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From Zwickau to Füssen

583 kilometers | 5 days

Mostly climbing on day 6

It was time to get back onto our fully packed bicycles! Although the weather was somewhat below average in terms of temperature, we were excited to tackle our next section. From Zwickau, where we stayed a couple of days at my mom’s place, we now moved south, deeper into the Ore Mountains. A lot of climbing had to be done today, much of which on gravel roads through the forests and into Czech Republic.

We left Zwickau and basically had 30 kilometers of moderate climbing ahead of us, only followed by another climb of 15 kilometers to the highes point of our tour so far – almost 1000m of elevation at our first international border. What made today’s route entertaining was the fact that East Germany would celebrate Männertag(“men’s day”), a national holiday with originally Christian roots, on which for some reason it became tradition for many to go out with your male friends on a hike, and bring a lot of alcohol. 

We only stayed in Czech for about 70 kilometers. The route was a bit all over the place: while much of it was on calm roads, mostly nicely paved but pretty remote, we also ended up on some rough single trails, clearly not made for fully packed gravel bikes, including  a couple of steep, rocky downhills. Altogether that was a welcome change to the flat and easy first days of our trip, though!

After the border crossing back into Germany again, we had about 15 kilometers to go to reach today’s destination in Mitterteich, a small town in northern Bavaria, where we had booked a room in a small family-owned hotel – the Schnitzel for dinner was amazing!

It’s getting warmer on day 7

Moving further south into the region of Upper Palatinate (“Oberpfalz”) in Northern Bavaria, the weather slowly changed, and  we were finally getting warmer temperatures. The rain and somewhat chilly temperatures over the last days seemed to be coming to an end, which made cycling even more enjoyable. The whole day we rode on calm and nicely paved country roads, moving along rolling hills, across farmland (mostly corn and canola fields), and countless little villages and towns. This tour was getting more and more picturesque with every day!

Today’s planned route was just short of 140 kilometers, with not too much elevation. Around 4pm we arrived at our destination in Regensburg with enough time left to enjoy that old Roman city and its impressive architecture dating back thousands of years. This is one of the places we definitely have to come back to someday, with a bit more time to spare and explore. Old bridges, the St. Peter’s Cathedral, and countless other remarkable landmarks deserve plenty of extra attention.

Through Munich and towards the Alps

But we were on somewhat of a schedule and after a mediocre burger dinner and a good night’s sleep in our AirBnB we moved on the next day. It was the last day of May, and temperatures surged at a wonderfully warm 30ºC. Moving further south, we now started gradually climbing again, from lower into upper Bavaria.

Blue skies, hot temps, curvy paved roads, and very little traffic made the day and it’s 160 kilometers go by very quickly. Refueling was never an issue with villages and small towns crossing our paths very frequently and even cycling into the large city of Munich, capital of Bavaria, almost felt like a breeze. A great bicycle infrastructure made it easy to navigate  – only slowed down by countless of recreational cyclists and pedestrians enjoying the summer day in Munich’s parks along the Isar River.

We took an early dinner break today at around 5pm, at a typical Bavarian Biergarten – where the only size of drink is 1 full liter (“1 Maß”), and the best food choice was a barbequed sausage in a bun, with tons of mustard.

Our choice of accommodation was just an hour further south to Holzhausen, a small village  outside of town, in a privately run farmhouse lodge.

Delayed start before crossing into Austria

The best thing about those family-owned B&B places is how cosy they often are, and how great the service is. We received a delicious breakfast and coffee, eating outside next to some chickens and goats, while getting entertained by the owner’s life story. The morning was going to be a bit rainy, and we didn’t mind taking it easy.

It was only when we finally packed up our bikes that I discovered another flat on my rear wheel. No big deal I thought, I got patches for the TPU tube, and spare tubes as well. It turned out, that the problem was bigger than expected. First, the patch did not work, I blame poor quality. Then I replaced the tube with my spare TPU tube, which apparently had a leak right from the get-go. And the other spare tube did not come with a long enough valve to fit my rims. It also was Sunday, which means in Germany no stores would have open.

If I learned one thing on bike traveling, it was that there’s always a solution around the corner. Our very friendly hosts found out that a small town about 10km away had a bike shop with an outdoor vending machine for spare parts; they even offered me a ride there and back and about 45 minutes later I was able to install a new tube.

By the time we started today’s ride the rain had stopped, and we still were confident to manage the 130km before sunset.

The further we cycled south, the prettier the views got – the Alps were getting closer and closer, which was both exciting and intimidating. Some spicy climbs, and speedy downhills, and a border crossing into the third country of this trip: Austria! Not too long ago our trip started on Germany’s northern border, what a surreal thought that was.

We were now in the middle of an alpine region, but we seemingly chose the right direction of travel: the overall climbing was quite gradual, while the downhill into the Inn Valley was rather abrupt: descending 500 vertical meters within less than 5 kilometers was intense and I could not imagine cycling up those gradients!

For the final 40 kilometers we just had to follow the river Inn, right into Innsbruck, where we had booked a room for the night. And again, we felt that we would have to come back – Innsbruck was surprisingly beautiful, just like so many smaller and bigger towns before.

Defeated by thunder

Just after sunset that evening, heavy downpoors, lightning, and thunder was keeping us awake. Looking at the next day’s weather forecast made me quite nervous. The route I planned would lead us over our first real mountain pass, up to 1500m above sea level. At the same time, a large storm system was moving in, with lightning warnings and rain all day. Did we really want to cycle up on remote mountain roads into thunderstorms? But what was the alternative? I kept monitoring the weather situation throughout a sleepness night until at 4:30am I made the decision to not risk it. Instead, we would take a train that would bring us closer to today’s destination, following a somewhat similar route to the one I planned.

It felt like a failure, and a disappointment, since that part of the route was the one I was looking forward to the most. On the other hand, I felt thankful being in central Europe, where taking a local train with your bike is just such an easy thing to do. 

Crossing the mountain on rails was its own experience. It was raining and the clouds were low, but the views still spectacular. We were just around Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze. Since the weather was slightly better than expected we got off the train at an elevation of about 1100m and cycled the remaining 30km of today’s planned route through cool rain, all the way to another small farmhouse B&B not too far from the German town of Füssen.

The stay in this accommodation was simply the best one on our trip. A cozy room with a large balcony, looking over a valley into the mountains, eating a good local breakfast while farmers would bring their cows onto the fields.

On our “day off” we took our unloaded bikes to explore the region – mainly to see Germany’s most famous castle, Schloss Neuschwanstein, and cycle around the most beautiful landscape so far.

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