Preface

Camino de Santiago

Camino de Santiago is probably the most famous Christian pilgrimage, whose rich tradition dates back to the Middle Ages. The Spanish word Camino basically stands for a path, road, or a journey. There are several different routes leading to Santiago de Compostela, the final destination of the Way of Saint James and the place where the apostle Saint James I buried. The most famous and frequent is the Camino Francais. It starts in a small French village in the Pyrenees, Saint-Jen-Pied-du-Port, continues through the Pyrenees to Spain and leads through major regional cities such as Pamplona, Burgos and Leon. On the way, a pilgrim might also admire picturesque nature, observe the local way of life by visiting small villages on the road, taste the Spanish culture and of course, meet many other pilgrims whose inner motivation for this ultimate journey may vary from person to person. One could rise a question what really motivates a pilgrim to walk 800 km in 30 days, and what gives him or her strength to withstand soaring heat, fatigue and often unrelenting pain after many a kilometer. I cannot provide a sufficient answer to this question; I can only speak for myself. In my case, I wanted to get my priorities right, change the air and taste another adventure. It is also true that on the pilgrimage, one has plenty of time for contemplation, meditation and introspection. I have also experienced this phenomenon and many things that have been worrying me are now crystal clear to me. Maybe through the physical exhaustion one can truly achieve the inner peace. My personal journey led through Eurovelo 6, the biggest cycle route from the Black Sea to the Atlantic, the Vélocéan and the Vélodyssée, cycle routes along the Western France, and finally, the Camino Francais. This arduous journey took me more than 40 days which is an equivalent to undertaking the Camino Francais on foot. In short, I can tell you that it was an enlightening experience and I am immensely happy that I undertook it. This blog is only a summary of my memories.

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Day 1

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

Last winter I thought I was too old for adventures, but I got itchy feet again. The truth is that you will never be too old for anything, unless your lazy mind manages to persuade you that you are. Therefore, it is always be only your mind that will eventually determine what you can accomplish. This ultimate trip was not just a spontaneous decision, but it had been planned carefully several months in advance. I had to save up some money first to upgrade my bike and to buy several indispensable things such as reserve batteries for my laptop and cell phone. In this blog I am going to share some of my travelling experiences that might be interesting or inspiring to you.

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It was a strange feeling when I left the familiar surrounding that I know from everyday cycling and set my foot (or wheel) in for me unknown territories, bearing in mind that I will return firstly after 2 months living like a tramp. It reminded me the well-known scene from the Lord of the Rings as Hobbits leave their homeland because Marchegg, the first Austrian town I was passing by, bears with vast fields and the river a striking resemblance to this movie scene.

Right from the beginning I was nicely surprised with perfectly marked bike routes. At least from Marchegg to Vienna, it was virtually impossible to go astray.

Unfortunately, my travelling started  with a serious problem with my knee right from the beginning. To keep you in suspense, let's say for reasons then unknown I got a terrible twinge into my right knee every now and then and each move of the knee was accompanied by terrible pain. This started as I arrived in Vienna and I contributed this to the overall fatigue on the first day. Therefore, I went to my favorite Kebab Kiosk to feed, literally. I thought I could eat a horse, but I ate only one kebab and one burek.

Just before leaving Vienna I made a quick break, when an old lady came up to me to asked whether I was not looking for accommodation. She was totally horrified when I thanked her an said that I am going to stay in a tent for the next two months.

However, the pain in my knee was getting worse and more unrelenting. I did every 5 km with an immense endeavor and was seriously afraid that I would have to give up on my fabulous summer adventure.

Later in the evening, I was on the brink of total exhaustion. I passed a huge water power station and at that point I made an ominous mistake: With that last energy I managed to summon, I rode like frenzy for 15 km with the motto "now or never“, unfortunately, the exact opposite direction. That means that instead of continuing, I set my camp 10 km nearer to home on the opposite side of the river from the direction I came. This was supposed to be a nice morning surprise. Having arrived tired as hell, I decided not to build a tent. What a coincidence that 15 minutes after I had lulled myself into a sleep, a big thunderstorm with heavy wind came out of the blue (or in this case would be more suitable to say out of darkness) and sprang a nasty surprise on me. I never knew that I can build a tent so fast. Just in the nick of time I managed to build my shelter and put my luggage into it.

