46th day Varel to Bad Bramstedt

Distance: 167km
Total: 4558km

Best night for a while, maybe the empty stomach? Didn't manage to get the tent dry in morning sun. Started slow advance on low energy. At 11km found small shop and got bread and salami. After 40km took ferry over Washer to Bremenhaven, which is rather large city with major dock facilities.

Day was sunny with clouds temperature around +27°C, humidity rose over the day. Next ferry over Elbe was at 110km mark, and it had long line of cars waiting the boarding - heard the waiting time is 1.5 hours for automobiles - bikes and foot passangers didn't have to wait of course.

Drove off from the Elbe and skies started to get more cloudy - and many of the clouds were thunderstorm cloud type. At one point it started to rain hard and I took cover at gas station. When rain became light, I headed out again. Somehow along this rain hiding I had taken wrong road, which forced me to back trace a bit and take a route  I hadn't planned to take.

In Kellinghusen I got totally confused by cycle route sign saying 29.5km to Bad Bramstedt, and as it was late already many things crossed in my mind already - it was also raining with thunderstorm at same time. Finally I understood to check my 'new' map and it showed the distance to be 13km via normal road, I wonder how they managed that long cycling route...

It was getting pretty dark and it was still raining, when I decided to make the final dash - as Kellinghusen didn't have campsite. It rained all the way, and I was pretty flushed, though it was warm rain. After bit searching found the campsite and managed to reach someone. It was only a bit light left, so wanted to get the tent before it would be totally dark, but then came this guy who just pointed me to come with him - he didn't really speak the common language, but he wanted me to sleep in small light summer house - which I had nothing against. Thanks for the helpful attitude despite lack of common language.

Tomorrow should get to Travemunde, and I have zero idea when the ships sail - guess I'll go to the port and figure it out - hope at least daily.

45th day Midwolda to Varel

Distance: 136km
Total: 4391km

Didn't sleep much; firstly at about midnight started a thunderstorm - or more like electrical storm - everything kept being illuminated by the continuous lightning and that was backed up by continuous noise of thunderstorm. It didn't however ever come on top of the campsite, and shortest major flash to major sound I got about 5 seconds. It also rained heavily every now and then. All and all lasted couple hours.

If the thunderstorm kept me awake late, something else woke me up early. First woke up on some noises, from which one was the sound of cuckoo, which is quite usual along the journey, so I just turned and tried ignore it as usual and continue the sleep. This time however the sound was unusually loud and couldn't sleep. So after a while decided to take a peek outside to see how the weather was like. And there was a sizeable cuckoo 5 meters from my tent eating worms (or something) from the ground and being noisy in cuckooish way.

Day started after that normally - yet bit slowish. It was brilliant bit over 20°C with 'ordered' southwest wind.
It was only 20 kilometers to German border, which was just a small light traffic bridge. Landscape didn't change much, but separate cycling lanes and roads disappeared and cycling paths went along small roads. Also the layout of housing changed from tight villages/towns and fields between them to more spread out housing with more distance between centers.

At border I had to make choice to take more norther or souther route and opted for norther one as it seemed less populated and was more in line with tailwind. And tailwind indeed was great, 25km/h with minimal effort and 30km/h still easily. Fun lasted until Ditzum, where was the linchpin of the norther route, a ferry over the river, which of course had just few minutes before left and would come back in half hour AND then take an hour lunch break. So there I sat 1.5 hours just waiting.

After the ferry the tailwind was still with me and was able to cover good distance. Went eat in Wiesmoor and realized its Sunday, so had to eat in restaurant. Sad thing is that can't fill my empty food stack for the evening or the morning, so the broccoli pizza better last next ~16 hours. Think its gonna be slow morning ride without energy tomorrow.

Found a campsite about 10km after Varel and camped up on campsite with some cow aroma in the air.

47th day Bad Bramstedt to Travemunde

Distance: 92km
Total: 4650km

Woke up in my little hut excited to finally have the possibly last cycling day for the trip. Weather was sunny and only my shoes and socks, that were wet were uncomfortable to wear. Cycling pants went to 'steering wheel' for first 25km to dry.

Made my way to Bad Sepelberg along the road 206's side 'velobahn' and after on smaller roads to Lubeck as 206 became autobahn. Had a short break for some additional breakfast in Lubeck and also drove through the old city. Didn't want to waste too much time as had no idea, when the ferry to Finland is gonna leave - and thanks to German policy with Wi-Fi, its practically impossible to reach internet from Germany easily.

