After a day’s relaxation, leaving Brussels almost ended up as hard as getting there. First my alarm didn’t go off (I know what your thinking but before anyone says anything, you don’t sleep through an alarm in a hostel when there’s 13 other people in the room to remind you your alarms going off at 7.30 in the morning) so not only was I late getting up, I made the criminal mistake of missing the ‘all you can eat’ breakfast and after eventually getting my act together ventured into central Brussels to pick up some bike spares and more importantly a map, only to find that Brussels as a town doesn’t open till 11 o’clock on Mondays.
Frustrated and stressed at 10 in the morning isn’t a great start to any journey, but things took a turn for the better when I was approached out of the blue by Vinz, a bike mechanic who was on his day off so was off to ride to Holland for the day. He came over, introduced himself and started talking about where he’d been riding. Today he was just off to Holland on a weed run (smoking weed and cycling hundreds of miles definitely sounds like a safe idea), but in the past he’d done most of Europe and had spent a lot of time in Spain, whilst last year he took a few months off to go right down the West Coast of America and he was currently looking for inspiration as to where to go next (The inspiration may have been linked with his ride today). He was a useful guy to meet, taking me to a specialist cartographer where I was not only able to get maps, but maps with all roads and cycle paths on so not only now did I have a map, I had good maps and enough to get me through the next two weeks. I eventually set off around midday, with Vinz giving me exact directions to where I wanted to go and with that I set off into another day of 30 degree heat.
It’s easy to forget why we choose to do things sometimes, and as I spent the next day and a half covering 90 miles along a very boring, not to mention dangerous dual carriageway it was very easy to forget whatever made me want to spend so much time on a bike. And then I got to Luxembourg. This tiny country of under half a million people has all a cyclist could ever want: Long meandering climbs, magnificent tall pine trees, crystal clear lakes and some flying descents – I was in heaven. The sun hadn’t stopped shining since I’d left England and from 5 o’clock onwards I had the pleasure of all the riding being done in the shade, on excellent countryside roads. If I was better at writing I’d be able to express just how great this is.
After stopping in the city for a day just to have a look around and staying at a campsite where I clearly wasn’t wanted, it felt good to be back on the road again. A 10 minute descent out of Luxembourg and as easily I’d entered it, I was out the other side and into the 5th country of the trip: Germany.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, in terms of personality types Germans are the most similar nation to the British. Undoubtedly an unpopular opinion with some of the people I’ve shared it with before but with the simple crossing of the border I was back to having abuse yelled at me for simply being a cyclist, back to drivers not giving way and back to guessing which kind of car it’d be that flattened me. Stereotypes about BMW drivers often ring true, the problem was in Germany there’s a hell of a lot more of them.
But the cycling was more of the same: Beautiful countryside, large hills and increasingly more rivers, and for the first time since I’d left home – Wildlife. Since spending time on the road you get used to seeing most wildlife in pancake form; cats, rabbits, badgers, birds, a fox, a deer, a ferret and even a snake are all animals I’ve seen ready to be used as bookmarks at the time of writing, so it was somewhat of a surprise when camping down a hillside of a road near Tholey, I was woken at 5 am to the sound of a deer going through the impromptu bin that had the leftovers of last nights meal in it just 3 yards away from the tent.
One of the more interesting ways to wake up, then it was back on the bike and back to getting abused by motorists, this time seemingly for being on the road during the school run. By this point I’d been on the road less than 2 weeks but had found other cyclists were more than happy upon seeing me to come over and ask who I was, where I was going and always taking time to tell me about their rides. In this time I’d met Vinz who’d been everywhere, Gary who was a New Yorker who came to Germany to cycle for a month every year and Jean who’d cycled from Canada to Mexico, all of whom I’d found it easy to make conversation with, shake hands and enjoy a laugh. This is what made it even more frustrating when I met Lucy and Keeanna, two beautiful German girls who were studying at Karlsruhe but had taken a couple of days off to cycle round parts of Germany. They asked questions and were really interested, hell I was even cracking jokes and using the odd bit of German! So I was kicking myself 5 minutes later when I realized I’d made excuses to leave to quickly and had also managed to depart without a) getting an e-mail address b) telling them about the website c) finding a way to incorporate them into my trip. It seems old habits, such as choking when around women, die hard.