My bike tent, a marvelous invention as it is, is extremely easy to build and has almost no weight. However, with its only one pole, it proved not to be very stable in strong wind. Therefore, I spent the night holding the tent from inside to prevent the ultimate collapse, until I gave up the fight at 2 am. The tent acted like grass in the wind and I got struck with the construction several times. Fortunately it was agile enough and did not break.

I have decided to add some pictures to each blog entry. Unfortunately, my cellphone was not always able to take a good snapshot and some of them might not be of a good quality. Moreover, as I realized in horror, all pictures from the Camino itself (Day 33+) were taken with wrongfully set 800 ISO which made them look more like impressionistic paitings than real pictures. Sorry about that, I hope that they have at least some documentary value suppsoing that from the artistic point of view, they are totally rubbish.

Link to photos

Day 2

 “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

After an almost sleepless night, I tried to boost my spirits by appreciating everything what I had to get through the last day. This self motivation did not last long, especially when I recoiled in horror by finding out that my last strenuous effort in the evening just moved me the opposite direction and I had to bike all the way back. Furthermore, as I woke up, I could not move my knee – it felt like a nasty inflammation. Immediately I grasped after my medicaments for joints with the sincere hope that it would help. My riding was truly through the pain – luckily after getting through the worst moments at the beginning, the knee became a little bit less sensitive. It is like if you injure your hand – it hurts mostly at the beginning and the pain gradually eases away. In my case, it eased only to the point when I got back from always more frequent breaks and had to warm my knee up. The hellish pain is truly difficult to describe. I do not enjoy bitching over things that do not turn out how I expect them; therefore, I will remain rather short in these descriptions. In general I can only say that my first days definitely did not live to my expectations.

I pulled over to have a lunch at a bus stop in a small village where I later fell asleep. After waking up and jumping on my bike I realized that it cannot go on like this. I was unable to continue due to unbearable pain and tried to figure out what the problem could be. Interestingly, I found out that somebody was playing with my saddle and the high difference was so subtle that I did not realize that. However, my knee did and in that position it was utmost wrong from the physiological point of view. I set up my saddle properly and it was much, much better. My knee still hurt, but I could bike and that was the most important. I was happy beyond belief that this was not the bitter end of my Tour de Europe. The other night I could enjoy a good night sleep.  I was exhausted, but happy that form now own, everything will be just alright.

Link to photos

Day 3

“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

Today I woke up with high spirits, my knee was also getting better and I was ready to finally enjoy my trip. I did about 120 km, in the end you will understand why :P I passed through beautiful Austrian villages, enjoyed great weather, listened to my philosophy audiobooks, and generally, took the best out of the day.

By the way, I am not sure how much you are into philosophy, dear reader, but I would like to mention that I have a new favorite philosopher. His name is Spinoza, a quite unknown philosopher, very religious, yet outracized from all religions because he just could not keep his mouth shut and poke his nose where he should not. That guy was both ingenious and ingenuous (now you can finally learn the difference:) I am not saying that one should strive for perfection as he did, but he was clearly a very amusing guy. For instance, his greedy sister wanted to rip him off about his inheritance after their deceased father, but he, as a philosopher, had to prove adamantly that he was right, and spent a fortune to win the trail, just to make her admit that he was right. - afterwards he told her that she can keep everything anyway :P That is what I call ingenious and ingenuous at the same time. As if he did not think about the future that he might need that money. The other day, there was a rumor around in Holland where he was living in a certain period of his life that he was a French spy. When he heard of that, he wanted to publicly declare in the front of everyone on the main square that he was, clearly, not a spy. Just in the nick of time, his landlord managed to lock him in his room to prevent this unmitigated disaster. His work, however, seems very logical and precise, with a spark of irony in many statements and axioms. He would clearly be a saint had he not stood up against certain axioms of the Church. What a pity that he never got recognized during his lifetime. It was clear to him that his papers are so controversial that they could not be published officially. Nonetheless, his masterpiece about ethics was widely recognized after his death and caused quite a stir in intellectual circles. Better for him that he was dead; otherwise he would be accused of heresy by all means at those times. Maybe one day the Catholic Church will recognize him as a saint  -  that would be a nice gesture. In such a case, he would be clearly proclaimed the patron of irony and sarcasm.