Cycled towards Travemunde, and on the way there was bus parked along the street and apparently had to take it to just get under the short tunnel - bus was free though. Went all way to centrum of Travemunde only to find out I need to go back couple kilometers for the right terminal. The terminal for scandinavian traffic was a big building with offices, small restaurant and 'traveler's shop'. The Finnlines office would open at 19.00, so had to wait to know is there room in the ship and if there is, buy the ticket.

From here on started to meet quite few finnish people, and had couple chats with them. The ticket office opened at 19.00 and got my salty price ticket for me and bicycle for 185€ (155+30), which is pretty high compared to say flying. Heard the reason is the monopoly of Finnlines on the rouse, but next year Viking line going to open a competing route so the prices might come down somewhat.

The gates to loading waiting area opened at 20.30 and got access to ship around midnight - so all in all the day was mostly waiting, if would have known the timetables could have spent more time in Lubeck or so. Anyways as don't have cabin just bitter one of seating areas with sleeping pad and sleeping bag and went in sleeping mode - ship is supposed to sail at 03.00.

44th day Marrum to Midwolda

Distance: 124km
Total: 4255km

Morning was extremely humid, and a look outside of tent revealed thick fog everywhere. Had to pack pretty wet tent as no way for it to dry in that humid fog. Started the day driving along the dyke to northeast, straight on headwind, which was pretty strong - so the endless fog must be coming from the sea then.

Made my way to Lauwersoog and both headwind and fog persisted, there was a lot sheep fenced on the dyke and the road was pretty messy at times because of the sheep. Was not much landscapes seen most of the day because of the fog. It also became rather heavy driving as humidity was waaay up and temperature had also risen over +25°C - everything just was little wet and air heavy to breath.

In Middelstum things changed; I was having a break on outskirts of the town - enjoying something horrible I bought from Aldi store - suddenly it started to come darker, car lights really showed up over distance etc, wondered whats going on here, first gusts made me decide I might not want to be here on the open with some stuff out for a break. As I was closing last panniers, big drops started to land, 10 seconds and the shower was on full throttle, 30 seconds later I might swell have had a swim with all clothes on. Hurried under some tree cover, which didn't do good job at stopping rain, and pulled on the 'rain' coat - which was totally soaked soon also, but kept me bit warmer.

The thunderstorm was a turn point on weather though; temperature dropped and after the rain was gone all of the fog was gone. It made really good driving weather, as wind was gone also - only bad side wet roads and wet me.

Finding a campsite wasn't hard - first one was called 'Kleine Finland' so had to check it out, unfortunately there was nobody on reception and it seemed pretty empty apart from some people in cabins. Second campsite had just note - gone vacation, back 3rd of august. 3rd campsite was open and taking people - although reception was empty, but provided a phone number to summon someone to reception.

Tomorrow more to east - hope the winds are more favorable.

43rd day Amsterdam to Marrum

Distance: 164km
Total: 4131km

Day started on crowded campsite - few were awake at 7.30am, when I woke up. It was cloudy and it also threw few drops down. Dunno why, but none of campsite's toilets had any toilet paper, so had to use my own. Maybe the guy sleeping on toilet floor ate it all.

Managed out of Amsterdam pretty easily and on road next to channel got nice pull help from 5 pro looking cyclists - it was educational experience to drive in a group. Did about 13km with them on steady 30km/h speed. After my wind cover was gone felt the rest of day the headwind slowing me down, but had decided to make some kilometers - so kept cycling.

The 30km long dyke drive middle of water was specially hard as the wind had some force against me, also the high humidity made sure the skin stayed wet whole day attaching all sand on the skin surface. Seems like my knees start to hurt first when doing couple hours of hard cycling.

Ate a pizza in Harlingen, first pizza for a quite a while, but after eating the knees didn't first really agree with driving, but got better when warmed up. Its kind of funny to watch towards the sea over farmland and see the never ending wall in horizon to keep the sea away.

As a total opposite to the Amsterdam's mass camping site, tonight's site is one of those mini camping sites. Got actually tour to toilets, showers and tent places by the host. You don't really need to ask which type I like more - mini camping was also cheaper.

