Veni, Vidi, Velo: August 2016

Germany Part II, Austria, Slovenia Part I

In the past month, we have finally left the German speaking world behind, discovered the many delights of Slovenia, and are currently on the Croatian Istria coast preparing to do some serious island hopping on our way to Dubrovnik. Here's what we did for the first half of that time.

Germany Part II

We had reached Lake Constance, and from here on we were not following a pre-determined route, but had to work out our own way forward. Arriving a day early, we decided to wild camp behind a school playing field on the shores of the lake, and just in time, too; our tent was again battered and lashed by an almighty thunderstorm.

The next day, after a morning coffee and swim, we finally arrived at the guesthouse on the shores of the Bodensee, the greater of the two Constance lakes. The proprietor was a kindly religious lady who must have been in her eighties and handed us small religious charms to mark our visit. "Zat is MARVELLOUS!" she exclaimed, after hearing we had cycled from London.

The apartment was small and quaint but more than adequate for our purposes; one of the sad ironies of cycle touring is that the real work begins when you get running water, a roof over your head, and Internet access. Clothes must be washed, sleeping bags aired out, bicycles cleaned, tightened and fixed, the world updated on your movements. This done, we pocketed our Virgin Mary charms and set off again along the German shore of the Bodensee, towards the town of Lindau.

If you read travel literature about the Bodensee, supposedly one of the jewels of the sub-Alpine border country between Austria, Germany and Switzerland, you would be forgiven for thinking that a cycle around its shores is something that should be on everyone's bucket list. Having done exactly that, I could not disagree more. The cycle paths on the shores of the lake were a crawling pile-up of wobbly tourists on rented bikes, the towns nondescript tat-selling honey pots, the path itself offering great views of the highway but the lake itself rarely glimpsed. It took us most of the day to cycle the 30km to Lindau. We camped in the woods just outside of the town.

After Lindau, we headed towards Munich through Allgau country. The whole landscape looked like something off a packet of butter; a stunning sub-Alpine landscape of rolling green meadows dotted with wildflowers, tinkling cows, and small red-roofed villages nestled in the clefts of valleys. Dungaree-clad farmers with bristling moustaches waved at us from jolly wooden Alpine houses that you half expect to burst into clockwork song on the hour, with little wooden men popping out of the upper windows. Looming over all this were the Austrian Alps themselves, their peaks brown and bare in the summer heat. Wild camping is easy in such forested landscape. We bedded down in the corners of meadows and on the floor of silent pine forests coated in needles and luminescent moss.

Our five days in the Allgau were idyllic and it was certainly the finest part of Germany we experienced. However - and I cannot emphasise this enough - the lack of country pubs is an appalling crime. Rolling greens and azures such as these would be complemented perfectly by a foaming pint in a well-situated beer garden, but the only beer to be had is in nondescript pensions and hotels (which appeared never to be open, thanks to the region's strict Protestant anti-fun ethos). One town we camped outside, Zell, was a typical example of this awful paucity. Situated overlooking gorgeous sun-dappled flatlands, the town had a church and a museum, but no pub, and not even a shop. What kind of town needs a museum more than it needs groceries or a cold pint? Not the kind of town I want to live in.

A morning swim in Lake Constance

Lindau harbour - we basically stopped to take this picture and then moved on

It's a bloody crime these villages don't have pubs

A bloody crime

We had a good swim here, but we didn't have a cold beer (I did have a couple of lukewarm cans, admittedly)

Maybe this guy should stop pointlessly killing animals and open a beer garden, for the good of the region

Not a bloody beer garden in sight

"Where's the BEER?"

Still no beer

Our final night camping before Munich, in Forestier Park (forgot to rotate the image)

Next was Munich. My parents had decided to fly out and join us for a few days, and had booked us a delightful penthouse apartment in the heat of the Bavarian capital for three nights. Despite mixed weather, we had a fine time, and more than made up for our temperance in Allgau with many, many foaming steins of Dunkel complemented by crispy fried fish, salted pretzels, and rich currywurst. Bavarian food is generally the same colour as the beer, and about as good for you (so naturally, it is all heart-attack-inducingly delicious).

We visited the famous Hofbrauhaus, an absolutely enormous bierkeller in the centre of town sporting the inevitable oom-pah band and tavern wenches in lederhosen carrying physics-defying amounts of beer. We also visited both residences of the old Bavarian royal family, the Residenz and the summer palace on the edge of town. The royal families of old Europe really were spectacularly ugly and there is a marvellous contrast between the "Hall of Beauties" - a collection of portraits of beautiful young girls known to the royal household - and the portraits of the royals themselves, who were as pale as cave-dwelling fish, and about as good-looking.

It was time to say farewell, finally, to Germany. After taking leave of my parents in Munich we boarded a train to Salzburg in Austria as we both felt it was time to leave Northern Europe behind and cross the Alps. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of Munich myself - I will have to add them as they are sent by Sarah and my folks.