On the other hand, I was quite disappointed by Sartre and I am contemptuous about his lascivious lifestyle, allegedly intellectual drug addiction an many other things that probably made him the most popular philosopher of all times. Not my cup of tee, however.

That's about my impression from philosophy and now let's get back to the real world. Early in the afternoon I met a Czech family on a similar bike trip. It was so cute; they even had their little babies in a small bike caravan. Now I know how I am going to spend my holidays in the future. All inclusive 4 star hotel? Nope, nothing for me – after 2 days I would be bored to death.

I have to pose a question: How much do you like shopping? Well, I mean food, obviously, because it is crystal clear that women enjoy shopping trinkets and men shopping cars, electronics, and sport stuff. But what about food? I guess you know that feeling when you enter a supermarket while being totally hungry. Well, this feeling was strongly intensified by my exhaustion and utmost hunger that day. When I entered a Lidl supermarket, it was like coming to the paradise – so many different things, yet so little place to put it in. The hunger I am talking about is the feeling of having no energy at all after a very intensive workout. Basically, your whole body is shaking and you hanker after excessive calories. Those who do sport will damn well know what I mean.

In the evening I ate 4 big muffins just as if it were a little snack. Try doing that without any sport before and you can have pretty bad stomach ache. It is a caloric bomb, indeed, but it worked just fine because I got enough energy put off my exhaustion for a while and to continue.
I made another roundabout that proved to be a big mistake because the road was totally dilapidated. I should have taken the original route. I had to move extremely cautiosly to save myself from troubles with the bike. I risked a little when I rode on a narrow dam instead of the beaten road because falling down from there could have been quite nasty.

This day I wanted to arrive near Linz, but in the dawn the rain set in. It would not be a good idea to build my tent in the city park; therefore, I decided to continue despite inclement weather conditions. It was a very unpleasant ride and furthermore, my last cell phone battery went flat, thus I was unable to locate my position on the map. No directions, no place to build my tent, heavy rain and dark – that was not a pleasant situation I was caught in. The only good option at that time for me was to carry on nevertheless, put on my light gadgets to tune up my bike into a moving carousel, and go on the car road to Linz. Around 11 pm the road connected to a highway and I was forced to find a place to stay in the nearby city. I tried to look for a place where nobody would come and that would be safe from the thunderstorm. I found such a place in the bushes on the corner of an open area. I quickly built my tent and set myself to sleep. What a coincidence that I built my tent only about 10 m below a train bridge! You can imagine that I did not enjoy a good night sleep then.

Link to photos

Day 4

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  ~St. Augustine

The fourth day I had a little chill out in Linz. I still needed to get there because I was about 10 km away from Linz. In the morning it was extremely difficult to start biking as my butt hurt a lot. That eventually became my major problem with biking as soon as pain in the knee faded away. I visited Linz 2 years ago with a friend of mine during another low-cost journey (visiting Austria on train and sleeping in a tent). Therefore, this time I did not need to do much sightseeing and could just hang around, watch a knight tournament during Linz historical festive days (great timing, indeed), and recharge my devices in McDonald where I had, by the way, an interesting experience. One Afro-American guy, about 14-years old and obviously tipsy, came to the “restaurant“ and started harassing customers by begging for food with inarticulate mumbling. He was saw off by several customers, but the funniest one, also an Afro-American was terrified by his obnoxious behavior and kicked a fuss there. “What the fuck, do not take my food, man“, he screamed at the guy when he “served himself“ with some fries of his allegedly new friend. In the end, the manager had to spring on defense of the customer and kick that guy out. It was quite funny to observe that. I and one elderly woman were particularly amused by this scene and ended up talking for about an hour. She was really garrulous and therefore it was not a problem to engage in a conversation either with her, or with the other guests. Almost everyone looked incredulously when she told the newcomers about my plans to go by bike to Spain and it was quite funny to see their reactions. 

