Munich to Salzburg to Vienna

Munich - A city with a large but extremely busy city center. My right handlebar wrapping had come undone, so I dropped my bike off at a shop to have it rewrapped. Turns out the duct tape I had put over it to keep it in place had stuck to the wrapping so well that it ripped the wrapping when It was taken off, so it wasn't rewrapped, just retaped. While the bike was in the shop, I did learn one thing. Munich, and also Vienna has their bike paths as part of the sidewalk. This makes it safer for the cyclists, but it means cyclists are constantly avoiding pedestrians who wander onto the cycleway. When I was cycling I found myself getting very annoyed with pedestrians, and yet when I was a pedestrian myself, I couldn't help but wander into the cycle paths.

I spend several hours wandering the German Museum, where I found an 8 inch floppy:

and a bunch of WWI and II replica airplanes, such as this one, painted to look like the Red Baron's plane:

And they had some cool prototype supersonic jets:

Munich also has a lot of old buildings, churches, monuments:

One thing I must say about Munich is that I have never in my life seen so many people not jaywalking. I honestly felt like I was instantly marked as a tourist since I would get odd glares from people when you could clearly see no car coming for miles, yet no one would cross until the green walk sign was showing.

After one day in Munich, I went to the Dachau prison camp. The hostel was organizing a tour there that cost $20 euros in transportation costs, but it was only about 12 miles away so of course I saved myself the money, stashed my gear in the hostel, and cycled over there. It was fairly depressing and I'm not sure why I went.

After that it was half a day riding, and another full day to arrive in Salzburg and stay at a hostel there.
The next day was spent in Salzburg, which was fairly interesting, as well as an incredibly warm day.

I went to the first non-gothic church so far, and it was quite impressive:

Leaving Salzburg, there was a bit of a climb. However, the slow, constant descent after made it worth it, and I dropped 400ish feet over 10ish kilometers through a valley, and following a few lakes. I even had some tailwind. Austria is everything Switzerland wishes it could be.

I ate lunch here:

Just as I was looking for a place to camp, it started to rain, but the rain stopped before morning, so that was a welcome change.
The next day I joined the eurovelo 6 route, still enjoying the crazy tailwind, doing 20mph on flat road along the river.
I ate lunch here:

I met up with a german cyclist who was also headed my way, and we rode along the river to Vienna. He is going about the same speed as me, but will be staying longer in the main cities. We camped outside a farmhouse the first night, then made it all the way to Tulln where he had already arranged to stay in a church in town where we got a free warm bed and breakfast. With the tailwind, I/we have made it 70+miles each day for the last few days. It has been nice to ride with someone going the same direction and the same speed. Also, he just started his tour a week ago, so it has been interesting being able to share some tips with him. For example the day we met was the first day he had camped on his journey, and we shared pasta and a beer.

Apparently thousands of people ride along the eurovelo 6 route each summer, but so far we've only seen a few.

I am now in Vienna and I will be for one more day before riding the 50km to bratislava, then on to Budapest.

Interlaken to Munich

Well, I got my nice day in postcard switzerland, and I spent the morning heading up into the mountains. This time I took the train from interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, then the cable car and train to Murren, then the cable car to the Schilthorn. All told it was about 85 swiss franks to make it to the Bond restaurant.

Lauterbrunnen in the sun:

 At the top:

Leaving Interlaken, I had a nice ride until around 6pm I ran into the Brulig pass, which left me walking the bike 5km up a 10% unpaved grade as the sun set.

The most swiss picture I have taken:

Not finding anywhere to camp, I started heading down the other side until I got the feeling I was missing a decent view, and finally set up camp next to a farmhouse about 100m from this scenic overlook:

Of course I paid for my one nice day with the next 4 days being nonstop rain or snow. This was the first time riding in a downpour since I tore my rainpants in half outside Dijon by catching them on the crankset. I made it through Lucerne and Zug and foolishly tried to camp when all my clothes were wet. I awoke to still being soaking wet, and stayed in my sleeping bag half the next day knowing that I would have to break camp while it was snowing, in wet gloves and wet everything. I made it about 10-15 miles before I stopped in a hotel to warm up my hands and dry out everything. It also turned out that after 2 months of rain my phone finally seemed to have given up after getting too much water in it to turn on. Next day was another day of all day rain while the temperature hovered at about 35 degrees. I put in my 50 miles and found another hotel to stay at since everything was again soaking wet. I stayed across from this lake:

Since I was using my phone as a map and I had no other map of switzerland, I had to be extra careful at each turn. I opted not to buy a map of switzerland however, since they mark the trails quite well with signs and maps like this posted:

