Why not cycle from our house in the UK to our house in Bulgaria?

Route
Imujden – De Westeinder via Spaarndam, Schipol and Aalsmeer 52km
De Westeinder – Utrecht 65km
Utrecht – Maarn 25km
Maarn – Berg en Dal 77km
Berg en Dal – Grosbeek 1.5km

Route 2
Groesbeek – Xanten via German Border, Kessel and Goch 51km
Xanten – Mintard 77km
Mintard – Hattingen 37km
Mattingen – Drupp 59.5km
Train to Colgne via Dortmund
Cologne – Bonn 48km
Bonn – Koblenz 67.5km
Koblenz – Bacharach 56km
Bacharach – Mainz 58km
Mainz – Sandhofen 69km
Sandhofen – Mechterscheim 67.5km
Mechterscheim – Mothern 67.5km
Mothern – Strasbourg 69km
Strasbourg – Ulm by train
Ulm – Ginsburg 38.5km
Ginsburg – Rettingen 59.5km
Rettingen – Ingolstadt 75.5km
Ingolstadt – Matting 75.5km (via boat through the gorge from Weltenburg – Kelheim
Matting – Straubling 64km
Straubing via Deggensdorf to Vilshofen 80.5km
Vilshofen via Sandbach to Passau 27km

We bought our house in Hotnitsa back in 2003 and have been gradually restoring it ever since. Hotnitsa is 16km north-west of Veliko Turnovo, just off the road to Rousse. We believe that we were the first British people to buy a house in the village and now more than 25 people from various parts of the UK have bought property here, many of them living in Bulgaria full-time. The house itself dates back about 80 years and is set on 2.5 acres. Working with Bulgarian builders, we converted the cellar into living accommodations, installed bathrooms, pulled down some barns, restored others and we’ve spent a long time attempting (unsuccessfully so far) to tame the garden.

Since 2003, we’ve travelled back and forth on a number of occasions, as work and family commitments allowed. We’ve always flown, but were increasingly aware of the environmental damage we were doing from so much flying and, to be honest, we were also looking for a bit of adventure. We’re both on the upper side of 50 and if we put it off too long, then we’d never be able to do it. So it was that we found ourselves spending a couple of months last summer cycling from Newcastle on Tyne to Hotnitsa and this is the story of that exciting, extraordinary and at times exhausting journey.

Holland: 6.5km cycled so far: to ferry in UK
We took the ferry from North Shields (on the Tyne just outside Newcastle) and arrived in Holland early the next morning. Unfortunately, we immediately became lost and Eileen lost some confidence in my navigational skills at this worryingly early stage. I must confess that I’d only vaguely looked at the maps and was hoping for either signage or miracles on the way – it turned out that neither was available in Ijmuiden. However, we eventually found our way and had an easy ride along some fantastic Dutch cycle paths until we reached our first campsite.

Pitching the tent was a new experience for us, as we’d not found time to try it before we set off. It was somewhat smaller than we’d imagined and tapered off into a narrow section at the bottom, so that we didn’t seem to have much room for our feet. The canvas was also a bit slacker than I remembered from my scouting days, with a disconcerting flapping noise. We crossed our fingers (there was just room to do that) and hoped that it wouldn’t rain.

Home sweet home
Although it didn’t rain, it transpired that the campsite was situated directly under the flight path from Schipol Airport. I can tell you, if you’re interested, that Schipol is a very, very busy airport and it stays that way all night long.

We woke the following morning in a less than enthusiastic mood, but packed up the tent reasonably quickly, given that this was our first attempt at doing so, and then set off before breakfast. We had managed 16km when the morning was redeemed by a wonderful little cafe, where we hungrily consumed fresh rolls, yoghurt and coffee. We reached Utrecht by late afternoon and decided to stay in a rather posh (ie, expensive) youth hostel on the outskirts in the hope that we’d get a better night’s sleep.

The sleep was definitely better but when we woke the next morning, we discovered that Eileen’s bike had been stolen. Our bikes had been chained together and somebody had cut the chain and stolen Eileen’s bike but thoughtfully left mine in place. We reported this heinous crime to the manager, who seemed fairly indifferent and informed us that he’d never known a bike to be stolen in the five years he’d worked there. This was of little comfort, as we either had to abandon the trip or buy a replacement. Despite the setback, neither of us wanted to abandon and so we spent the day reporting the loss to the police and then buying a replacement. Fortunately, we found a really helpful guy in a bike shop and he made sure that we were soon kitted out with a new bike, which Eileen christened Big Bertha, perhaps in the hope that by naming the thing it would be less likely to disappear at the first opportunity.

After this inauspicious start, things rapidly improved and we enjoyed the rest of the ride through Holland. We had a few problems working out where to cross into Germany and cycled around some quiet country lanes for a while until we asked a guy if he could direct us to the border. He said that he would ask his friend if we could take a shortcut through his farmyard. His friend agreed and so it was that we crossed into the second country on our trip without customs, ceremony or even a fanfare of trumpets.

