Here we go again! We enjoyed our last bike trip so much that we are planning another one. Two years ago we spent three months cycling from London to Helsinki and absolutely loved it! So before we get too old, we thought we should do another one.
Last year I was lucky enough to escort my 87 year old father on
a two week river boat cruise up the Danube from Budapest to Amsterdam.
The whole time I am looking enviously at the bikepackers cycling
alongside the river - except for when it's raining......then I'm very happy to
be in the lap of luxury! But when I got home, I said to Pete "Well,
I know where we're doing our next bike trip!"
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| Keeping fit between bike trips - Waihora Trail, Lake Taupo, NZ |
So we have booked our flights and will arrive in Munich on the
3rd of May. We decided on Munich for a few reasons. First and
foremost, we had an offer from our friends Katja and Stefan to pick us up from
Munich airport and take us to their house in Kisslegg, about 50km southwest of
Munich where they would host us while we recovered from jetlag. This is
pretty amazing as we only met them on our last bike trip, staying at the same
Copenhagen campground for two days. (If you read our last blog, they're
the ones that had one of their bikes stolen from central Copenhagen). We
all got on very well and had plenty to talk about so it will be lovely to see
them and enjoy some more interesting conversations with them.
Seeing as we have May, June and July to do our trip, we thought
it made sense to start at the most southerly point of our planned route and
follow the sun northwards to our end point of Merseyside. We really want
to visit some friends and relatives that we didn't get to see last time, so
England was also a definite destination. So we are booked to fly out of
London on the 9th of August. Once again, where we go between arriving in
Munich and leaving London is entirely up to us.
The rough plan however is after spending several days with Katja
and Stefan, who insist there is a lot to see in their part of the world, we
will cycle southwest to meet up with Markus and Esther who we first met on a
bike tour in Scotland way back in 1989. Then we will head east to
Neuschwanstein Castle and then northeast to the city of Rosenheim on our way to
the Danube.
Rosenheim is important to me because my Dad was sent there as forced labour during WWII but despite the circumstances, he actually enjoyed his time there. The locals treated him really weel, he ate better than he did at home and the town itself was beautiful. So I would like to go there to see it for myself and bring some photos back for Dad. From there we will go to Salzburg and then make our way north to Passau and the Danube.
Rosenheim is important to me because my Dad was sent there as forced labour during WWII but despite the circumstances, he actually enjoyed his time there. The locals treated him really weel, he ate better than he did at home and the town itself was beautiful. So I would like to go there to see it for myself and bring some photos back for Dad. From there we will go to Salzburg and then make our way north to Passau and the Danube.
While I was on the riverboat cruise last year, I heard of the famous Czech village Cesky Krumlov for the first time. Other people on the cruise who had been there said it was a must-see, so while we are so close, from Passau we will cross the border and cycle to Cesky Krumlov. From there we will cycle south and meet up with the Danube again.
Upon reaching the bike path alongside the Danube, we plan to
cycle east to Budapest then north west through Slovakia and the Czech Republic
to Prague. Then we continue northwest to the Hook of Holland where we
will catch a ferry to Harwich, England and visit various relatives on our way
to Merseyside.
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| Our proposed route, starting in Munich at the beginning of May and finishing in Merseyside early August. |
