Yesterday James and I really dove into Bratislava culture. In a smaller square, off the main square, a dozen stalls were setup and selling Bratislava wine. This type of wine is apparently a traditional local specialty made from currants, and all the stalls had little thimblefuls for sampling. After a few samples, we decided to really class things up and get publicly wrecked on currant wine in the square. I bought a bottle for 5€, asked the woman selling it to open it for us, found a spot at one of the red plastic bar tables that they had setup in the square, and poured two plastic cups full. The stuff was really really delicious and as strong as normal wine. It looks like red Kool-aid and goes down just as easily.

Then we got a second bottle from another vendor. At some point James went back to her with the new bottle and our previous empty to ask if they were both the same alcohol content. Seems they are both 13.5%. By this point we were proper smashed, and we could tell the vendor was talking about us so we waved and got a laugh and a thumbs up in return.

After this we wandered back to the hostel, and I got my first lesson in the Slovak language from the hostel bartender.

Si krásna žena, môžem si ťa odfotiť?

If you are going to spend all day getting lost, today was a great day for it. There were only a few clouds in the sky and most of them were pretty cirrus clouds smeared across the sky. It was so beautiful out, I mastered the skill of taking my shirt off while still cycling, and I don’t care if you believe me or not, but I was pulled over shirtless on the side of the highway for less than a minute before a car with two women in it pulled over. They claimed to be asking for directions, but, as I clearly looked and was lost, I think they wanted something else.

We left Vienna on the south side of the Danube making our way towards Bratislava which is about 3 hours by bike. The Radweg ends on the south side so we would have to get back on the bike path on the north side; however, this was a little less than obvious. We ended up taking a bridge to this long thin island that sits in the middle of the Danube, back tracking about 3 clicks along the island to the bridge we saw on the map, crossings the bridge and cycling back up. Upon recognizing the same old shirtless jogger in red shorts that we had already passed, I realized there was a much closer bridge that didn’t involve back tracking at all.

While cycling back up, I saw a jogger in the distance. At first I thought he was wearing a beige track suit, then as I got closer I realized that this is one of those moments where the brain rejects what the eyes see. Yes it was a man jogging completely nude. He must have been 90 and was tanned wrinkles from top to bottom and didn’t give a goddamn that he was slowly jogging naked. Some questions resulted: how did he get here? Did he drive? Where the hell are his keys?

Following this lovely incident, we lost the trail again and a nice couple pointed out the way which involved backtracking yet again. So here we are again cycling through our favorite landscape: giant industrial areas.

Well at least it was an amazingly beautiful day to get lost.

I was super happy to leave Linz behind me. For the third largest city, it was the 1st lamest — Saturday night and nothing going on. Only a few people on the streets and nary a smile between them.

Today was a bit of a struggle for two reasons: it was the first time it rained a shit ton, and it was the first time we got lost. Now for the rain, it wasn’t really a big deal. We both had waterproof everything and remained dry on the inside. Besides that it’s kind of fun cycling in heavy rain and I took every opportunity to dare the gods to make it rain harder or make it windier. The gods appeased me on both counts.

In the same vein of tempting things to get worse, we’d been joking the whole time that one can’t get lost following a river. We’re going East so either we’re on the north side and the river is on our right or we’re on the south side and it’s on our left. Well at some point it was on our left and our right because we were in the middle. I’m not exactly sure how we got there but we were in the middle of the river on an islet where the trail abruptly stops. Later we found on the map that there is a small ferry that continues the path but it definitely wasn’t running in the off season.

We cycled about two kilometers through a large industrial yard filled with a variety of shipping containers and a giant crane on rails for loading them. We were cycling towards a bridge in the distance to get us out of the middle of the river. With the bridge over our heads, we pushed our bikes up a steep grassy footing and got on top onto a highway. It wasn’t long before we were back on the Radweg but we’d been cycling for 2 1/2 hours and only covered 28 km. Having a shit time is what we have come to refer to as character building.

Getting to Enns, we stopped at the first pub we found that looked open since at this point it was still pissing rain and we were ready to murder a couple schnitzels. They had beer but kein Essen. That wasn’t the end of world since riding with a slight buzz from one pint on an empty stomach is fun. It’s actually kind of ridiculous: my consumption of beer has gone up on this bike trip, averaging about 5 pints per day.

As we got to Naarn, we found a large pub with a family leaving which means there must be food since children usually aren’t there just for the beer. We sat down and ordered two Radler. Radler is the word for cyclist and is beer mixed with sprite so as to be less alcoholic for cyclists. This was my feeble attempt to drink less.

The menu had Reh and Hirsch. Reh is deer but we weren’t sure what Hirsch was so I asked the waitress what it was in English. She didn’t know and after returning from the back, it was apparent no one knew. Being the intrepid traveller that I am, I wasn’t going to let a little language barrier get in the way, so I asked if she could zeichnenwhat Hirsh was. Not being an artist, she came back with a photo to point at. James claimed it was an elk but the internet told us they were both deer or rather venison.