42nd day Katwijk to Amsterdam

Distance: 62km
Total: 3967km

Another cloudy morning - did my morning routines as normal and as I was coming out from morning wash, noticed that its raining outside. Ugh - and Ieft my tent and few other things to dry on open. Continued on LF-1b cycling route along the coast till Haarlem and then took bicycle roads to Amsterdam. Hitted the campsite that my German friend had recommended by 1pm.

So next off to town - after setting up the camp. On route to ferry to cross the waterway to the centrum, went to buy something to drink from a shop on the way. Inside the shop everything was in Russian - okay guess Amsterdam has sizeable Russian speaking population.

Centrum was pretty crowded, and indeed there was a lot bicycles - sometimes going on fast speeds with bells ringing, cars weren't as numerous in the centrum. There indeed was plenty of channels and boat traffic on them around the city. Most of the centrum was pretty narrow walking streets with a lot people and different kinds of storefronts. Red lights district was also found, but had little activity such early. Coffee shops were all over and certain sweet smell was pretty common, also they have IT on everything; ice cream, lollipops, cookies... Also diversity of people from all over the world is presented here pretty well.

Back on the campsite the blue lighted toilets/showers really worked to make you like a zombie - maybe the veins were harder to find also. Campsite looks like pretty much tents only and has a lot guests - mostly the younger sort. No wonder as its just couple kilometers from centrum including a free ferry over the larger waterway.

Let's see if it ever comes quiet here... spanish sound a noisy bunch.

41st day Burgh-haamstede to Katwijk

Distance: 127km
Total: 3905km

It rained! It actually rained a bit during the night, it been a while since last time in Linz. It was pretty coldish morning with temperature probably bit under +20°C, drove to first village/town centrum and bought some breakfast from Spar - muesli yoghurt and bread. It was cloudy, so it didn't really get warmer than +25°C until later when it cleared up.

Coast of the Netherlands seems to be sand dunes mostly with rest covered with concrete on vast dock areas. And at this time of the year the coast is really full of people - heard many Germans migrate here for the summer and empirical evidence supports also this claim.

Made quite big 'useless' trip towards Rotterdam, which gave me at least 20km extra loop eastwards. Took ferry over Rotterdam waterway, which had plenty of big container ships sailing along it - and which answers lack of bridge over it. After crossing the waterway and cycling north, it seems that landscape has become more urban as there's no longer fields, but everything is covered by housing with more intense and higher housing in centrums. Haag was basically big area of intense housing with some bigger churches and taller buildings in the nexus.

Not much pictures were taken as the battery overheating problem surprised me early and it had eaten all battery before I was able to boot it. This also affected the flow of the day as had no idea how much the clock is, thus camped up much earlier than usually.

The movement north can also be noticed by much longer days (light time) than earlier. Maybe I'll manage Amsterdam tomorrow...

40th day Wichelen to Burgh-haamstede

Distance: 138km
Total: 3778km

It was good night concerning the temperature, but the urban noise of surroundings started to bother the sleep towards the morning. Thanks to my friend again for the breakfast, its good start for the day to start cycling with something in stomach. The weather forecast said it was gonna be another +34°C day, so tried to get close to the seaside before all morning's coolness is gone. This got me on 65km before the noon and it indeed felt good to get some sea wind, specially when driving on the sand dunes.

Entered the Netherlands just after 35km and the amount of bicycle ways and signs was just stunning. Practically every road had bicycle lanes or separate smooth cycling road. Took a ferry from Breskens to Vlissingen, which was pretty quick ride. After the ferry took more scenic cycling route along the coast, but it was just so full of other cyclists that moving was pretty difficult, also the route wasn't very straight. After while decided to take smoother cycling route more in inland - not only that there IS cycling route, there's several to pick from, so hilarious comparing to cycling route situation of eastern European countries. This jungle of cycling routes also gets you bit 'lost' as there's just so much signs and information when several routes meet - usually in village centers.

Just before finding my mini campsite, crossed the long water barricades between the islands to control the water levels. Tomorrow towards Amsterdam, unlikely though that I'll reach it tomorrow - which is kind of annoying if I'm to take break day there.

39th day Ninove to Wichelen

Distance: 30km
Total: 3640km

Night was extremely warm and humid, felt like everything is so sticky and bit wet. In the morning the tent indeed was totally wet from the humidity and there was loads of snails on tent - big snails. Left earlier than usual, but it was incredibly hot early on.