Next day was Easter Sunday, and despite snow and annoying headwind most of the day, I made it to near Bregenz. I even crossed this river/canal to spend about five minutes in Liechtenstein:

Finally making it out of Switzerland, I had bought a map of Germany anticipating that their cycle routes wouldn't be marked as well. I followed the Bodensee-Konigsee Radweg, which is probably the worst designed cycle route I've been on. I spent the next two days climbing my way up and down through tiny German towns, weaving all over the map with no apparent direction. It was also still about 40 degrees with plenty of snow on the ground. At several points I noticed I was riding on the main road and there was a cycle path to the right that I should be on, so I of course aimed for safety. I may have underestimated how deep this snow drift was:

Random scenic overlook of Nesselwang:

After two days in Germany, I set up camp within sight of Hohenschwangau, hidden (fairly well I’d say) in what I’m fairly sure was a park of some kind. Someone needs to give Germany the memo that spring has started.

View from about 20 feet away from my tent:

Spent the morning at Neuschwanstein, which was fairly underwhelming. After ~17 years of being built, the castle was never finished, and never lived in. The king financing it was killed and 6 weeks later it was open to the public. They only allow you in the castle as part of a guided tour that takes about 30 minutes and they rush you through without time to admire the paintings and woodcarvings which were actually finished.

After that it was off to Munich. My phone apparently is working after all, just the power button is unreliable, and I've replaced my rain pants. I’m staying in an enormous hostel that has way too many people trying to use the internet connection, so it’s very slow.

Western Switzerland

Two days in Geneva:

The hardest to miss landmark is the fountain of water in the middle of the lake:

I went to the UN and did the guided tour. I find it oddly fitting that they have a giant chair with one broken leg outside:

The older wing of the building, and one of the conference rooms

I made it to CERN which was a lot farther outside the main city than I thought, but I guess you have to book a tour ahead of time as they only do a few each day.

In one of the parks in Geneva they have a clock mostly made out of flowers, as well as a statue for the genevan people

In another park they have the wall of reformation, with lots of sculptures of famous reformers

On the way back I spent a good half hour watching a game of chess in the park

Random panorama of Lake Geneva, taken when for reason they had the fountain turned off

Geneva to Lausanne:

I sat here and ate lunch which consisted of bread, camembert, ham, and mustard I still have from Dijon

I made it to Lausanne to meet a host who showed me a bit around the city, including another church:

That church and many of the other famous buildings in the city are made of some type of sandstone, so they're pretty much constantly repairing them.

Lausanne, being built on a hill and spanning valleys also has many bridges like this:

The next day I was off to Montreux to see the Chateau de Chillon. On the way, there are tons of terrace farms. Everywhere else in the world, terraces are for rice. Here they're for grapes.

On the way back, before climbing up a rediculous hill I found Charlie Chaplin

And it's not often you come across the literal fork in the, um, lake?

I made it all the way to Bulle before continuing into the mountains and finding a place to camp, where the next morning brought the end of the nice weather, and everything has been fog or snow since.

Even with the fog it was still a good day. I hit my new highest altitude of about 4100 feet, and still managed 50 miles, to camp just near Spiez. Somewhere around Gstaad, the road I was riding on stopped being a Rue and started being a Strasse, and "La Poste" became "Die Post"

The following day, I was going to meet a host at the end of the day, but decided to head into the mountains south of Interlaken before that, in case the weather decided to improve. It didn't, and it was snowing all day. This was also the day I made my first major navigational blunder. I thought there was only one way to go into the mountains, but it turns out there were two. I made a wrong turn, but pressed on, up into the mountains thinking I was heading in the right direction and not wanting to give up before reaching the end of the valley. After arriving, it turns out I shouldn't have taken the left turn at Zweilütschinen towards Grindlewald, and instead I should've veered right towards Gimmelwald and Stechelberg. It seems so simple in hindsight. Not that it mattered since there was nothing to see anyway.

On the way down, since I was so close to Lauterbrunnen where I wanted to be, I decided to head back up there anyway. This sign marked what I came to see (fog on the lens)

Oh yeah, check out the awesome view. If you look closely, you can make out the cliff wall:

Today I stuck around Interlaken since the weather is supposed to improve tomorrow. Went to the tourist office and they told me, "Yeah there isn't a whole lot to do in Interlaken. It's mostly a starting point for other adventures in the mountains."

I did go to the caves they have on the north side of one of the lakes, which has a pretty cool entrance, even though they don't want you taking pictures inside:

Before heading to the cave I took this picture:

After returning ~3 hours later I took this picture:

Yup, the weather is definitely improving.

Tomorrow I will try to head into the mountains if the weather improves, otherwise I'll continue eastward.