Germany: 225km cycled so far
Once into Germany, we followed the Rhine for a few days and then took a route alongside the Ruhr. However, my imprecise navigation soon caused us problems again, as it turns out there are quite a lot of large mountains in the middle of Germany. (I hadn’t fully opened the map I’d bought, on the principle that one section at a time was probably more manageable.) Eileen was struggling in the heat, with a new bike and heavy packs, so the prospect of days of hill climbing held no appeal. We reached a campsite at a place called Drupp (appropriately pronounced “Droop”) when Eileen flatly refused to cycle another kilometre unless we could find a way of avoiding the mountains. This meant we either needed to find another route or face the unnecessary expense of a German divorce, with all the associated problems of who gets custody of the dachshund, etc.

To make matters worse, the campsite shop had closed so I had to beg the owner for some food to save making a 16km ride back to the nearest town. My German is not brilliant but I think she was saying that all she had was some bread and cheese that she’d put aside for her husband’s supper. However, we could have that as long as we were willing to pay an extortionate amount of euro for the privilege. Needless to say, we paid up and kept a low profile in case the husband should come in search of his supper later that night.

While enjoying this less-than-hearty meal, we resolved to cycle to the nearest station the next day and then take a train into Dortmund where we hoped to be able to consult tourist information offices and guidebooks about alternative routes. So, we cycled to the train station at Frondenberg via Dellwig where we had a lovely breakfast of chocolate croissant and ice cold Kakoa. The ride was much easier without the packs, which we’d left at the campsite.

It felt strange to be in a large city again after 10 days of cycling but we eventually found an excellent bookshop, which had a relief map of Germany (showing the exact position of those previously well-hidden mountains) and some informative guidebooks, which contained detailed routes along the Rhine and Danube rivers. Not only did they show the route in precise detail but also indicated the location of campsites, restaurants, bike shops and massage clinics (sadly, I made that last bit up!). Thus, we decided that we would put our bikes on the train the following day and travel to Cologne, where we could pick up the Rhine route again. This meant that we had done an unnecessary 100 km along the Ruhr.

Allan in a crowded Cologne
When we reached Cologne it only took us a short while to find the clearly signposted route alongside the Rhine. In contrast to the quiet country lanes we’d been following along the Ruhr, this cycle path was jam-packed with cyclists, pedestrians, roller-bladers and pushchairs until it seemed that most of Cologne were enjoying the banks of the river in some form or another. This meant that we had to get used to manoeuvring our way around and between all these people but it was flat and easy cycling, so that we reached Bonn by early evening where we decided to celebrate finding our way (as well as my birthday – a windswept 53 in case you’re interested) by booking into a hotel for the night.

On the Rhine route, we made really good progress staying at various campsites on the way and enjoying the traffic-free cycle paths alongside the river. The cycle paths continued to be as busy as when we first joined them, so that person avoidance became a necessity if we were to avoid an international incident. At times, this was quite frustrating, as we never seemed to be able to get much speed up. This was where my newly acquired iPod came in handy, with the Travelling Wilburys and Tom Waits providing a helpful blend of musical distraction and motivation.

Our next stop along the Rhine was Koblenz, where we stayed at a campsite in a lovely setting beside the confluence of the Rhine and Mosel. As well as its setting, this campsite had an equally attractive laundry so we were able to wash our clothes for the first time in 12 days – actions which no doubt endeared us to our fellow travellers. Across the Mosel from the campsite was the Deutsches Eck, a huge monument that marks the confluence. Beside it on the hill is a Schloss. Both are lit up at night and there is a constant but quiet flow of barges, tour boats and mini-cruises. The Deutsches Eck and the Schloss reminded me of the Assens monument and Tsarevets in Veliko Turnovo.

The next day, after 55km, we stayed at a small place called Bacharach (no sign of Burt, though). At this stage, 55km was about the perfect distance for Eileen – she was just beginning to feel tired after 50km or so and the flat terrain was making her much more comfortable with the whole trip. Our biggest difficulty was the heat – this was one of the hottest Julys on record in Germany and we were invariably late getting started in the morning, which meant cycling in the hottest part of the day. Our consumption of liquids was prodigious but we were still struggling at times. In order to avoid the extreme heat, we started setting off at 6am, which was a bit of a shock to our systems at first but proved helpful in that we increased our daily mileage without too much difficulty.

Sunrise over the Rhine: 6am
Having breakfast in little towns along the way was a pleasure. We stopped one morning at Nierstein where the bakery was open early so we bought fresh rolls and a little cake each and boiled up our tea on the gaz stove.

By the time we stayed at Mainz and then moved on to Sandhofen, we were managing more than 65km a day and taking long breaks at lunchtime, thus avoiding the midday sun as well as all those mad dogs and Englishmen.