I had an agreement with friend to meet on Wichelen train station on call and the plan worked. Its great to meet someone in person who you known over internet for years and kinda get face behind the voice. Due to timetable and other reasons (like my slightly crawling homesickness), the visit would be a short one. But we managed to go see Brugge and the coast. To see sea again since Latvia was kind of relaxing to just see the sea horizon with all vastness - going to see more sea on the coming week. Brugge and the stew gave good sample of Belgian culture - shame it was +35°C, so buying the famous Belgian chocolate wasn't really an option.

In the evening just camped on the yard with the tent as it was much cooler outside than inside. Thanks for the possibility to meet you dude - and there's a lot places to hike in Finland (hint hint).

38th day Spontin to Ninove

Distance: 131km
Total: 3610km

The night was bad - slept badly, not because music when I went sleep, but in the morning motorway noise somehow kept me from getting proper sleep again. Day was hot from the morning, no chilly morning ride - specially as got 4th flat of the tour after only 10km. The cause of the flat is most likely driving on that bad surface double carriageway yesterday. Tube's side was damaged over longer distance, and my two patching attempts were in vain, so new tube is a go.

Heat was pretty intense on two longer uphills in the early day, then saw thermometer on roadside showing +35°C - must be broken or misplaced - then saw one on +34°C and later one on +33°C. Guess it was pretty warm summer day. Water usage was surprisingly hilariously high - was great idea to take 4 liters with me from the campsite in the morning and still had to get more on the way.

Landscapes kept getting flatter and road N93 had no major hills anymore. In Nivelles took longer break and listened church bells being played along some popular classical music - and this also for the new king. Soon after Nivelles found nice channel cycling lanes on both sides, also generally cycling lanes on roads becoming more frequent further northwest I go.

In the end of day, didn't manage to find campsite, so went to ask one B&B place about space and price - space they had and price was 53€ - quite way too expensive. They didn't know of campsite nearby either, so they did let me pitch my tent on nearby field and use bathroom/tap. Well better than stealth camping, not that finding suitable spot in over crowded land would be easy - only thing separating from bad campsite is the missing of shower.

So tomorrow should be a easy day...

37th day Diekirch to Spontin (near Yvoir)

Distance: 141km
Total: 3479km

Last evening one of dutch was talking about rain and I realized I haven't seen rain for over 2 weeks, last time that I can recall is in Linz, Austria. Morning was actually nicely chilly in tent, thanks to deep shadow, it was not in sunshine as I found out pretty quick when pedaling action of day started.

Now starts the interesting part as I drop out my 23 year old map, and have to navigate couple days without own physical map. So kinda picked easy solution; as I'm headed for near Brussels, I took the big road quite directly towards it. Now these bigger roads don't really go around river, but go over hills all the time - so not really any flat riding today.

First took road 15 in Luxembourg, and it was right away 10km up up up, 5km down, 10km up. On Belgian side everything seemed much poorer, but the landscape started slowly flatten out, which lasted rest of the day. Bastogne was first town on Belgian side on Ardennes area, you might have heard that name if you read history of world wars and this history showed up in Bastogne. There were museums, monuments and a american tank on central square (think it was M4 Sherman, not sure as there's many similar models).

Next 65-70km was on double carriageway, and it was so hot - even though temperature peaked only +27°C - and quite smooth going in light traffic. Stopped in Marche and tried to get some info from tourist info center - these places usually don't have info I'm looking for as their world ends on local area border and they are clueless about what's beyond. Info center kinda understood this problem and also knew to tell me that there's basically no cycling routes for long range tourers as every town makes cycling routes around their town and are unable to cooperate with other towns to create connecting routes. Well, whole Belgium is basically divided by 3 big groups and getting things like prime minister takes time - world record here.

Found camping site in Spontin as expected. It's a small one next field full of cows. And there's quite a party as tomorrow Belgium is going to get a new king - I think. Tomorrow journey continues, hopefully along smaller roads.

36th day Thionville to Diekirch

Distance: 122km
Total: 3338km

Hot hot hot, slept well even next to the boulevard, but there was no way to place my tent so that morning sun wouldn't hit it, had assigned place. The two French camping sites I used were both municipal ones and thus very basic, but also cheap (6€ & 7€}.

