We've been back in New Zealand for a few weeks now, although it seems like an age since we were packing up our bicycles in Frankfurt. We have spent the last few weeks catching up with friends and family, preparing for our move to Blenheim and soaking up good old New Zealand. With the benefit of some time for reflection we decided it was time to finish our blog.  What better way of summing up our adventure for the Buzzfeed generation than a series of lists?

Best days of Cycling

1. Grimsel and Furka Passes
          Our top two highest passes in one day and our highest vertical metres climbed (2400m). Although it was one of the physically hardest days of cycling, the heart of the Swiss Alps was so captivating that it seemed much easier than it should have. From Innertkirchen to Andermatt we crossed from the watershed of the Aare River, which eventually flows into the Rhine and to the North Sea, to the watershed of the Rhone, which flows into the Mediterranean Sea, and then back over to the watershed of the Aare. I think if you had asked both of us before we left New Zealand whether we could physically complete a day like this, we would have both been doubtful. To cycle a road like this, and without any major dramas shows just how far our cycling fitness and endurance has come.

Furka Pass viewed from Grimsel Pass

2. Ainsa to Broto in the Pyrenees (via Escalona and Fanlo)
          Quiet and forgotten backroads through mountainous canyons in the foothills of the Pyrenees - cycling heaven. Many of the days through the Spanish Pyrenees could have easily made this list; the hard earned carefree cruise down the other side of a mountain pass is a feeling we will never forget.
3. Arriving in Marseilles
          The French Riviera continually surprised us with it's range of natural beauty; but this day was a standout. The cliff-top switchbacks of the Corniche des Crêtes road brought us to dizzying heights above the Mediterranean and the Parc des Calanques provided a grand entry into Marseilles. Definitely a place to come back to; we didn't get time to visit the port town of Cassis on the way, and apparently there's great rockclimbing in the Calanques.

Parc des Calanques viewed from the Corniche des Crêtes

Worst Days

We didn't really have that many bad days, and I think we were still smiling even at the end of these ones!

1. Sarah's crash
          Public transport in Europe is awesome, but one of the negative side-effects for cyclists is the train and tram tracks everywhere. Sarah got caught out by some of these tracks in Belgium and hit the deck so hard I was sure she must have broken an arm or collarbone. She was lucky to get away with just a badly bruised knee. She was cycling again the next day but the knee is still causing her grief at times.

2. Rain in Bavaria
          Five days in a row of rain in southern Germany while cycling the Bodensee-Konigsee route tested us. Everything got damp and muddy and a couple of days we got seriously cold. On the plus side we got to stay in a few quirky guesthouses and the fog and low cloud hanging in the mountains was rather enchanting.

Still smiles

Best Food

1. Pizza in Naples
       With the ingredients and method of cooking strictly controlled by the 'Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana' this could well be the best pizza we'll ever eat. It should be at the top of your 'to do' list if you ever visit southern Italy. In fact, this pizza alone may just be reason enough to visit Italy....

Naples-style calzone we had in Florence

2. Pintxos in San Sebastian
          Pintxos are the Basque version of Spanish tapas and pintxo culture is strongest in San Sebastian. For Sarah's birthday we went on a tour of several of the best pintxo bars in town, learnt about the classic pintxos and drank Basque cider. We had a great group of Irish and Australian travellers and had a fun time meeting new people and exploring a new city and cuisine. A great way to celebrate getting yet another year older!

Pintxos bar in San Sebastian's old town

3. French dinner with the Vidonis
          We were lucky enough to stay a night with the family of a friend of ours, Audrey. The dinner was amazing - we lost count of the number of courses but there were French cheeses, wines and sausage along with meat and vegetable dishes, fruits, and dessert. Luckily we had a a big day of cycling planned the next day to burn away all those calories!

Honourable mentions: French pastries and baugettes, paella in Barcelona and lunch at a Basque Txoko (food club).

Best Marked Cycle Routes

We didn't actually fully complete any marked cycle routes - but much of our trip consisted of linking trails together to get where we wanted. We've picked what we thought were the best routes from what we experienced of them.

1. The Rhine Route
          We followed the Rhine for 600km from somewhere in Holland to Mannheim, linked up with it again near Basel for around 40km, and lastly cycled the first 150km or so from the source of the river to the Bodensee. The range of landscapes along the river is fantastic; from the cute villages of the Alpine Rhine in Switzerland to the enormous industrial parks in Germany, not to mention the castles and vineyards of the `Romantic Rhine`.

Vineyards on the Romantic Rhine section

2. Eurovelo 1 from Spain to the Loire River
       The full Eurovelo 1 trail, the 'Atlantic Coast Route', stretches from the south of Portugal all the way to the north of Norway. We only cycled 850km of the trail in France, and, like the Rhine Route, the range of attractions along the way made it a great route. The route is really well sign-posted and largely on off-road trails. Highlights included Europe's biggest sand dune - the Dune du Pyla - and the very cool medieval city of La Rochelle.