Before leaving Linz, I wanted to ritually have shower in the same fountain as two years ago. What an irony that after I was nicely washed, it suddenly started raining. This rain accompanied me for at least 5 hours and I was completely soaked from the top to the bottom. In some moments, I even experienced such heavy rain that I could not move and see anything. Even my so called waterproof jacket got wet.

Despite my rest in Linz, I was quite tired, maybe due to my rushed pace during the rain. Interestingly, you tend to ride faster in the rain. This can be either due to the fact that the pavement is wet and therefore you can move more smoothly, or simply because it is cold and you want to warm up and ride faster. I did manage to get to the designated place, but it was rather in the dark and quite late. I vividly remember my riding along various meanders of Danube and I could not wait until I reach my goal. I even ate my last Horalka to get more sugar for last kilometeres (my favorite sweets, typical Slovak sweets). As usually, I built my base about 10 pm. This time, however, in an area full of fishermen and campers. Finally a conventional alternative (last night beneath the railway road was not particularly pleasing but it is funny now in the retrospective).

Oh, I almost forgot - I saw a plethora of glowing worms! I could barely see any since I was 7. They are so amazing! It is like a miniscule Avatar. I drunk few gulps of whisky and fell asleep with the sense of accomplishment for the day in the beautiful area of Danube caught in the hills in almost untouched nature, far away from any signs of urban areas. 

Link to photos

Day 5

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Waking up early in the morning in my camping spot near the river was just fascinating. I totally enjoyed my morning walk, quick breakfast and later set off for the journey. I woke up earlier because I wanted to attend a mass on Sunday. Luckily I found a church on my way in a small Austrian village, and smelly and dirty as I was, I went inside to the utmost surprise of the locals. I even managed to charge my cell phone battery. Later on, I continued to Passau, made few quick phone calls with friends and family because I wanted to make the most of my free Austrian minutes and in the later afternoon I came to Passau, the first German city in Bavaria near the Austrian borders. To my big surprise, I was to find out that my cell phone internet roaming was not working as I had expected and I was to cope with this problem until I arrived in France.

I do not know whether you have visited Passau, but it is a very nice city with its own urban charm. Passau is not so huge and spectacular as some major metropolies, but it is definitely very cute and its promenades around Danube on a small island where the city centre is located, turn it into a very romantic place.

I have seen many interesting things there; however, one experience outshines all the others and that was my visit of a praline factory. It was really like entering a chocolate paradise. I was totally overwhelmed by the plethora of various chocolate and praline sorts and even though it was rather expensive, I succumbed to the temptation and purchased some pralines. I do not consider myself a specialist, but I am definitely a gourmet who can appreciate tasty food and drinks - it somehow comes from my nature to enjoy deeply  everything that I can perceive with full joy. Those hand-made pralines, winners of countless competitions, carefully selected by the chocolate master were gorgeous - I was just in the seventh heaven! 

For the rest of the day, I motivated myself with one praline per break - a well deserved reward, indeed. I think, I will practice this with other sweets as well. 

