Current mood:

hot

Tour d'Europe - After Day 3
Look, I got lazy again. Can't even use the excuse of being constantly on the road and not having internet access or a readily available socket for the laptop to compose lengthy journey updates, as not only have I had the occasional unsecured WiFi (when not in Germany), I've also been stationary in Copenhagen for over a week and at my parents' since the beginning of the week. But, you know, I'm lazy. Writing is hard.

Since leaving Bruges, I have been cycling fairly non-stop unless where bad weather stopped me or I needed a brief rest. I wandered through Gent and got lost on the way out towards Antwerp. I stumbled into the Netherlands the same way I just somehow ended up in Belgium; non-existing European borders are just odd, especially since the identity of the country entered does change visibly and significantly. I left Holland and entered Germany twice in the same day, on my first ever 140km stage. I kept breaking spokes on my back tyre - four in Holland (repaired at Kemps Bike Totaal in 's-Hertogenbosch), another one near Diepholz (done within twenty minutes in Zweirad Schottler in Diepholz), and yet another one in Heiligendamm in northern Germany, where I also started having issues with a nasty little puncture in the same tyre, on a Saturday afternoon after all the shops had closed for the weekend (fixed partially in Vordingborg in Denmark the next Monday, and then in one of the thousands of bike shops in Copenhagen).

I slept in the occasional weird place; there were hostels and hotels when I felt need for pampering, but mostly there were camping places (mostly in Holland) and a lot of wild camping. Belgium was easy for that. I slept in a picnic hut in a nature reserve forest a bit out of Bremen that kept me wonderfully dry during a night of heavy rain (and which I set off from about ten minute before a group of ten-year-old school kids on a nature trip wandered past with their minders); in an awfully wet clearing behind a car park after I couldn't find anywhere cheap to stay in Hamburg (that was after my first 160km stage); in bird observation and hunting huts that were barely 1x1m large in required a great deal of bending to fit in; or just in the forest. My tent was horrible - I must invest in something that a) actually fits me and my not-very-sizeable luggage and b) doesn't get so wet from condensation (or leaks) every day. The only really good night out in the wild I had in a three-walled, roof-less hunting platform outside Ekeby in Sweden, largely because I didn't need to be worried about sleeping there illegally, but also because the night was pleasantly warm and I only hit my head twice on the wooden board while turning around in my sleep.

I spent a wonderful week in Copenhagen visiting friends made in Qatar, mainly eating ice cream, chatting and getting tours around the city. Copenhagen is just about my kind of town - not too big, not too small, very centralised and very culturally active. I love the parks, the public places, and the habit of coming out into the urban green with the first ray of sunshine. It's an expensive city, but it's so friendly it's just really comfortable. I'm pretty sure I should find myself there again one day.

After Denmark, I made a short loop through southern Sweden, mainly to visit eydimork and to make good on my original idea of a Tour de Scandinavia. But it was so windy and hilly I got rather tired rather quickly.

Of the countries I went through, in terms of cycling, I loved Belgium and Denmark for ease of movement and facilities for cyclists (especially signage). I found Holland to be unfriendly but generally fun to ride through. Germany is Germany; everything is illegal, it's impossible to find free internet for a quick update or hostel search, and people stare all the time; West Germans, I'll admit, are friendlier than East Germans, who are very hostile.

I covered about 1700km all in all, including some ferry rides and a train. For somebody who hadn't been on a bike for about eight years, I think I did pretty well. I won't do it again any time soon, but it was fun while it lasted.

Pictures later.