3. Berner Oberland Route - Stage 2 from Interlaken to Innertkirchen
         Cycling under the infamous north wall of the Eiger was one of the highlights of our entire trip. The climb up Grosse Scheidegg was relentless but the rewards were great. Tourists at the top stared in disbelief that anyone would be so stupid as to cycle up there with all that gear, but we got nods of respect from the road cyclists zooming past at twice our speed.

Sarah climbing the 1000m out of Grindelwald towards Grosse Scheidegg with the Eiger hulking behind

Best Church

The cathedral in Ulm might be the tallest, and the Sagrada Familia might have taken out this prize had it been finished, but both Sarah and I found the Siena Duomo in Italy the most memorable church. Incredibly striking zebra stripes inside and out, gleaming gold facades, and the most ornate mosaic floors in Italy make this church stand out among the hundreds we passed on our trip.

Siena Duomo

Some final statistics

We had less than a week until we flew home from Frankfurt and had planned to stop off in Stuttgart on the way. The highlight for me was definitely the Schweine (pig) musuem which I managed to drag Dave along to. I used to avidly collect all sorts of pig toys and ornaments as a child, and pigs are still my favourite animal. This museum had originally started as a personal collection and this was a perfect demonstration of when a quirky collection transforms into just plain crazy. Maybe it's for the best that my own collection has been stored away in boxes for the past ten years..

Schweine (pig) musuem

We were staying in a (rather dingy) campground right next to the beer festival, so we spent the evening wandering round the fairgrounds and enjoying the atmosphere. This would be our last night camping on this trip and the morning ritual of packing up the campsite was rather bittersweet. We headed off to the Mercedes Benz museum which was surprisingly interesting and we enjoyed the morning looking at all the different cars through the ages.
We caught a train to Frankfurt, where we would spend the last few days packing, cleaning our gear, doing a bit of shopping and some exploring around the town. We were looking forward to getting home and the weather seemed to be getting colder every day, so these days flew past in a blur.

Site of book burning during the Nazi era in Frankfurt

We were very close to our goal of 8000 km and we officially passed over the threshold during a short ride between accommodation. We were pretty chuffed with ourselves as one of our original goals had been to bike over 4000 km - we had achieved double this!

8000km!

Obligatory selfie!

Before we knew it, it was time to head to the airport and start the long journey home. We set off from Frankfurt and after stopping in Dubai, Bangkok, Sydney and Christchurch, getting stung with excess baggage, dealing with a fainting fellow passenger and going through four separate security screenings we eventually made it back to Christchurch in one piece. We were tired but glad to be back on New Zealand soil and very happy to be greeted by the Shearers at the airport. After a long drive to Oamaru and a very nice cup of tea with my parents, we were well and truly ready for bed.

- Sarah

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.

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.
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.

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.

As we were leaving our Airbnb in Bregenz we did a quick last check of the weather forecast for the week while we still had wifi. Unfortunately it had completely changed from the night before and they were now predicting up to 50mm (!) of rain. We made a few hasty changes to our plans and headed off back into Germany to follow the Bodensee-Königssee cycleway across the south of Bavaria.

The Bavarian Alps reflected in one of the many lakes in the area

By lunch the next day we'd arrived at a guesthouse with a fantastic view of Germany's most famous fairytale castle, Neuschwanstein. We quickly showered and headed out to have a look at the castle before the forecast rain started. The crowds of tourists were a shock to the system after spending the previous few weeks in the mountains so we opted to avoid actually going inside the castle and just view it from outside.

Neuschwanstein, it all its glory. We were staying in the village behind.

The rain eventually arrived and the next day was spent reading, walking by the lake in the rain and drinking coffee. We set off again the next day, heading east along the foothills of the alps. Unfortunately the forecast had once again changed for the worst and instead of clearing; the next three days were wet, misty, and cold. Highlights included staying a night in a teepee, getting a vodka shot from a guesthouse owner (we must have looked like we needed cheering up!) and some beautiful scenery. Lowlights included flooded out tracks, changing a flat tire in the pouring rain, and not being able to see much of the beautiful scenery due to low cloud and mist!

Into the mist

Flooded river across the track

Some of the mist was actually pretty nice though, and we eventually made it to Lake Königssee/Berchtesgaden with the weather having finally cleared. The Berchtesgaden area became infamous during the Nazi rule of Germany from 1933 until 1945 as the mountain outpost of the inner government.

The main complex of Nazi buildings was set on the hill above Berchtesgaden where a museum, the Dokumentationszentrum Obersalzberg, now documents the era of Hitler and the National Socialists. The museum was comprehensive and somber; with stories of the local population forced from their land to make way for the complex, and also of the Nazis most horrific crimes that were planned in the amazing mountain setting.

The Eagle's Nest

The crown jewel of the complex is the Eagle's Nest, which was a birthday gift from Martin Bormann to Hitler. Situated at a spectacular point on the mountain ridge and accessed by an elevator inside the mountain; the Eagle's Nest was a restaurant where Nazi bigwigs would relax and impress foreign diplomats.

