Finally, the start in Slovakia!

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Bryan Keith

As soon as I arrived, I liked Bratislava.  It was small, quiet, cute, with very little traffic.  The downtown area isn’t fully gentrified, but it’s on its way.  I started to wonder if I simply decide whether I’ll like a place before I even arrive.  I didn’t think I’d like Vienna, and I didn’t.  It’s hard to remember now, but I think I thought Bratislava was cute before I’d ever been there.

Snežana and I had reservations at the Botel Marina, and we had planned on spending three nights in the city so perhaps I was just predisposed to like it.  I arrived early before the rain started.  It was too early even to go to the hotel (botel!) so I poked around downtown.

DSCN4631 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Bicycle touring, Slovakia | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Willkommen in Österreich

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Bryan Keith

I enjoyed a wonderful week in Czech.  Even though the country was doing everything to make me want to leave, I still felt sad to go.  I even lingered sentimentally in the rain in ugly, crowded, busy Znojmo, the last Czech town I visited.  It had started raining the night before and continued the entire way for my last 60 km in the country.

Ad for beer from Znojmo (Znojemské pivo):

Znojmo beer by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Austria, Bicycle touring, Czech | Tagged | Leave a comment

Riding into a fairy tale

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Bryan Keith

After buying a large stack of maps in Berlin, my plan for leaving the city was to not use a map at all.  I simply headed south looking for roads that looked friendly to bikes.  Berlin is a city of bikes with infrastructure to match.  I was on dedicated bicycle lanes or paths almost the entire way out of the city.

South of Berlin is flat with lots of roads and villages so I just continued south in the direction of Dresden.  I sat in the small park in the middle of Trebbin for the first of many, many lunch stops and was treated to a full orchestra concert.  The philharmonic was rehearsing at the concert hall next door for an upcoming performance.  Off to a good start, I’d say.

I crossed the bridge to Dresden a day or two later and was blown away by the restored old part of the city.  The reconstruction here reminded me of the impossible task of rebuilding the Tell Halaf statues.  OK, in Dresden they didn’t use the same rocks in the same places, but they rebuilt an entire historic center from rubble.  Tourists love this place of course, and there were swarms about on this beautiful sunny day.

Dresden by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Bicycle touring, Czech, Germany | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

The journey to start the journey

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Bryan Keith

Boulder to Denver, Denver to Miami, Miami to Berlin.  One car ride, seven buses, and a plane.  I built my bicycle at the Tegel Airport in Berlin.  When will I next pack it up?

Greyhound was on time for the 48 hour ride to Miami.  They even dropped me at the airport so it was simple to leave my cumbersome luggage there overnight and take a bus to South Beach.  I was dreading the heat in Florida in July, but it wasn’t bad by the ocean.  I really didn’t know a thing about South Beach except that with one day in Miami, I should check it out.

Whoa, the architecture was a huge surprise: more Art Deco than anywhere else in the world; the only historic district in the US created in the same century it was built!

DSCN4258 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 3 Comments

last of the preps, first of the sponsors

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Bryan Keith

My last few weeks in Boulder were a whirlwind of chaos.  Hikes, bike rides, a going away party, tearful goodbyes, packing my house, evenings with friends, dinners with family, paperwork, insurance, banking.  Mostly I was too busy to get excited.  When I thought about everything I needed to do before I left, I’d get nervous and think it was impossible so I tried to stick to a one-day-at-a-time outlook.  Often I was scared and questioned whether I was doing the right thing.

Different friends had different words of encouragement and with everyone’s support here I am, happy and excited to be on one the longest bus rides of my life.  (I’m taking the bus from Denver to Miami where I’ll get on an airplane to cross the ocean to Berlin.  And guess what?  Wifi on Greyhound!)

My parents showed up for the last week.  Once I saw all the work that they did to help me move out of my apartment I really wonder if I could have been ready on time without them.  Knowing they were coming, however, allowed me to procrastinate a bit and get out for more fun than I would have had time for otherwise!

The unusually large snowpack in the Front Range made for a couple beautiful hikes:

DSCN4192 by bryandkeith on flickr
Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments