As planned, we started our world tour on 4/4/2021 after an emotional goodbye to our families.
Corona? Fortunately, we didn’t notice any of this when crossing the border in Laufenburg.
In theory, you have to register, show a negative coronavirus test, and go into quarantine.
This makes little sense to us, as we are traveling/staying away from crowds anyway. Fortunately, our “plan” worked out and we saved ourselves a lot of time, money and nerves.
Nicole’s training paid off shortly after the border, from then on it was only uphill, along the beautiful Alb valley with little traffic and magical nature.
As our water supplies were slowly running low and we hadn’t seen a single well along the entire route, we headed for a gas station and asked for water.
The saleswoman immediately noticed our funny Swiss accent, and we struck up a conversation and told her about our travel plans. After a nice conversation she presented us with 4 sandwiches, so our dinner for the evening was secured. This is exactly the kind of encounter we look forward to, it’s so easy to make someone happy and bring a smile to their face.
Water and food supplies refilled, we set out to find our camp for the night. Shortly out of the village, we discovered a beautiful clearing, which we immediately headed for. When planning our trip, we designed our equipment for temperatures down to -5 ° maximum, which we were “allowed” to experience directly in the 1st night 🥶. We didn’t shiver, but we’d still be glad for a few degrees warmer at night.
For our “Tips and Tricks” box, we have the following advice for you against cold feet:
When you make tea in the evening, just fill the whole pot, so that at the end you can fill a PET bottle with hot tea and put it at the foot of the sleeping bag. So you have warm feet for several hours and in the morning still lukewarm tea instead of frozen water 🤪.
The next day the weather did not look so rosy and we drove / pushed our bikes along the Schluchsee, towards Falkau, where we were allowed to hibernate the very cold and snowy days in the vacation apartment of a good colleague.
Now we are looking forward to setting off on Friday, 9.4.2021, in the direction of Donaueschingen (start of the Danube Cycle Path). In fact, good weather is forecast from Friday to Sunday, before being followed by another low. Since all accommodations are still closed and there is a ban on lodging, we are still looking for overnight accommodations in case of bad weather (snow). So if anyone has family or friends at the start of the Danube Cycle Path, we would appreciate any tips.