Having got the hang of person and heat avoidance, all we had to do was keep pedalling and avoid getting lost. For the most part, this was easily done although we did find it difficult to negotiate our way through the large industrial city of Mannheim. No matter which way we turned, we couldn’t find the Rhine and when we did then we couldn’t find the cycle path. This meant that we were cycling along busy main roads, which was difficult and a bit scary at times. Traffic lights, junctions, pedestrian crossings and all the other paraphernalia of cities made stop-start cycling with heavy packs very tiring, and we really appreciated the pleasures of traffic-free cycle paths again when we eventually re-discovered the route. By the time we reached Mechtersheim we’d completed our first 800km. Only about another 2415km to Hotnitsa.

Another 135km on and we reached Strasbourg. At this point, we decided to take a couple of days off and do some sightseeing in Strasbourg. We found a good campsite (The Green Man) on the outskirts and cycled in for a couple of days of rest and recuperation.

Petite France in Strasbourg
From Strasbourg, we took a train to Ulm, where we joined the River Danube, which we hoped to follow all the way to Bulgaria. Putting our bikes on the train wasn’t quite as easy as it sounds, given the unhelpfulness of the train guards. We’d already had to carry our bikes and their increasingly heavy packs (at least, they felt much heavier – as though someone was putting additional items, such as bricks, in them while we slept) up stairs and escalators until we finally found the correct platform.

When the train arrived, the guard refused to tell us which carriage was designated for bikes so, in a panic at the prospect of the train moving off without us, we boarded the nearest carriage and pulled the bikes on as best we could. Almost immediately, another guard came along and told us we couldn’t put our bikes there. By now, our panic had turned to fury and so we refused to move unless she told us where the bikes should be. This seemed to do the trick and she pointed out a carriage further down the train, emblazoned with large pictures of bikes on the side, which we’d somehow managed to miss. We struggled again with the bikes off the train, down the platform and up onto the bike carriage. Finally, we found our seats and collapsed in exhaustion for the rest of the journey, reflecting that it might have been easier to cycle all the way to Ulm.

When we arrived in Ulm, we bought another couple of excellent cycle guidebooks, which we followed all the way to Budapest. Beyond that, we weren’t certain but that would be another challenge on another day. By the time we reached the banks of the Danube, it was overflowing with revellers, boats, bands and beer-gardens – truly a carnival scene! We briefly wondered if this had been staged in order to welcome us to the Danube phase of our journey but soon discovered that it was a celebration of Ulm being proclaimed as a town many centuries ago.

Our progress was significantly impeded by the party-goers, whose main focus seemed to be soaking one another with water and consuming as much alcohol and sausage as possible. We felt that it would be churlish if we didn’t join in and so partook of some liquid refreshment, which had the effect of slowing us down even more. As a result, it took us a couple of hours to get clear of Ulm and then we had a bit of trouble finding our campsite for the night in Ginsburg where we looked for an hour for the Naturfreundhaus, which was off the beaten track. The Naturfreundhaus is part of a movement similar to Green Peace or the Woodland Folk. There are 1000 nature houses in Germany, Austria, Holland and Switzerland. We eventually arrived and had the most delicious meal of mushroom stroganoff.

The mushrooms had been locally picked and although they were delicious at the time they disagreed with our stomachs the next morning. This meant that we stopped mid-afternoon rather than continuing to our intended destination. As luck would have it, we found a beer-garden, which had spaces for tents and so we camped there for the night. This was fine until midnight when I felt like going round telling the clientele that it was time to “see their drinks off” in best pub landlord style. I decided against this and we eventually got to sleep some time later in these slightly surreal circumstances.

The next morning, we had a brief chat with some of our fellow campers: Glen and Emma, who were intending to ride all the way to India. We compared notes with them – it has to be said that they looked much younger, fitter and better equipped than us but we tried not to get too disheartened by consoling ourselves with the thought that our combined age of 107 should provide us with sufficient wisdom to compensate for our other shortcomings. If that was the case, why on earth had we camped in temperatures of 35+ surrounded by boisterously loud German drinkers all night?!

By this stage of the trip – almost a month in – we’d increased our daily mileage to 80km a day and were much stronger and fitter than we’d been for years. We were enjoying the rhythms and rituals of cycling every day and finding that they even had a kind of meditative quality at times. The route we followed criss-crossed the Danube at times and so we hopped on and off little ferries as needed. The temperatures had cooled a little, although they were set to rise again briefly when we reached Passau. A lovely city, in which the Danube met the rivers Ilz and Inn, absorbed them effortlessly and then simply continued on its magnificent and stately way. We were pleased to continue alongside it, crossing the border into Austria.

We’d been in Germany for 3 weeks (it’s a big country) by then and were glad of a change, not least because it meant that we could cross another border – as inconspicuous as the previous one, although we did manage to spot a genuine sign this time and didn’t cross through someone’s back garden.

To be continued...