honeymoonbiketour

[honeymoonbiketour]

We’re in Norway! Here’s how we got here:

After catching the overnight train from Bamburg, we spent a quick day biking around Berlin in the rain before catching a last minute train to Rostock. Rostock is a small port city on the Baltic Coast. Near Rostock, we caught a ferry to Gedser, Denmark, where we finally slept after nearly two days straight of traveling.

Those travels were punctuated by connecting with friendly and generous people, from Alois in Bamburg, to Marie and Luna on the ferry. Marie and Luna are from Oslo and offered us their place to stay in the city while they continue their bike tour adventures for a few more weeks. Luna, by the way, is in 2nd grade.

Back to the travels - when we landed in Denmark, we found a natural area on the sea with a handful of little open-air shelters exclusively for “hikers, bikers, or canoers.” These shelters are scattered throughout Scandinavia, often free, beautiful, and maintained by small communities in rural areas. One spot we stayed at had a house with a full kitchen, bathroom, library, etc. for us to use. At that first campsite in Denmark, there were a few other tourers there, so the socializing continued as we all shared tips about the camping and routes in the places we’ve been and the places we’re going. It felt like we were camping amongst our kind of people.

We spent 2 big days biking up to a Copenhagen. That stretch of Denmark was rural and quiet. The towns are small, but pack a subtle beauty in each of them. There are patches and strips of wildflowers along farmland. The homes are small and strong. Many have thatch rooftops, and each town has lime-washed church steeples with unique styles. And the wind blows through every corner of the flat country, making waves on the wheat in between the bodies of water. We hopped between a few islands on our way up to Copenhagen, taking a 30 mile detour to see the Cliffs of Møn - large, chalky white cliffs that rise up out of the sea.

And then Copenhagen! The happiest city in the world! More bikes than people? Sean remembered struggling to find a parking spot for a car when he lived near Wrigleyville for a bit. In Copenhagen, we struggled to find parking spots for our bikes. Every street has a bike lane, and we’re not talking about a small strip that is likely blocked by an Uber or Amazon delivery van. These are full car lanes dedicated to bikers. And drivers looking to turn have consistently assumed that bikers were present - this is true for all of Scandinavia so far, a sharp contrast from Southern Europe and the States.

There’s a lot of joy in the streets of Copenhagen. Live music in all the squares, from jazz to marching bands. Limited car traffic in the major streets. An amusement park from 1843 in the center of the city across from the town hall, built by a King after he was told that “when the people are amusing themselves they do not think about politics.” We could live there. It’s Sean’s #1 European city. Jerry’s is still Barcelona.

And then on to Sweden! We biked a few days along the windy SW coast of Sweden before making it to Gothenburg. Along the way we saw a handful of beautiful inlets with little fishing towns and rocky islands, and we biked through nature reserve after nature reserve. We’re also getting used to limited darkness at night. Dawn and dusk run a lot longer into the night up here. When there’s light in the sky past 11pm, it just doesn’t feel late. And when it’s light at 330am, it’s hard to put yourself back to bedS

From Gothenburg, we caught another train to Stromstad, Sweden, close to the border of Norway, where we got a few more layers. Then, more biking north in Norway, before catching one last bus into Oslo where we’re creating for a few days. Oslo is very modern. It’s a beautiful city, sitting on the North Sea, with architecture of the future, unlike the cities of the past in Southern Europe. We spent the morning at a sauna on the sea, alternating between sweating with a view and jumping off the roof of the sauna for a cold dip in the North Sea.

All is well overall. We are admittedly wrestling with the endurance challenges. Sean’s knees are aging twice as fast as the rest of him, so we’ve had to adjust to some shorter days. We’re beginning to develop the mindset of saving them for the places we really want to see.

