path took us right through the farm fields, close enough to the livestock to reach out and pet a cow on the nose if one was so inclined (I wasn’t). We pedaled through miles of rows of corn and cow pastures.

Our campground was in the town of Bregenz, Austria which is on the northern shore of Lake Constance (Bodensee in German). The Rhine River spreads out and forms Upper Lake Constance, narrows again, and then widens to form Lower Lake Constance. Given the scenery of the day, it was fitting that our campsite was on the edge of a cornfield. In Europe, there doesn’t seem to be much rigid organization in campgrounds as there is in America. They give you a general area that you can set up, but there aren’t established “sites”. Instead of having your own picnic table and fire pit, there are shared spaces with tables, electricity, and BBQ pits where people gather. People in Europe focus much more on the social experience than us Americans. I enjoyed it as much as I could, but the language barrier sometimes gets in the way.

We approached the campground through a waterfront public park, where there was some sort of music festival (which we heard late into the night). At the entrance to the campground, we quickly learned that our campground had its own Biergarten (a welcome sign). We needed to shower before dinner so Mark asked the young man checking us in if there was any chance they would run out of beer before we got back. He told Mark “we would run out of pizza before we would ever run out of beer”. So after we cleaned up and set up camp, we came back for pizza and beer. Not knowing what to order, we tried to ask about the types of beer on draft. The bar maid let us know that “we don’t have all those beers like in Germany…. we have two beers…. the one that everyone drinks and the one that is bitter”. So we happily walked away with two of the beers that everyone drinks. (And we may have gone back for seconds). The beer was strong and cheap and accompanied by a great selection of 1970’s and 1980’s American music. This was, by all accounts, one of my most memorable birthdays. I didn’t get my cake and ice cream, but I have a rain check on that.

We returned to our cornfield campsite and did our best to make friends with the guy next door, who didn’t speak any English, had no teeth, and had a dog that he claimed was a wolf. He laughed at us every time we told him we were biking to Amsterdam. It didn’t take long to fall asleep in the cornfield. Just the occasional spritz of rain and the corn stalks making whispering noises through the night.

The day started with completing the uphill assent into Versam. Not bad after we were well rested. After that we partially descended into Ruinaulta canyon , once again on a series of steep switchbacks and turns where we had to stop occasionally to let the brakes cool. We met a nice guy from the Czech Republic at our campground who said this area is called the “Grand Canyon of Switzerland”. I took pictures, but the flat images don’t do justice to the real thing.

After crossing a bridge over the gorge, we started another ascent back to the top of the canyon (have I mentioned that I’m eager for the terrain to level out?). The canyon wall was not as high on this side. We passed through several tunnels carved from the mountains and under several stone “ceilings” that were constructed over the road, apparently to keep the falling rocks from hitting the road. After going downhill into Bonaduz, our route left the main road onto smaller “roads” that we initially thought were bike paths… that is…. until we encountered cars. These “roads” are two-way, but only wide enough to accommodate one vehicle at a time. Someone has to pull to the side (which was more often us).

For most of the day, we found that we were not only following the river, but also the railroad, which was lucky because the railroad stations provide nice, clean, safe restrooms (or WCs as they are called here). We also discovered there are fresh water fountains continually running at regular intervals so we could fill our water bottles. We are getting the hang of things here.

As we descended down to river level, we crossed a bridge that spanned the place where two main branches, the Hinterrhein and the Vorderrhein (which we have been following), join to form the official Rhine River. After this bridge, we encountered one of the worst inclines of the trip so far, not because it was a high incline, but because it was a super steep incline into Tamins. We quit about 25m from the top, when we encountered one of the aforementioned fresh water fountains and decided to break. We pushed the bike up the rest of the way.

We continued on to the city of Chur, which was one of the largest population centers we’ve encountered on our trip (pop 35,000). Our route took us through the outskirts of the city to avoid traffic. As we were stopped at the far side of Chur, while Mark changed map files on the GPS, we were approached by a local who took great interest in our bike set-up. He has never owned a car and he has biked everywhere his whole life. He took a look at our route and gave us advice to avoid a very hilly route (much appreciated). His route took us to a gravel path along the banks of the Rhine. Although we have been “following” the Rhine (or one branch anyway) since the beginning of our trip, it has been more like crossing it here and there. This segment of the trip was the first time we actually rode along the river bank for an extended period of time.

We made it to the town of Bad Ragaz (I learned that “bad” is used the way we would use the word “spa”) where we planned to camp for the night. It is a charming town with spectacular mountain views. We stopped at the tourism information building, only to find out that they were closed for the day for “employee day”. We managed to corral one employee who came out to bring in some banners and he was kind enough to give us a map to find our campground.

It is a wonderful night at a wonderful campground. We have hot showers laundry and WI-FI. We took a walk back into town to have some fried chicken and chips at the national pub. It was a really good day.

Our goal was to get to Oberalp Pass to the start of the Rhine River. It wasn’t an easy journey.

Our luggage situation was pretty crazy. The folding tandem bike fits into two rolling suitcases. After the bike is assembled, the suitcases stack together on wheeled frame to become a trailer. So the challenge was finding something to carry all of camping gear and all of our clothes until we got to our destination to build the bike and trailer. We found some perfectly sized North Face duffle bags (that will fit in the suitcases later) that have straps to wear as backpacks. In addition, we carried 2 bike pannier bags with our carry-on items (passports, wallets, reading material, etc) which will later attach to the front wheel rack on the bike. So we each took one duffle bag, one suitcase and one pannier bag as we traversed between the modes of transportation.

On Monday, August 26, we left Lincoln NH at 1:30 PM on a bus headed to Boston Logan Airport.

We took an overnight trip out of Boston to Amsterdam, arriving around 9:15 AM. From the airport, we took a train to Paris. In Paris, we had to get on a local train to get from one side of Paris to the other. From Paris, we took a train to Zurich. In Zurich , we wandered around the underground train station for an hour before we figured out that we had to surface to find the tram that would bring us within a short walk to the hotel.

We finally got settled into our hotel in Zurich near midnight. Between the time change, and the bits of sleep we were able to get on the plane and the trains, we crashed and slept until noon.

Luckily, we had planned an extra day in Zurich because Mark’s friend, Billy, was going to be in Zurich on business the same day. Who would have thought two kids from Massena NY would somehow intersect in Zurich, Switzerland on the same day? The world gets smaller every day. We spent the afternoon figuring out the local train system in Zurich and exploring around Zürichsee (Lake Zurich). Enjoyed watching a bevy of swans, and walking through the tunnels of willow trees in a local park.

We met Billy and his daughter Sabrina around dinner time and set off to explore more of Zurich. They were both more familiar with the lay of the land, and brought us to the other side of the lake with the Opera House and some great outdoor bars. We stopped to enjoy a salsa party that seemed to be going on spontaneously in a large gazebo.

In the morning, we once again took the local train back to the train station in Zurich. From there, we had to take 5 more trains, the last two being cog railroads to take us up into the mountains. We traveled from Zurich to Arth-Goldman to Erstfeld to Goschenen to Andermatt to Oberalp Pass, pronouncing the names incorrectly at every stop along the way. The first three trains gradually took us from city to suburb to the country. The last two provided breathtaking views of the mountains and the amazing structures (tunnels, bridges, etc.) that have been built to access the Swiss Mountains. Didn’t take many pictures on the way up; hoping to stop and take pics on the way back down.

As I sit, typing, in a small room that serves as the Oberalp Pass train station, Mark is building the tandem. We hope to complete the first segment of our ride this afternoon, which will take us down 4500’ today.