Things fall apart (Lübeck, G)

In front of the Central Railway Station in Brussels, just about to start the homeward journey.  

After weeks of making my way across Europe, the first part of the return journey through 3 countries was over in a heartbeat. However, getting here did mean a long day of train travel, with no less than 4 train changes in various Dutch and German towns. I like train travel as such, and the multiple stops made it more interesting,as I had to keep moving the bike and the bags on and off trains every couple of hours.

What really made the day memorable,though,was that my equipment started to fall apart. First,it was one of my Ortlieb panniers that had lost a screw and as a result,was hanging periculously from the rack. After half an hour's search in Deventer,I finally found a somehow fitting screw at a locksmith's, and made it to the next train on time.

However,things got a lot more interesting in Osnabrück,where I got a mysterious flat while sitting in a café 15min ride from the train station. I noticed it so late that had to run back pushing the bike,and fix the puncture on the train.


----------
Lähetetty Nokia-puhelimesta

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paris, finally!

Image
Paris. Here I am, after all those weeks on the road, at the End of this Road. And I Love It: The city is lovely, the weather is beautiful, the people are friendly and the dancing is good. Most importantly, though, I feel really good about the achievement that took most effort in the very beginning and the last few days. As a matter of fact, I did get here already Friday evening, but time has just passed in such a blur that I simply have not had the time to sit down and write about it. Even as I write this (at 4 am on Sunday morning, having just returned from a milonga), I am about to fall asleep while seated, so I will need to be brief. On Friday morning, I had an early start from Peronne, and despite the minor (?) logistical problem of a 40-km stretch missing from my maps (funny, considering that they were the neighbouring pages of a series of maps) managed to cover most of the remaining distance without getting lost. This changed, however, the moment I got into the...
Read more

Getting into the swing of it (Pärnu)

Well, after two days of cycling I have both good and bad news. The good news is that very little seems to have changed for me in terms of travelling this way. Yesterday, although getting out of Tallinn was as stressful as leaving a strange city on a fully-loaded touring bike always is, I quickly noticed that indeed, I had not forgotten how to do this. Nor did the little over 100 km I covered both yesterday and today seem impossible to do, although the last 20 km certainly took some willpower. One thing that has greatly eased my settling into the right mindset is the fact that my Dad is accompanying me for a few days in his camper van. This means that not only do I have a soft mattress to sleep on and someone to pay my meals (;-), most importantly, there is someone to encourage me on (in his case, this means trying to get me to put the bike on the van and driving with him instead of cycling, something that I obviously wont do :-). All this works in my favour, as does being able to get...
Read more

The charm of the Danube (Vác)

And so, after 10 days of cycling, I am now almost within shouting distance of Budapest. What remains is 35 km of winding bike track, hugging the side of the now slowly, almost dreamily flowing river. The sky has a few scattered clouds that at this hour (11am) still offer some shelter from the heat that is set to climbing up to 40 degrees as the day progresses. Knowing there would be little escape from the sun, I set off from the campsite at 7, stopping in the centre of Esztergom only long enough to get some groceries for breakfast. A minor problem arose at the campsite reception, when the same guy who had refused to charge me when I arrived last night, saying I would have to wait until the morning, now said the reception would only open at 9. Now this was Far too late for me, as it would mean I would have to cycle the whole 80 kms in the already merciless heat. So, what to do? I simply put on my tour leader mode, the one that was once needed to keep my safari staff operational, ...
Read more