Being nomadic for this long is also a challenge on the mind and spirit. Packing up and carrying your home to a new place and setting it up again day after day can wear on a person. We miss basic comforts, including and especially Chaco dog (who is definitely happy as a clam with Jerry’s folks). We’ve been in transition for a while, and we’re ready to turn towards a future in which we can plant some roots and invest in a more sustainable life than living on our bikes full time. So, we’re shamelessly starting to pepper in more trains here and there. We’ve been told certain areas are boring biking compared to others, so we’re going to skip parts of them. There’s tension in this decision, mostly with some stubborn ego and a desire to be able to say we biked from here to there without the asterisk that comes with a train ride, but ultimately it’s a good exercise in patience, acceptance, flexibility, and humility. We’re thinking we’ll be back around mid-August.

Up next, the Norwegian coast from Trondheim (sunrise 342am; sunset 1106pm) to Bergen. Then down to mainland Denmark, back to Germany for a smidge (Hamburg to find the Beatles of the 60’s), then Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris. All plans are tentative. We’ll see. Photos below of grizzled beards, thatched roofs, old growth forests, and the North Sea!

[honeymoonbiketour]

Hallo from Bamburg! Since wrapping up our (covid) holiday in Bad Gastein, we wound our way through Bavarian countryside. After Salzburg, we headed west along the Alps for a while before finally saying Auf Wiedersehen to them. Then we headed north through the rolling farmlands and along canals bracketed by huge bluffs. We stumbled on colorful towns with biergartens and old farmhouses overflowing with flowers.

But the greatest takeaway from Germany is the stellar bike infrastructure. There are paths, mostly paved and well maintained, connecting every town in Germany. They are well marked. They are well traveled. They wind through the countryside, on farmland and forest. This seems to be normal for everyone here. Imagine the Lakeshore Trail but connecting small towns like Winthrop and Twisp, or Marquette and Houghton. We’ve seen it here and there in the US, but this is next level dedication to alternative, healthier, environmentally friendly, and fun forms of transportation. It seems like everyone has a bike and uses it. They use it for exercise and commutes to work, to go to the bakery or market, to go to church or visit their family. Biking is everywhere. Good job, Germany. Can the US ever do this? Food for thought.

Lastly, today we found ourselves with a short day into the town of Bamburg to catch a train to Berlin tonight. Neither of us had heard of Bamburg before. It’s an old Franconian town known for breweries and its historical old town. One older man biking home from babysitting his granddaughters struck up a conversation alongside us. We shared stories of bike touring all the way into the town, where he took us on a brief tour of the old city, proudly showing off one of its oldest churches. He then took us to a world famous brewery called Schlenkerla, opened in 1403 and still brewing the same dark, smoky beers in wooden barrels. We drank a few beers on the street until we realized this old man could and would drink us under the table, so we went our separate ways.

Germany was cool, but we’re hopping on a midnight train to Berlin, where we’ll spend a day before hopping on another train to Rostock to ferry over to Denmark. We’ll do a few days of island hopping on our way to Copenhagen, and then buzz up the Swedish coast to Oslo. We’re very excited for Copenhagen - the happiest city in the world with a strong bicycle culture. We wonder if there’s a connection…

[honeymoonbiketour]

We’ve had an eventful stretch since leaving Rome. After 18 hours between 6 trains and too many delays and disruptions communicated to us (if at all) through broken English, we made it to Venice. We spent a day in Venice, catching a water bus down the canal and slowly wandering through the narrow city, getting lost over and over again with pleasure. But Venice was more of a launchpad for our next adventure. After a few weeks in the hot, sunny, dry Mediterranean, we were seeking some crisp, cool mountain air.

We set off for the hills the next morning, breaking out of the flatlands and beginning a slow climb up into the Dolomites. Over two days, we climbed from sea level up and over the West (steep) side of a little known and rarely traveled Ciampigotto Pass at 5900ft. There were hardly any cars - it was perfect biking, but steep. We will never forget climbing for hours up steep roads before looking up at the mountain in front of us and seeing the road switchback straight up the side of it. It was the kind of fun that kicks your ass while you’re doing it, but electrifies you every time you think of it after it’s done. Plus, the views were breathtaking. With jagged rocky spires, rolling green fields speckled with wildflowers, a few quick renditions of The Hills are Alive, a herd of bell laden sheep, and a bar at the top, we took a quick break and dropped down the other side of the pass for our looooong descent back to the flatlands through charming little alpine mountain towns.

