Bike Trip – Germany and Switzerland
Hey erveryone! After a little less than a year from starting the trip, I got motivated to write a bit about it.
First, here’s a map of all the places I rode my bike through, which totaled about 3600 kilometers, and I did this trip in almost 2 months.
My idea for the whole trip was to just carry camping gear and sleep in a tent most of the times, but since the main objective was to learn German, (and after realizing German people are not very good at starting conversations with strangers) I realized I had to take on a different approach, and decided to rely on Couchsurfing, so I could talk to people and actually LEARN something.
I started the trip on September 23, by taking a flight to Frankfurt to start from there. I’ve never been a very organized guy, so when I first started I thought I could just follow the Rhein north until it reached Rostock, or somewhere around that area. I then realized the Rhen went into Holland and I had to rethink my whole plan, so I moved between “main cities” that were separated by 100 kilometers more or less, a plan I followed throughout the whole trip.
I made the decision (whithout much thought), to head north first, which left the best of Germany for my second half of the trip, and by that I mean Bayern and Switzerland, which was way harder to pedal through, but immensly more beautiful in my opinion. Also, this helped me get in shape, because northern Germany is FLAT, completely flat, which made it easy for me to pedal at first and get stronger, so then I could just push thought the harder parts of the trip.
While travelling I noticed that German people weren’t really eager to talk to you if they didn’t know you from before, but after that first moment, they are incredibly friendly and in general, nice. They made me feel like a part of their groups and invited me to different activities, most of them fun and filled with beer and conversations in Tarzanic German.
My favourites
I was really lucky, because thanks to the different forces of nature, I got to Munich when all the trees suffered a significant change in the colour of their leaves, and made everything look much, much better!
Munich was by far my favourite city in Germany, not only because of all the art and monuments scattered around the city, but also because of the great beer and fun things I did while staying there.
I went to the Eisbach Wave, to see what it was all about, and while looking at all the river surfers I thought to myself “fuck it, I’ll do it, I dont know when I’ll be able to try this again”, so I asked for a board, got it, and headed in for a couple tries. It was hard at first, but then I got the hang of it and was able to get some surfing time in me, in a cold day, without a wetsuit, or towel hahaha.
Another place that really blew my mind was the “Monument to the Battle of the Nations” (Völkerschlachtdenkmal), in Leipzig, that was built to commemorate the 100 years of Napoleon’s loss in a 1813 war. It is 90 meters tall, and has HUGE statues of fierce looking man and soldiers inside, making you feel tiny and not very worthy of standing there.
Another one of my favourite places was Lucerne, with a beautiful view of Lucerne lake with Mount Pilatus in the back!. I also decided to go drink to a bar, alone, and see if I could meet some people and have fun. It wasn’t my best idea monetarily, since beers costed 7chf each, but I ended up having a blast, meeting lots of people and drinking a couple of beers bought by some really friendly swiss guys. This excess of beer made it really hard for me to leave the city in search of a good camping spot, but obviously, I managed!
Hamburg was definitely the place where I had the most fun, in a way that could only work out when you are travelling on your own.
While I was riding my bike through Hamburg, I saw a nice young lade and asked what was her favourite place in town, to which she said something about a tunnel, and asked if I wanted to go. We went there, it was a tunnel for bikes and people that went right under Hamburg’s main river!! We ended up partying in Reeperbahn, dressed up in funny outfits and with me trying to sell my body right next to the prostitutes that were there legally (it didn’t work, although… one guy said he would take me if I paid HIM 5 Euros =(. Almost). We got free drinks in the street, people got their pictures taken with us, and then we went to a house party and absolutely ROCKED. This night was one of the best party nights I’ve had in a while, so thanks to Anna and her friends for being so nice!
BEER and my love for it was one of the reasons I had been wanting to go to Germany for a long time, so I was really happy for being able to drink so many different ones and for really cheap!. The bottles of GOOD beer would all cost around 1 euro a bottle, and you ould even find beers for less than 30 cents, which was a dream come true for a beer that good.
My favourite beer BY FAR in the whole trip was the Andechser Doppelbock Dunkel. Drinking it from the bottle was a treat, but drinking it right after coming out of the barrel, at the Andechs monastery was amazing, specially when you consider the great view and being with my friend Roland, whom I met a couple years ago when he gave me a ride while hitch hiking through Patagonia (it was a 5 day ride).
Roland hosted me for about a week with his family in Diessen, I really can’t thank him enough, specially because most of that time I couldn’t do much because I had hurt my foot while surfing the Eisbach Wave, the second time I went.
Biking
Germany is an ideal place for biking, in general and for bike touring too. It has great bike paths and roads that lead you everywhere, and even though I was angry some times at the roads I was biking on, if I stop to think about it, I realize most countries don’t even offer options like that, so my anger goes away and I just end up being grateful for good and safe roads.
Like I said before, the northern part of Germany is completely flat, great for easy, mellow biking, but now as many views. Whereas the southern part is full of mountains and some bigger hills, all with great views of rivers, mountains, prairies, lakes and forests.
My longest and hardest day on the road was the day I went from Zwickau to Bayreuth, covering 132 kms with an elevation gain of 1500 meters. I dont remember how long I was on the road that day, but I think I will never remember how badly I wanted to get to my destination! Luckily for me, Chris, my host for that night cooked a ton of pasta and pudding for me to eat, which made me really happy and thankful!.
In Germany I felt completely safe and respected while biking everywhere, something new for me, as in Chile biking in general is life threatening, specially in the big concrete Jungle called Santiago.
For navigation I relied heavily on Google Maps. The trick was to set a route whenever I had wifi, turn on the navigation and just follow the directions it gave me. The problem with this was that the few times it stopped working, I was pretty damn lost, and had to either use Roaming or ask for wifi at a strangers house.
I ended up spending about 9-10 nights camping, and the rest all couchsurfing or with friends of friends! Thankfully, in my 2 months of biking I only got rained on 5 days!
All in all it was an incredible experience, that left me highly motivated to know more of Europe, and made me realize travelling is one of the best things in life, especially alone!
I learned a lot of German, drank over 150 different beers, met amazing people, biked around 3600 kilometers, swam naked in the Rhein in November and had the time of my life!
Big thanks to all the people I met on the road, all the couchsurfers that hosted me, showed me around and gave me something their will never get back, their time!. Roland and his family, and all the pople that helped me out on the road!