In the morning made round in town to by some supplies, but too early and everything was still closed. So just bought baguette from kind of conditorie. Continued along the Moselle, only change in weather to yesterday was the headwind, not strong - but enough to cut speed a bit.

Entered Luxembourg and small village of Schengen, where some heads of states once sailed on a boat and put names on paper. Well didn't need passport to cross the border - actually even once on whole trip. Otherwise Luxemburg seemed odd mix of French and German, both languages seemed to be used, infra looked good as in German, but with some flavor of relaxed French attitude.

Bike routes are made really well on Luxembourg's side, and there's plenty of cyclists. Prices seem bit inflated, dunno do locals do shopping on German side as shops were hard to come by.

Later on the day Mosel continued to Germany, and I took the new border river Sauer to follow. The sides of this river are German MASS camping area, and other side is actually germany. A lot of campsites, and many lasting kilometers on the riversides with river just full of people at times.

Found a campsite near Diekirch, which isn't huge one and had super service oriented guy on reception, what a difference to some eastern European experiences. Campsite seems quiet apart from roaming kids, maybe they'll sleep soon. Also met and sat a while with dutch people from nearby camping vans. Dutch seem to be able to speak English always I meet them.

Tomorrow to Belgium!

35th day Heming to Thionville

Distance: 139km
Total: 3216km

It was another warm night, and rather warm morning also. First 90km of the day on road 995 can be summarized in three things; hot, rolling hills, farmland. Not really much to see unless you like watching endless golden wheat fields with some green ones here and there. Last 20km to Metz was on very lightly trafficked motorway.

Metz was again a bigger city, had not much clue about layout, but rough plan was to find Moselle and move northwards along it, while turisting stuff best I can - and get something french cuisine to try. Made it to the river, not the most direct route, but not majorly lost either. Food was no avail, as restaurants had closed their breakfast things and gone siesta until 18. So just took break in one of parks and snacked.

Got out of the city along some smaller roads and found a channel with cycling route after a while and cycled it down to Thionville, where municipal campsite is right next to riverside walking boulevard. My tent is right next to the boulevard with only fence between - let's see is this sleepable spot.

34th day Kehl to Heming

Distance: 118km
Total: 3077km

Night was much warmer than the nights before, must be the lower altitude. The morning's best hours (for driving) were used touristing Strasbourg and then getting out of city, which wasn't that hard after finding channel and bike routes along it. Also something rare happened, I got to speak finnish face to face with someone, last time this happened in Lithuania! There was another finnish speaking cyclist, who lives in New Castle (UK).

Most of the kilometers today were done driving next to this channel connecting Rhein and Manre rivers and the channel really went high in the end. There was plenty of boats for slow cruising and relaxation sailing on channel, many with people taking sunbath on the upper deck.

Visited small town of Saverne, where I found coop supermarket in one of old buildings that were built in old fashion very tightly on the sides of narrow streets. Unfortunately supermarket was closed for 2 hours middle of the day - seems they have siesta in effect here. Well bought 2 apples, that I later found out were apricots, but very tasty, and bought sandwich from a stand on the marketplace. Talking about marketplaces, French seem to like them with fountain and carousel.

Somehow managed to lose the channel as it entered something called 'plan incline' - which seemed to be some major boat lifting method. And yeah, how one loses a channel... well it just happened. Prolly something to do again with my stubbornness. Made a lot extra kilometers trying to navigate in the right direction, and my 1:750000 map published 23 years ago wasn't much of help.

As being lost had problems advancing and reaching my planned campsite, and was pretty worried as it was getting late also and road 995 seemed to head middle of nowhere next. But baang, there's self made campsite sign on side of the road and campsite couple kilometers away from the main road.

33rd day Tubingen to Kehl (next to Strasburg)

Distance: 139km
Total: 2959km

It was fairly chilly in the morning, which meant cool tent and quite a bit night humidity on it. It made day's first hours nice to drive. Started the day by following roads along Neckar river 35km to Horb, which meant pretty flat route. There was also good evidence how Germans love their car roads as autobahn went over the river valley on high bridge, quite an example of engineering.

After leaving the river in Horb there was expected uphill, too bad the road kept going up and down the same altitude quite a few times. Most annoying was though that my small road (marked on map (old)) suddenly became autobahn forcing me to find something else. The something else was small village to village road that went to all deep valleys to reach the villages. Things got better when I got on road 28, which was allowed for cyclists and heavily trafficked.