From there, we began our second journey up into the Alps on the Alpe-Adria Radweg route. We caught it near Venzone, and road miles of winding cycle paths all the way up to Mallnitz. The Alps has incredible bike infrastructure. These paths led us through long tunnels with motion sensor lighting and along old railroad routes, with all the old stations converted into bars and restaurants for the bikers. Those are our kind of biker bars. After our last steep climb up to Mallnitz, we took a short train through a mountain to Bad Gastein, where we’re currently sitting, reading, watching a thunderstorm roll through the mountains from a comfy apartment.

One detail we shouldn’t leave out - Sean was feeling a little cold come on as we left Venice. On day two, over halfway up the pass, he tested positive for covid. Jerry tested negative, so he ran into a store on our way down the other side of the mountain to grab several days worth of food so we could camp out, avoid any contact with people, and just keep biking. We were planning on staying a night or two in Bad Gastein where a friend had an open mountain home while she gave birth back in Vienna. Instead, we’re hunkering down in. Bad Gastein for the week to isolate and give our bodies a chance to recover (the knees aren’t complaining about their little vacation). Plus, now Jerry has covid too! Both of us are already on the mend, but appreciating so much the comfort of this beautiful mountain home - it’s healing to our bodies and souls. The clouds are hanging low and slowly sliding down the steep slopes across the valley. We’ve had sunny days watching swallows play outside our balcony, and raucously stormy days listening to thunder rumble down the mountains. These mountains are medicine. To the Kennedy’s - danke schön and congrats on bringing your little man into this world!!! He’s got some mighty kind parents.

What else - we’re planning to hit the road again this weekend. We’re headed to Salzburg (we just watched The Sound of Music), Munich, and/or Nuremberg. We’ll train hop to Berlin from there, and then ride an established route from Berlin up to Copenhagen. Then we’re exploring Scandinavia, hoping to navigate some fjords and put the warm layers we’ve been lugging around to some use.

Again, here’s a big old photo dump from the last week. There’s one photo that looks less than impressive until you see the first few switchbacks rise in front of and above Jerry on one of our little mountain passes.

[honeymoonbiketour]

Ciao from Roma! After a few days of anxiously waiting for our lost bikes to be found in Newark airport and placed on the next flight…and then the next flight, we hit the road and finally started our European bicycle tour.

So far, we biked from Barcelona to Roma, spending about half of the time on the coast, and half of it inland through the Provence region of France and through Tuscany.

We’ve made some amendments to our ever-evolving grand plan. Tomorrow, we will take a train or ferry back up to Northern Italy (likely Genoa or Pisa or Venice), and then bike over the Alps. We’ll shoot for Munich with several route options over the Alps. Then we’ll head to Berlin, Copenhagen, and either Stockholm or Oslo. We’ll take a train up near Trondheim, before zig-zagging down the fjords. Ferry from southern Norway back to Denmark, then bike to Amsterdam and ultimately Paris! Who knows how much of that plan we stick to!?

Back to what we’ve done - Since getting our bikes and putting them back together in the airport, we’ve overcome many challenges and relished in countless moments of beauty and awe. It’s definitely been hard at times, but that’s traveling, especially when you’re doing it by bike in a foreign country with board game money and street signs that often mean the opposite of what we think they mean (at least we think they mean the opposite of what we think). Here’s a few quick highlights and challenges from the Mediterranean part of the our journey:

Let’s start with challenges, all of which we’re navigating better and better each day:

- Good transition to the first: navigation. Navigating in Europe was tough to figure out. The Euro routes we were hoping to follow as we got our bearings were poorly marked and often on bone-rattlingly rocky or gruelingly sandy old roads. More than once, our GPS guided us to a very long staircase, so long that biking to the top (we did not take the stairs) add hundreds of feet in climbing over 2 kilometers of additional road. All in all, the first few days were slow and cumbersome, but we found our groove. Those old roads often took us to very cool places, so we’ve learned to pick our battles.