In order to make up for our detour today, we decided to push forward to Grein which was another 35km. The cycle was fun as the weather had cleared up and we got a beautiful sunset over the rolling hills dotted with a farmhouses and a church. Well after dark we rolled into Grein, and, while standing outside of a guesthouse and discussing where we should try to find accommodation, a woman came out and told us the only one open was down the road. We checked in and found out that yet again we were the only guests. The hostess was a very likable older woman who kindly poured us a couple pints and gave us directions to a pizzeria.

Shower. Pizza. Pint 2x. Schlaff.

We left the unknown village near Hofkirchen after a huge breakfast of bread, jams, 4 types of meat and cheese, eggs, cereal, müsli with yoghurt, and tea and coffee. Crossing the bridge to the south side, we passed through the collection of small hotels and guest houses that we had looked at longingly the previous evening. After about two hours of cycling, we stopped at what looked like a truck stop diner and took a seat outside. The woman happily brought us two stout pints of very cold and frothy beer. James got a huge schnitzel and I got the “XXL” curry wurst. It really was beyond large and the woman shook a bunch of curry powder all over it at the table. I told her in German that it was better than Berlin curry wurst and much bigger. I also asked the woman where we were. Apparently we were almost in Aschach.

From Aschach we biked the rest of the way to Linz which is like the third biggest city in Austria, which doesn’t really mean much because everyone lives in Wien (Vienna). On the way we saw a couple kids being arrested for graffiti. No handcuffs or Polizei brutality.

Finding the tourist information in Linz was super easy, and I asked the young woman at the desk for ein sehr billig Platz für schlafen (a very cheap place to sleep). She called youth hostel but no answer. Well what’s the next cheapest? I also asked where to find sehr viel schön Bier (very many pretty beer), which doesn’t really make much sense but I thought it might get a laugh. It didn’t but it did result in directions to a Brasserie with about thirty different Belgium beers. Maybe the question made sense after all…?

We cycled to the city’s second cheapest accommodation and checked out the deal. You could get a double room with a shower but without a toilet for 56€ all in. Upon getting into the room and seeing the shower and sink, I realized there were in fact two toilets.

After a seriously packed train ride from Munich to Passau, so packed we put our bikes and luggage into the bathroom which was hilarious when anyone went to go use the bathroom <<ach nein!>>, we arrived and quickly found that the information was closed. Putting my fantastisch German to use, I asked several people where the Rathaus was because the other tourist information was there and we needed a map. Shortening things up, we finally found it, got the map, and went for a two pint lunch after which I promptly lost the map. Shouldn’t be a problem right? We’re just following a river.
After an hour of biking we stopped at a seemingly abandoned tourist spot where the only useful thing was a ice cream vending machine. This was officially Austria as my mobile had switched carriers.
Biking for a bit longer we came across an average looking guest house but I was eager to continue on and cover some distance. An hour later, James and I were looking longingly at the south side of the Donau hoping for a bridge to take us to the myriad of hotels and accommodation. At this point it’s seriously dark so we’re biking with lights and there isn’t a g damn thing on the north side. Then the lovely paved path ceases to exist and abruptly gives way to jagged rocks. Like a foolish optimist I suggest we give it a try. Instant regret and retracing of steps. Now we have to backtrack an hour to the first place we found. We get there and tie up our bikes. Walking up the steps the sign says geschlossen. Closed! Did I mention today is a holiday. Seriously fuck holidays. I could see a woman through the window and knocked. With a mix of lost tourist sad face and enough German words to seem nice, she said we could sleep there but the kitchen was closed. Are the beer taps closed? Nope. Thank The Lord. Let’s see if the almighty can finagle us a couple bowls of cereal.

Minor change in plans: instead of cycling to Istanbul we’re going to loop back through Croatia and ferry across the Adriatic to Italy and bike from Ancona to Venice. We will fly back to Berlin to change gear and stow our bikes before flying to Istanbul.

We’ve been in Munich since Wednesday evening and spent the full day Thursday exploring on bike. We also explored on stool while eating many sausages and alternating between Pilsner and wheat beer. This morning we are training to Passau near the Austria German border and we will finally start biking along the Danube.

This will take us across Austria, into Slovakia, across Hungary and Serbia.

In two weeks I’ll be leaving Berlin heading south. My friend James (we go back to high school) is coming from Vancouver to Berlin in exactly one week. We will hang in Berlin for a week before starting a bike tour towards Istanbul. Consequently this means I have about a week to find a bike.

Our plan is to take about 6 weeks to get from Berlin to Istanbul. It’s about 2200 km to Istanbul so that ends up being about 50 km per day which isn’t that much. We can also put our bikes on the train to speed things up if we decide to stay in one place for longer.

There are a few different routes we could take. One would be to cross from Germany into the Czech republic, the other is to cross into Austria. After that it’s Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, before entering Turkey. It also might be nice to go through Croatia instead towards Greece and then Turkey. I imagine this would be quite a bit warmer!

Any suggestions would be helpful.