The First Bike Adventure

"I think she is trying to kill me." That was a common refrain in my head throughout my first European bike adventure with my sister Katy. We have done multiple bike adventures together but this was our first in Europe. I haven't been riding my bike as much as I'd like because you know, we moved halfway across the world, and have been trying to set up our new home, etc., but my sister and I were determined to do a new route before school started. So she found one! We loaded up the paniers on our bikes, and loaded our bikes on the back of a FLIX bus (like Greyhound), and went to Prague. Our plan was to bike back to Berlin, somewhere between 350-400 kilometers (--I've got to get this metric system down!), in 4 days....

We biked/walked around the super busy and beautiful center of Prague. We arrived a bit later than we planned, so we ate a quick dinner and only managed to bike about 10 km outside of the city to our first of 4 campsites. We woke up early the next morning and this is when the adventure really began. I had absolutely no idea that the bike route would involve so many different surfaces. We literally biked on roads, paved paths, dirt paths, sand, gravel, cobblestone, through towns, through farms, and even one wind-farm. I couldn't believe that we were following an actual route because I would have never gone through a field of sunflowers and thought it was a bike path in the US. But we're not in the US and the route was awesome! We passed some beautiful sites, the lovely countryside, along the Elbe river, and into the mountains. After about 12 hours of biking (with some good breaks mixed in) my sister said, let's get into the mountains to camp tonight! This was the first time I thought "She's definitely trying to kill me." The incline into the mountains was no joke. Seriously straight up. I'm guessing a 25% grade. I couldn't bike it--not with all of our gear (--pretty sure I couldn't have biked it without all the gear). I ended up pushing my bike up this hill while dodging copious amounts of slugs on the wet ground and all the bugs surrounding my sweaty body.

Needless to say, I slept like a rock after a good shower that night. Katy was right, the mountains were beautiful and that is so my "happy place." We wound through beautiful mountain towns which led us straight to the border of the Czech Republic and Germnay. (Unfortunately, as I write this, there is literally a fire happening right where we were. It started 2 days after we were there - so sad.) I thought the bike signs in the Czech Republic were good but I can't believe how amazing the bike signs are in Germany. There are signs everywhere, just for bikes, and they are amazingingly easy to follow, until they're not...We were biking along some random path and then stopped to check our map at the same time this woman, who was definitely doing a big ride, came towards us and stopped to consult her map. I said hello and asked her where she was headed. She said "Berlin!" and I said "So are we!... But wait, why are you going that way and we're going this way?" We all laughed and she proceeded to tell us that for the first time the signs didn't line up and she didn't know where to go. So we decided to combine forces and the three of us figured it out. Turns out she's from Antwerp, Beligium. We exchanged numbers and I'm hoping we see her when she arrives in Berlin. She had set aside 2 weeks to do Prague to Berlin...We had slightly different agendas - HA! We biked through Dresden, which I thought was beautiful, and then camped again.

We decided we loved the Elbe river trail and would love to do another ride along there one day. We continued to adventure on. This day we wanted to make sure we stopped early so that we could just enjoy a chill night of eating, playing games, and reading at the campsite. Thankfully the weather gods were on our side today and it was a cloudy cooler day. The last two days had been really hot! We were right in the middle of the European heat wave. We were determined to be done by 5 pm and we were! Except for the fact that Katy didn't like the campsite. I had nothing really to compare it to, but I was exhausted and ready to be done. But Nooooo, instead we biked on through a wind-farm and a lot of sand (that sh*# is relentless). Seriously, I actually think she was trying to kill me. I may not have been the happiest camper at that point, but 45 minutes later we pulled up to a great campsite. Now I can admit it, she was right! I'm really glad we pushed through. We had a fantastic dinner at the campsite. The European campsites are much different than the ones in the US. I've been told that they usually have a good restaurant and that the ammenities are nice! So far, that has been very true!

Our final day. We were pretty toast but determined to bike straight back to our homes without having to take the train. We ended up stopping for a huge lunch and pushed through. We made it home by about 2:30 that afternoon. Although I was exhausted, I loved every minute (--well almost every minute, minus the sand) of our first bike adventure. I'm hoping to have many more in the next couple of years!