Every time I finish a long bike tour or adventure, I am sad
because I mourn the loss of adventure, fitness and fellowship that goes
along with an extended trip. When all the
planning, anticipation and adventure are in my bike rearview mirror, I know it
is time to start dreaming of another adventure.
One of the byproducts of adventure travel is that you learn
of even more adventures from people your know and people you meet. That restarts the cycle of planning,
anticipation and then with luck, implementation.
On Sunday, Julie and I and some good friends (Beth, Rob, Lori and Patty) depart on what will
be an epic adventure. Our plan is to
cycle the well-established bike route in Europe called Eurovelo 6. It is known as the “Rivers Route” because you
start on the Atlantic Coast. You follow
the Loire River through the famous Chateau area of France. Next the route goes
through the French regions of Burgundy and Alsace Loraine, where it catches up
with the Rhine River near Switzerland.
We plan on following the Rhine until we make a detour through the Black
Forest in Germany and catch the Danube near its source.
The plan is to continue across southern Germany until we reach the boarder of Austria near Passau. At that point, Julie and friends will return to the United States. My friend Rob and I will continue with the goal of reaching the Black Sea. With luck, we will get to Istanbul and have crossed all of Europe. At this point, we plan on following "The Sultan's Route". The route follows the path taken by the Ottomans during the conquest of Europe and siege of Vienna in 1683.
On the map, yellow is where we arrive and depart (Rob and I have tickets out of Istanbul). Blue indicates our stops on the way to Passau. Red is a rough idea of the route that Rob and I will take across Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, a small portion of Greece and Turkey.
There are lots of moving parts to make this adventure a reality. There is a lot of history along the way. Stay tuned for details if you care to follow along on our adventure.
One more thing. This blog is really for family and friends. I will be taking pictures and blogging on my Samsung S21 Ultra cell phone. Please overlook any typo's or misspelling. I will do my best. We may have guest bloggers and certainly others will contribute photo's.
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