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Cycling the last stretch from Austria to Germany Making my way north and towards the German border was super easy having just to follow the road signs towards Rosenheim and Munich. Even though I had no maps now, I did have a few screen captures from google saved to my kindle and so I always had something to follow and knew vaguely which towns to head for. Despite my toothy adventure a few days earlier, I still had a couple of full days in which to reach Munich. I did however

I was spitting blood out of my mouth and just wanted to get to some place where I could sit quietly and quite invisibly.

I ploughed on ever deeper into the jagged peaks. I peddled, heaved and pushed my bike at times for that was often the only way I could do it

Slovenia is liberally covered in forest but nothing, I can assure you, can prepare you for it. It’s really like the lost land of Robin Hood.

Having spent the night receiving some much needed energy and rest for my weary stumps, I set off in the morning with hope that I was indeed nearly over the pass. As it turned out, I was! I had slept about one kilometre from the top and after admiring the wonderful views, spent the morning rolling steadily down the other side. Looking around on my left, I just couldn’t believe this was the same area that had been torn apart by war twenty years ago. It was beautiful, peaceful a

With the formalities done and emails swapped between myself and Phillip, I made my way back along the highway towards Split before turning north and then west around the peninsula. The roads were treacherous with no hard shoulder whatsoever and so I had to cycle with extreme care. Just before turning west the road split with the right side merging with the highway proper. I stood at the entrance to the slip road for the motorway thinking how I could make my way across without

After boarding the ferry, I joined the throngs of people at the café terrace at the rear of the ship to watch Italy slip away into the night. It was a quite lovely view but, as ever with any kind of port, the town was surrounded by cranes and the like but even so, it was a commendable view. The strange thing to note about the scene here, and also the actual boarding come to that, was the care free approach to things and the less than rigid format that events took. I’m not say

It was extremely nice to see Francesca as it had been a long time since we last met in Amsterdam. She looked like some kind of angel, being dressed head to toe in the most brilliant white but which I later understood to be her way of mourning for her dog. We walked through town, stopping for pizza on the way, and upon seeing where she was living, parted my mouth in that way you sometimes do when you see something that catches you off guard. I was awe struck as it was simply t

After another lovely night camping under the stars and with hardly any humidity to speak of, I had some breakfast and made my way back into Bologna. When I arrived, I found a small and comfortable café with wi-fi but having already bought a coffee, I was told that there was nowhere to charge my laptop. I then decided to locate a McDonalds, and although they had electricity outlets, I needed an Italian number in order to access their wi-fi. This was getting stupid now. I then