We had an eventful day cycling from Berchtsgaden to Salzburg. In the morning we discovered our tent poles had broken (for the third time!), I had minor crash on some loose gravel (nothing was hurt but my pride), we crossed another international border, and navigated a few unexplained detours along the track. We were grateful to arrive in Salzburg and spend a couple of nights in a hostel.
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| City of Salzburg on the Salzach river |
We headed into the city centre and stumbled upon the the local Oktoberfest. It was bustling with people, with many dressed in the traditional lederhosen and drindl, so we wandered through the crowds taking in the atmosphere. Despite some pretty serious European church fatigue, next up was the obligatory stop in the local cathedral. This visit was slightly more entertaining though, as Dave found himself being scalded in harsh sounding German by a nun for wearing his cap inside. I decided not to point out the fact she was also wearing a hat.
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We went up to the Hohensalzburg fortress which sits impressively on a hill overlooking the city. The fortress was an interesting place to explore and there was actually a pretty good museum. However, it did seem like they had taken advantage of the spacious rooms by putting all sorts of random artifacts in the same complex, such as a slightly creepy puppet museum. We returned to the hostel to cook our meal on our camp cooker (the communal kitchen was disgusting) and enjoyed a quiet beverage before calling it a day.
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| Spot the baby photo shoot on the left |
We then headed north a for a couple of days along the Salzach and Inn rivers to Passau, where we met the Danube and turned north-west towards Regensburg. This was kilometres and kilometres of straight, uniform rivers, easy navigation and enjoying the last few days of roaming free on our bicycles. It was starting to get colder during the day and we were wearing thermals to keep warm at night. The tent was collecting a fair amount of dew every night, and as it was misshapen due to the broken pole (we had run out of bits to repair it!) we were constantly a little nervous of how wet we might get. We started to look forward to the benefits of a regular routine, living inside, in a house, with a bed and a shower and a toilet. This helped us deal with the feelings of sadness that our adventure seemed to be quickly coming to an end.
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| A river (so indistinctive I cannot remember if it was the Inn, Salzach or Danube) |
Our last full day of cycling was on a crisp sunny day, through fields of corn, just cruising along listening to music. There was very little fanfare when we arrived in Regensburg (it was like no-one knew we had cycled 7971 kilometres!) and we decided to treat ourselves to a burger in the old part of town. We still had over a week until we flew home, so it was a strange sort of anti-climax to finish the proper cycle touring.
We would be visiting my host family Ann-Kathrin and the Regers, in Meßstetten where I had spent a summer exchange between sixth and seventh form. We stoppped off at Ulm on the way to break up the journey and climb the world`s highest church building at 162m tall. It has maybe another ten years left to this claim, as the La Sagrada Familia is planned to be 170m tall when completed (which is planned for 2026; the centennial of Gaudi's death). We climbed the 768 stairs to the top and were rewarded with some great views from the top.
After another train we arrived in Sigmaringen and were picked up by Ann-Kathrin to travel back to her home town. It was great to see her and her family again and we enjoyed a lunch at a local brewery which is run by her brother. We visited the castle Burg Hohenzollern in the afternoon and we were impressed by yet more picturesque history in Europe.
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| Burg Hohenzollern |
Dave and I had decided to give Oktoberfest in Munich a miss, as we hadn't known exactly where we would be in time to book accommodation and had decided to focus on the cycling. We were excited when Ann-Kathrin suggested we get the train to Stuttgart to spend a day at the local Oktoberfest - the Cannstatter Volksfest. This festival is the second biggest in Germany, with about four million visitors a year. It was great to partake in the festivities with some locals and Dave even donned the traditional lederhosen. Some of the music played by the band included traditional German songs mixed with ACDC, The Beatles and even the Backstreet Boys which seemed very popular with the German crowd. We had lots of fun and was good to kick back and relax.
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| Cannstatter Volksfest |
Our time in Meßstetten had gone by in a flash and it was time to head towards Frankurt, where we would fly home from in a few days time. It was great to see the Regers again, and I hope next time it will be shorter than eleven years in between visits. Maybe next time we meet it will be in New Zealand!
- Sarah
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