Big Plans Ahead! Another European Bike Tour

 The count-down is on for our next cycle tour! On Sat Aug 24th (that is tomorrow!) we leave for yet another cycle tour in Europe. This one will see us flying to Frankfurt and riding from there south towards the Alps via Bavaria, a little part of the west of Austria (Tyrol) and on into Italy, eventually ending up in Venice. Lots of similarities to our last tour two years ago, but quite a different route. We have set aside six weeks for this journey.

The main goal of this tour is to cycle a route called the Via Claudia Augusta. This route starts in Donauworth, Germany (located on the River Danube) and ends either in Venice or at the Po River south of Verona (depending which fork of the road you take). The attraction here is that it follows an old Roman road that once connected the northern part of the Empire via the River Danube, with the Adriatic Sea via the River Po or the Venetian lagoon. So there's lots of history attached to it, and it takes you through a lot of beautiful scenery, including the Alps.

The Via Claudia Augusta cycle path route, showing the two different options at the south end.
We haven't decided on our end route yet.

To get to Donauworth and the start of this VCA, the plan is to assemble the bikes at Frankfurt airport and ride the 350 km south to the Danube. We can follow some nice river routes and go through lots of pretty Bavarian villages and countryside en route to the Danube.

As before we plan to camp along the way. The route has plenty of campgrounds. But we will mix it up with some hotel nights now and then. Weather may dictate the ratio of camping to hotels. 

And this time we are being joined by our friend Nancy for part of the tour. She will join us one week into our ride, approaching the Via Claudia from the city of Munich. This will be Nancy's first time doing a bike tour, although she has a ton of mountain biking and road biking experience. We hope she can adapt to our slow pace with lots of stops along the way! We're excited to have her join us and we hope she loves this style of travel as much as we do. Then there is also the possibility that friends Sarah and Andrew may also join us somewhere along the way. That would be great too - the more the merrier.

Frank taking my bike apart ready to go in its box.
He has removed the derailleur and is taping it to
the frame - should be safer that way

The dining room has been a mess for a couple
 of weeks now while we spread out all our gear
 and pack it into cardboard boxes (we use these instead
of suitcases as they will be thrown away once we reach Frankfurt)

This map shows a comparison of this new tour (red) versus
 the 2022 tour (yellow). The town of
Donnauworth (on the River Danube) is at the overlap point

Well, who knows what kind of adventures await us on the journey! As Frank says, let's hope the weather, the bikes and our bodies all behave. And one more thing - we're flying both ways with Air Canada, and they have just passed a vote in favour of going on strike. This could happen as early as Sep 17th (the day Nancy is due to fly back), but possibly later too. So fingers crossed  we can all make it home without too many travel disruptions.

Getting the bikes packaged and trying to slim down the weight of the gear as much as possible always causes us some anxiety! And we know from experience that Calgary airport security will probably ask us to empty the entire bike boxes so they can physically examine every piece. So then we have repack it and tape it all up again under their watchful eye (can't be adding any banned substances into those bike parts, right?). This only seems to happen in Calgary, never at any other airport we've flown through. But at least now we go prepared.

Anyway, once we get through security we can relax a bit, at least until we get to Frankfurt, where the task of assembling the bikes (mostly Frank's job) in a state of groggy sleep deprivation will begin. After that, we're in business. We'll spend our first night in a hotel 35 km east of Frankfurt along the River Main.

My hope is to update this blog every few days, so we invite you to check back for further updates.