The whole day was awfully hot and I think that at some point I got a small sun-stroke. I had to lie down for a while before I was able to continue. Due to a bad road description, I got lost several times and significantly lagged behind. This became even worse as the darkness fell and I totally lost my sense of orientation. In the end, I gave up and built my tent somewhere behind Deggensdorf, in German a dagger village, which was definitely not as small as I had expected from its name. I did not choose an ideal place for building my tent because there were still few people walking around, probably on a drink night out, seeing my tent and saying “Bist du tepad?” I was pretty scared that night and could not fall asleep easily. Fortunately, in the end, there were no problems at all.

I was mildly disappointed by the quality of the bike road as I went from Austria to Germany. In Austria, you had the vast amount of roads well paved, but the first 50 km of Bavarian Donauradweg were mostly narrow country roads through which you could not ride fast. Maybe it is deliberately so to give Germans a sense of adventure as they spend their vacation fishing and camping along the dusty road. I saw many people who obviously wanted to get in shape on their active vacation. This kind of road offered definitely plenty of opportunities for a wide variety of sport activities. The road itself leads along the Danube as a form of a dam and there are many small bars, restaurants and accommodation on the way. Presumably, this road offers for the locals a good source of income from the tourism. 

Link to photos

Day 6

 Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.  ~Seneca

I started the next day with high spirits that I would catch up on my schedule and instead of taking breakfast right away, I indulged myself firstly after 20 km. I was heading to Regensburg, a well-known Bavarian city where I wanted to do a little bit more sightseeing as in Passau. As usually, the first 40 km went pretty smoothly. I pulled out at one small town to replenish water, wash my clothes and buy some food. Speaking about the food, today I had a typical Bavarian salad. It basically consists of ham, ham, some onions, cucumber and again, ham. I bought it at a local store, but still, even for a readymade food, it gave me a good taste of the local cuisine.

In the afternoon I continued listening to my audiobooks. After finishing with Plato in the morning, I did a small recapitulation of Sartre and Spinoza. The last 20 km to Regensburg were awful. I was pretty tired and the soaring heat was killing me. Right after arriving in Regensburg, I went straight to the nearest McDonald's. Normally I loathe McDonald's and its products, but having free internet, an electricity plug, and tasty ice-cream is an offer you cannot refuse, especially after biking the whole day in the sun. What a pity that I did not have more time for sightseeing, Regensburg looks like a nice city that breaths with history. At least I can say that I saw something, as a fast-sightseeing tourist. On the bike it is namely very convenient to do sightseeing in a town: You travel triple so fast with minimal effort. I tried to soak into the city’s atmosphere as much as possible. In the evening, there was not much hustle - people were just hanging out, dating and enjoying the nice weather. While leaving for the Donauradweg, I went through an interesting bridge that was decorated with a myriad of small locks. Interestingly, it became a habit for lovers to engrave their relationship by putting a small lock on the bridge.

As every pilgrim to Compostela, I also wear a special sign: a small shell that is a symbol of this holy pilgrimage. Not many people recognize it, not even among Catholics. Today, however, I was nicely surprised as I overtook a young cyclist and she immediately caught up on me because she recognized the shell. We spent another 20 minutes engaged in a pleasant conversation before she pulled home. I discovered that a friend of her did Camino François on the foot and that was actually the reason that she recognized it. I am curious how many other people will know it, but I think the closer I get to the beginning of the official pilgrimage; the more people will be familiar with it. 

Tonight I have also missed the desired finish and stopped about 5 km earlier. Firstly, it was really dark and the paved Donauradweg ended, and secondly because I have found a perfect spot to build my tent. I have "claimed" a small half-island in a park and set my base there. Now I am sitting on the bench writing this blog and indulging myself with the rest of my small bottle of whisky. 

My daily routines looks like following: In the morning 40 km, lunch, rest until 3 pm, then until 6pm another 40 km, dinner, rest, 20 km, setting the base and preparing for sleep. According to my map calculations, I do about 100 km, but in reality it is about 115-125 due to wildly inaccurate route planning (e.g. turn right, which is actually a curve could by marked in my map software only with setting points that formed a triangle), and due to my to and fro sightseeing and losing directions.

Link to photos