I spent the afternoon reminding myself of the lesson I’d learnt: If you ask the hot girls where their cycling to and they say ‘Heidelberg’ and they then ask you where you’re going you say ‘Heidelberg’.
At least I had a fantastic descent to keep me company, 15 minutes spent at 30mph as I left another of Germanys excellently maintained Nature Parks, but by now the excitement of the first week had died down and I was getting firmly into a routine. Wake up, eat, cycle, eat, find somewhere to sleep, eat, eat, eat, sleep and eat. In truth I took to it, I found myself enjoying the simple life of exercise and a diet of pasta and jam sandwiches and finding a place to sleep always offered entertainment. Wild camping is technically illegal in Germany but I knew I wasn’t the only person out here, and after stopping for the night in dense wood just south of Eppingen I could hear music from the top of a hill. I had lost track of the days since being away and it suddenly dawned on me that not only was a rave going on, it was a Saturday as well. I spent the night in a well hidden area but able to hear a lot of drunk kids coming a bit to close to the tent for comfort. Some people fear violence when their camping, I didn’t. To strike myself with fear I just think back to when I was 15 and what we would have done if we were drunk and had found someone camping on their own in the middle of nowhere. Not violence, but ‘practical’ jokes such as covering the persons tent in beer, or god knows what else is what I was wary of.
Of course I wasn’t found, and I woke up (still with rave in full flow) only 2 days from Munich. My journey had fallen on a German holiday weekend, so not only was I in scorching heat, most shops were closed meaning I couldn’t get my hands on sun tan lotion that I really should have bought before I’d left, (Catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror when I finally made it to the Hostel was frightening, my sunburn making me look like a cross between Rudolph and ‘Where’s Wally’) it also meant food was harder to come by and being only 100 miles from your destination on an empty stomach is no way to go. Having not showered since Luxembourg, I was also very aware that I stank.
Onwards and upwards, the friends at home who’d asked me ‘But how far are you really going to get?’ so nearly had their answer in Giengien. Coming along through a quiet street I’d moved a bit to close to the curb, and I hit a pothole. The front tyre suddenly turned to a right angle and stopped dead, with me leaving the seat the flying over the handle bars and landing a foot in front of the bike on my right arm and shoulder. In truth, whilst the handlebars had turned a full 360 round and a front pannier clip had broken the bike was easily fixable, and walking away with just a few cuts and bruises I was glad that the biggest dent was to my pride.
I shakily got back on about an hour later, with confidence rattled and proceeded slowly. By now the weather was getting silly: I hadn’t seen a cloud since I’d left England and I wasn’t going to see one anytime soon, and riding past lots of lakes and rivers on a holiday weekend when all the locals are out swimming was to much temptation. I eventually stopped for a swim in the River Lech, which had clear pools and stone beaches at both banks. Getting into water for the first time in a week felt good, but what felt even better was a weeks worth of grease, dirt and sweat floating away from my body before my eyes. I felt partly guilty as the scum that had encased my legs floated away, turning my part of the pool from crystal clear to a temporary murky grey, but I won’t lie – it felt good.
Leaving the river I met another cyclist who was a bit to cheery when he said ‘You won’t make it to Munich’ by tomorrow night, but he wished me luck and as he watched take an hour to climb the next 2 km hill I knew he was right. I camped 31 miles outside of Munich and was more than happy to saunter into town the next day.
So that was that! From Brussels to Munich in just 8 days, covering 537 miles, I’ll be honest, I’m pretty chuffed with myself. I’ve arrived with a few cuts and bruises, but the legs are growing almost as quickly as the confidence is and I’m in the mood to celebrate, now if only I can find a place to get beer in Munich…..
Up next: Budapest!
A few of the scenes from Luxembourg
As my friend Ellen said - 'That's what I wish England was like!'
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