Freudenstadt was built on top of a hill and had huge open area park in the cent rum with fountains on a plaza with children playing in the water. It also offered great break spot in shadow from now extremely hot sun. Right after the town was sharp decline, only to be followed by 15km long uphill, mostly not very steep though. The uphill put me 1000 meters above sea level among the hiking routes and ski resorts. Soon after reaching the top sharp valleys broke up - it was rather moderate terrain on ascend - leading towards Rhein. This also meant downhill as Rhein flows slightly over 100 meters above sea level near Strasbourg. Descend started with 6 kilometers of serpentines and then continued 20 kilometers with slight downhill next to a river. Only thing to slow down the descent were the curves and headwind blowing in the valley. Also managed to get good sounds out of breaks, when cooling them with some water during the descent.

Found campsite in Kehl next to the Rhein after bit playing around as road 28 became autobahn about 20km before Kehl.

32nd day Laupheim to Tubingen

Distance: 101km
Total: 2820km

Must thank for the hospitality of friend's family and specially my friend for the great week, hope I would have understood german language more. Left in the morning after good breakfast to the sunny weather. It felt pretty light to cycle first 15km after all break days, probably went too fast and wasted extra energy for little gain. Reached the Danube, which was a lot smaller here on the upstream, than when I first saw it in Hungary bit north of Budapest. Also found road 465, which became relatively quiet after Ehbingen.

On 30km, day started to go downhill, I got flat on my rear tyre. Patching the hole on tube was piece of cake, but as I patched the hole I saw how horrible condition rear tyre was. It was disintegrating all over, and even the tube had taken damage quite a bit. Knew that it was just matter of time when it would break the tube again, and guess knowing that killed much of the driving motivation.

In the next town asked about bike shop from tourist info and got directions for one. Too bad it was kind of bigger store that sold only some cycling equipment and decided against putting low quality soft rubber tyre on my bike, bought tube repair kit though as I was out of small patches.

Kept going slowly and had pretty nice downhill before Lichestein (small town, not the country), where I also enjoyed a kebab. After this things started to get messy with big towns, a lot traffic and not being able to ride the motorway. Rode through 1.2km tunnel, where I was not supposed to be judging from amount of horning.

Finally reached Tubingen, which seemed to have nice historical centrum and went there to take a look and see what I can find. Centrum was built on steep hillside over Neckar river and had plenty of narrow streets and stairways between the houses, and there was also a proper bike shop! Bought new similar Schwalbe marathon plus tyre as I had earlier and 'plugged' it in at nearby park.

At this point clock was so much that decided to just take the camping site Tubingen and call it a day. Campsite has quite some other cyclists and Wi-Fi! Its also most expensive campsite with 14.40€ price tag. (I was in hotel for this money in Poland!)

Tomorrow, Rhein - and hopefully France!

27th-31st - Laupheim, Germany

A short summary of the days in Laupheim and on route to there - almost no cycling was done during this period.

27th was moving day, day started bit unluckily by losing a baby cat somewhere outside, well its cat and its summer guess it'll survive. Thanks to my friend got to drive the first patch to near Munchen and beat my car driving speed record on autobahn - it's now over 180 km/h, that was max of the car's speedometer. Quite interesting experience, kinda different game than normal driving on road where trucks go their 80 km/h or so and some cars near 300 km/h. Visited one of friend's friend, who would join us later on festival.

Arrived to Laupheim in the evening and basically ate bit on local kebab place, took swim in the pool and went sleep.

28th was pretty chill day with just visit to bike shop and couple visits to nearby Ulm, to take care of some business. Also some good food was consumed at place of the friend's family where we stayed the days in Laupheim.

29th was the first festival day, where we went way before the official start at 18.00 to meet some of the organizers. And actually went back to Ulm again for city tour and pick the lady from the train station. On the way back to festival we hitted the police checkpoint established outside festival area and got full body search and car search done on us. Night was crazy partying in drum based and dupstep based electronic music and headed back towards Laupheim at 04.00, when dawn was starting.