- Finding places to stay - we’re traveling for up to 3 months, so we’re doing it on a budget. Europe doesn’t do campsites like the US. European “Campings” are like miniature amusement parks, with waterslides and bars. Especially along the Mediterranean coast, we fell asleep to techno music pumping as the nightlife began no earlier than 10pm, at times ending around 5am. We’re getting to know some Italian pop music in the middle of the night. We’ve started to find more peaceful spots on little farms more inland. Kudos to the Faccenda’s for arranging a place for us in Roma!

- Language barriers. We’re doing our best to pick up the common and useful phrases in every country. Our brains are bit jumbled after working with 3 languages in 2 weeks. You get good at miming. Next up, Deutsch!

- Some little aches and pains along the way, but nothing trip-ending.

Now for the fun stuff:

- We’ve passed through countless little towns in rural Spain, France, and Italy. They’ve been beautiful. There are just so many of them. We’ve seen and explored countless ancient cobblestoned towns on hills capped by a castle or basilica. Plenty of piazzas and squares full of outdoor seating and lively people. Quiet nooks with flowers and succulents flowing out of the old stones. We camped under a 2000+ year old town a few nights back. We started writing this in a town rebuilt after the Romans burnt it down 1800 years ago. We finished writing in Rome a short walk from the old Forum and Coliseum (we can’t believe they let you so close to them!). Jerry keeps remarking how each little town we pass through is just a normal town around here. If you pluck one stretch of any of these small towns and place it in any American town, it would be the most beautiful street in town. Here, it’s just where they live. It’s got their bakery and cafe and tabac where they know everyone and everyone knows them. The narrow alleyways of the old towns are like fairytales, but they are all real and all over the place!!!

- Food. We’ve eaten a lot of good food. Focaccia and baguettes. So many good cheeses. Red sauces. Different types of pesto. We’ve eaten so much pizza. So much pizza. We’ve had tasty olives and olive oil. Flavorful pickled, roasted, and fresh veggies. Gelato has been the afternoon pick-me-up blast of sugar and calories to get us through the heat of the day. Cheap fine wine at the end of the day (and sometimes at lunch), once made by our host’s friend up the road. We’re looking forward to trying to recreate a few foods when we get back to the States. This has been a really fun place to have a reoccurring challenge in our bike tours: you just can’t eat enough.

- Though the biking has been challenging at times, it has been pretty ideal in many ways. The pace is slow. We see a castle on a hill off in the distance and see it from every angle as we slowly pass it, often stopping to peak inside old churches or narrow roads. There have been some epic downhills including a few through Tuscany, one passing from Spain to France, and another from France over Monaco and into Italy. The steep, hot climbs have always come with a nice reward at the end.

Alright that’s enough for now. We’ve got a train to catch in the morning. We don’t know when the next update will come, but it’ll come.

And here’s a bunch of photos :)

[honeymoonbiketour]

After a few days of trains and biking-packing around the East, we’re looking at our gate in Newark Airport, waiting to board our flight to Barcelona. We got our touring legs under us after biking from Philly to NYC. One word about NYC - it is more wild than the wild. It’s like everyone has collectively decided to ignore order and rule and traffic laws. But somehow it seems to work for New Yorkers. The rule is no rule. Everyone does what they want when they want and no one bats an eye. Everything flies. Madness.

We’ve got a plan. We’re staying at a hostel in Barcelona for two nights and then we’re headed northeast along the Mediterranean Coast towards France and ultimately towards Italy. The plan is to drop down the coast to Rome. Plenty of good little towns and cities along the way. We’ll try to post photos on this page for those of you that don’t have Instagram. Our posts will likely be short. Maybe bulletpoints at times. But they’ll always have photos. Here’s a few of the last few days. Two from on the road between Philly and NY. Two from a beautiful old street in Philly. One of Jerry sitting next to our bike boxes on the train, which we lugged, with panniers slung over our shoulders, a few blocks from a bike shop to Penn Station and onto the train to the airport - again, no one looked twice.