Taking the train is an odd experience on a cycle tour. You are so used to crawling across the landscape, taking in all the smells, sounds, and lie of the land, that sitting in a chair and watching that landscape fly past feels like pressing the fast-forward button. Looking at the map, you marvel at how far you appear to have come in so short a time - we crossed all that?! In just two hours? This must be some sort of magic!

After an enjoyable afternoon chilling in a meadow followed by making camp in a forest outside Salzburg, we boarded the train the next day to take us to Villach, near the southern Austrian border. After cycling through churned-up pine logging country, it was time to head over the hills into Slovenia.

Slovenia Part 1

Slovenia is the jewel of Europe. I don't mean this in a flippant way; it is literally the most beautiful European country I have ever seen. The places we saw in this tiny land were unlike anything we had ever experienced before. The country is lush and green, yellow and scrubby, sun-drenched and rain-drenched, high and low, and absolutely stunning no matter where you are.

Most cycle tourists seem to enter Slovenia from the west, via Udine west of the Venetian plain in Italy. Plotting our route, I thought this needlessly circuitous, so I decided that we would skip Italy entirely and enter from the north, directly from Austrian Radendorf to Kranjska Gora on the edge of Triglavski national park. Little did I know that there is a very good reason most don't try to enter western Slovenia directly from Austria; the only way through is up, and up, and up.

This route took us over the "Wurzenpass" road, or as I dubbed the climb later, "Hard Labour". It climbs 500m over a huge border hill and is steep, with 20% gradients in places. I climbed a short way with my bags, returning to pick up Sarah's bags to do the climb again, only to collapse blinded by fatigue in the first lay-by just 50 metres up. The rest of the journey, we dismounted and painstakingly pushed the heavily-loaded bikes up, inch by inch, muscles screaming with pain and blinded by sweat, motorcycles and arseholes in sports cars speeding past. After finally reaching the top and crossing the border at the summit, we had an equally steep ride downwards, which was a thrilling five-minute rollercoaster.

The top of the Wurzenpass...

...where we encountered a random tank

We had entered Triglavski National Park, which takes in a good bit of what are known as the "Julian Alps". These are a range in the southern Alps which have long been known for their natural beauty, and with good reason. We started in the little town of Kranjska Gora, and then headed to the gorge itself, a freezing emerald lake at the foot of jagged limestone peaks. Further up the hill we camped, in an undulating pine forest of tumbled limestone. We were caught in an epic 36-hour thunderstorm, and were confined to the tent for the next day. Much gameboy was played and some good chess games were had. We cooked spaghetti in the tent using rainwater poured through a coffee filter.

Next was Lake Bled. This is perhaps what Slovenia is best known for; a picturesque, calm jewel of a lake surrounded by the Julian Alps and sporting an island with rustic church in the centre. We had booked a guesthouse on the less populated shore of the lake and received some robust tips on our route from the proprietor, Brane, who was an experienced cycle tourist himself and knew the region well. We took a kayak out on the lake on the second day and explored the island itself. It's nothing to write home about and took us less than 20 minutes to explore. The lake itself was glassy and calm, and paddling around it with a beer in hand was a delight.

Kranjska Gora town

The gorge itself

It looks nice, and it was, but you'll freeze your bollocks off in that lake

Our guesthouse in Bled

All the waters were a deep shade of green

Bled island - Korean tourists seem magnetically attracted to it

Beer not shown

On the shores of Bled

Bled Castle with the Julian Alps behind

After Bled, we took a seriously arduous route - a climb I have dubbed "Triglavski Trouble" - over the mountains to Lake Bohinj. The climb, again, took us around three hours in the blazing sun, although we were able to stay on the bikes this time. Entering the way down - a sharply twisting descent we called "The James Bond Road" - we saw our first view of the lake itself across a green sunlit valley. The cycle was a delight; luckily I have captured most of this on video, but getting around to editing it all will be quite a task, so watch this space for now.

Lake Bohinj was spectacular. The long, thin lake itself is on the site of a former glacier and is enveloped on three sides by steep white limestone bluffs rising up thousands of metres. The bluffs themselves are covered in pine forests of cascading lushness which, when we arrived in the late afternoon, were lit by a misty golden evening light that seemed scarcely real. After camping in a nearby forest of spiders, where rot had softened tree stumps and branches into yielding spectres of papier mache, we hiked to the Slap Savica falls. This is a 79-metre high waterfall high up in the mountains behind Bohinj and offered stunning views of the glacial valley. We took our breakfast halfway up, watching clouds drift against the peaks far below.

I've run out of time now, so watch this space for Slovenia Part II, where we visit Ljubljana and find the sun-drenched Istrian coast via a landscape of castles and endless limestone caves.