30th slept long, think 11.30 or so. As the second day of the festival started late in the evening, we had time to check out nearby amusement park and get our stomachs more or less shaken up. After sweaty amusement park visit it was time for a small swim. Weather was very similar during whole stay in Laupheim with days reaching almost +30°C and nights being around +10°C, which was unusually low for night in summer I was told. Night went pretty similarly, including another police check. Music was minimal electronic music, and people was slightly younger and definitely more high.

31st slept till 14.00 - can't remember sleeping this long for ages. Day was surprisingly short, thanks to late waking up. Main points were barbeque and movie, just chilling and prepping for getting back to cycling.

25th & 26th days - Volary

Have enjoyed hospitality of my friend and actually washing machine clean clothes. The culture of Czech countryside been something to get used to with very near earth approach to life, specially all different animals living so close to humans.

Visited also some locals, who were happy people even though the living conditions look quite poor in eyes of someone coming from Finland. Town of Krumlow was the main tourist attraction in the area, which we visited along with massive amount of other tourists, especially there was loads of asian (japanese) tourists.

Weather has stayed quite warm with 25-30°C on days, but evenings and mornings are nicely chillier, not that heat is much of problem inside thick concrete walls.

Next to Germany and near Ulm for few days (with car) to visit one musical festival, where I will later continue the trip on two wheels.

24th day Linz to Volary

Distance: 109km
Total: 2719km

Another cloudy humid morning, had badly slept night, because of noisy kids playing till after midnight in nearby pond. First up was to find right road out of Linz, which was found pretty easily - but the road, road 126, was not a easy one. 15km of steep ascending from Linz and Danube valley, really more than I had anticipated. On top it was 777 meters above sea level and about a time for a break on small parking lot. As I was taking the break police car came and parked 15 meters in front of - uh what did I do? - two police officers get out of car and start getting something from the trunk. Apparently a speed radar to start scanning the cars coming over the hilltop, in couple minutes they catch two, then I move on.

Terrain became flatter by means of no such long steep hills, but shorter less steep ones along the hilly farmland. Near the Czech border started the downhill that lasted till Vyssi Brod. The small village of Studanky was filled with different kinds of stands, casino and stores to serve the Austrian customer base heading there for the low prices.

After Vyssi Brod there was some climbing to the biggest lake (artificial) in Czech. The dam was filled with tourist, that were mostly moving with bikes - there were generally a lot bikes all around the 42 kilometer long lake.

Nearing the goal of the day, Volary, road became extremely hilly, or seemed like it was done over every small hill, with a lot 10-15% hills. The lake area was pretty to cycle around though with views to the lake and mountains, lake shores also had numerous camping sites, sometimes only few hundred meters apart from each other.

Reached my friend in Volary, and will have some break days from cycling.

23rd day Splitz to Linz

Distance: 128km
Total: 2610km

Waking up from a big feather pillow, could just stay sleeping - and its cloudy, haven't rained yet though - road is dry. Packing up and remembering something about breakfast from last night, going out and seeing breakfast served for one, not being sure its for me, not touching before getting confirm. Eating and eagerly watching coffee pan that's kept warm by a candle.

Getting on bike, its warm and very humid. The shorts I put on biking shorts are obviously too much, and despites they don't really stay on anymore - have I lost something from my waist, haven't used them since Slovakia.

Taking a lot pictures of castles hanging on cliffs over the Danube - ruined and not. Manage to also get my hands on small Danube cycling info booklet with maps and some services listed. As landscape flattens the cycling route has quite bit of dry Danube mud on it, and after a few kilometers my legs are also sandy.

On 60 kilometers find small town and pizza/kebab place in after a bit of wandering. Eat kebab, which is totally different than any kebab I've ever eaten. Gives good energy boost and is by all means decent. Next 40km go smoothly, and I get lost from the route only once - and that actually ended up speeding up the progress as smooth flat and not much trafficked local road allows higher speed without slow downs.

Then I see it - there's McDonalds, think I ate in one last time in Poland. And these things come with Wi-Fi, so I finally get to connect to the interwebs and post the blog updates! While this all goes on - there's thunderstorm outside washing the cyclists on eurovelo, quite convenient timing for me though. Leave when only random drops are landing anymore. The random drops keep landing the rest of the day until I find a small campsite just outside of Linz, with no Wi-Fi AGAIN.

Oh, and first technical problem came in form of front brake cable snapping up - leaving me with only rear brakes. Fixed it with spare cable I had with me, but need some solution to keep the new cable end from disassembling itself.