We'd originally planned to get back down the hill in time to take a boat trip on the Königssee, but by the time we'd negotiated the buses to get back down the hill it was 6pm. As we only had 35 km to cycle the next day we got up early, walked the 20 minutes to Königssee and set off on one of the first boat trips of the day.
It was another misty morning, but it had started to clear as we sailed out onto the fiord-like lake. It was amazingly calm and we got sneak peeks of steep mountaintops and huge limestone cliffs through the mist. At one point they turned the quiet electric engine off and asked everyone to be quiet, before the captain produced a trumpet and played a tune, allowing the notes to echo off the cliff faces. The mist dampened the affect slightly; apparently on a clear day you can make out six or seven echos (we only got two or three).

Beautiful clear water on Königssee

Obersee

St Bartholomew's Church on Königssee

We watched them pass before packing up our tent, loading up the bikes and heading off down the valley to Salzburg in Austria.

 -  David

After a slightly cooler night camping at just over 1000m elevation in Grindelwald (we got to try out our new long johns!) we packed up our rather dewy tent and mentally prepared ourselves for the challenge of the day ahead. We would be heading over Grosse Scheidegg, a pass closed to private vehicles with some rather steep sections (they were mostly coloured coded bright red in our helpful diagram of different gradients over the pass.)

A chilly mountain morning.

Cycleway grade sign: STEEP!

We headed up through Grindelwald, and were soon on a small road with only hikers, fellow cyclists and a few public buses to share the road with. The road was too narrow and curvy for the buses to safely pass while cycling, so they tooted their loud, slightly obnoxious horns as a signal to pull over while they passed through. This horn soon became my new favourite noise, as it provided a legitimate excuse to pull over and let my legs and lungs recover for a few seconds, without any admission of fatigue.

Looking back to Grindelwald, with views of the Eiger

We made our way to the top of the pass and enjoyed our lunch while looking down to the valley we would roll our way down that afternoon. We haven't quite managed to get our head around the fact that there are almost always hotels, kiosks and accessible public transport to many of these high alpine areas. Solitude is not easily experienced anywhere in Europe, even in the mountains.
We cruised down to Innertkirchen, set up camp and cooked our standard pasta/pesto/salami/vegetable-of-some-sort/whatever-else-we-can-find one pot meal to fuel us for the mammoth journey we had planned for the next day. We would be heading over the Grimselpass and Furkapass to Andermatt, which included about 2300m of elevation over about 65 km. This would be our biggest daily elevation gain and had me nervous whether I would make it through the day for the first time in a while.

Slightly tense smile

We made it to the top of Grimselpass and took advantage of one of those convenient shops, to partake in a sugary, ice cold beverage. I guess they do have their benefits! We had a steep downhill, followed by another uphill ahead. This particular view towards Furkapass was quite intimidating given we had already completed a whole morning of solid uphill.

Pondering my choices in life

We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves as we made it to the top of Furkapass and had even overtaken a fellow cycle tourer on our way up the hill. We were overtaken by a friendly local road cyclist, who thought we "were mad" for cycling in this area with all our panniers on. He then commented that this would be the third alpine pass he had traversed on the same day, which left us wondering who was "the mad one".

Still smiling

The highest point we have cycled to

It appears chivalry isn't dead, see the guy below pushing his girlfriend's bike up the hill

We arrived into Andermatt and set up camp under the shadow of tomorrow's hill. The cycle tourer we'd overtaken cycled by an hour or so later, and when I had a closer look at his face, I realised he was about 70 years old! What a legend!

The next day we climbed to the Oberalpass where we joined the Rhein River again at its source. It was interesting to see the river in its baby form, as we had followed it quite a way much closer to the sea in Germany and Holland.

I am meant to be showing seven fingers - 7000 km done and dusted!

We meandered down the valley, managed to set up camp and were halfway through cooking dinner when the forecast thunderstorm hit. This eased off sometime during the night, and I was looking forward to enjoying a deeper sleep. However, the local village church bells then started chiming at about two o'clock in the morning and they seemed to go on forever. Why? Does anyone actually enjoy hearing these bell at all sorts of ungodly hours!?! Maybe they don't bother other people, as somehow Dave didn't stir the whole time.

Even the clotheslines in Switzerland are spectacular

We had one more day of cycling before checking into an Airbnb in Austria for a bit of a rest - it would be seven days in a row of pretty intense exercise and my body was starting to moan. We headed further down the Rhein River, crossing over into Liechtenstein for a few kilometres and ending up in a town near Lake Constance in Austria.
Our time in Switzerland was awesome. Although it was expensive, and at times I thought my lungs might explode, it has definitely earned a special spot in my heart. The scenery is simply stunning and the rewards were definitely worth any challenges along the way. Maybe next time we visit we will be cruising through the mountains in one of those ridiculously expensive cars which kept passing us on those hills, smirking at those young ones that are cycle touring and camping.

 -  Sarah