De bicicleta da Régua a Chaves pela Linha do Corgo

De bicicleta entre a Régua, Vila Real e Chaves (e possível continuação a Verín em Espanha) é uma ciclovia ou ecovia projectada há muito, sempre pela antiga linha de comboio do Corgo. Para Sul, esta ecopista poderia também ser alongada até Lamego.

Na realidade, em Setembro de 2020, é um trilho de aventura que na maior parte se pode efectuar sem problemas a pé. De bicicleta com alforges, só parcialmente o é de forma confortável.

Neste artigo, originalmente escrito em Português, vamos tentar mostrar o estado das coisas tal como vimos e pedalámos nas nossas últimas férias de bicicleta.

Continue reading “De bicicleta da Régua a Chaves pela Linha do Corgo”

Cycling across the Alps to San Marino and Venice

Part 1: The change of plans

October 2019. Our plan is to ride from Bern to Berlin, via Munich and Prague. We have never been to Czech Republic and always wanted to ride in East Germany. Everything is organized: we will pick up the keys of the Munich apartment in Winterthur, we have let our Czech friend know we are going to visit her country…

The weather forecast in this beginning of Autumn is not nice: rain and cold. And this at least during the whole next week. Not like the “One Week, Four Countries” tour we did in October 2017.

We packed all our house into six panniers: wardrobe, bed (mattress and blanket), kitchen and repair workshop. The house goes in a separate bag above the panniers. Finally, we have confirmed that the campsite for the first night is still open.

We are on October 4th 2019, 9 o’clock in the morning when we take a last look at the weather forecast and it really doesn’t look nice. The weather is much better south of the Alps. And if we went there instead?

Continue reading “Cycling across the Alps to San Marino and Venice”

One Week, Four Countries: An Autumn Cycle Tour

This October we spent a few days in Austria on a long-planned family holiday. As this included crossing all of Switzerland, we thought we might as well continue the vacation a bit longer and do a short cycle tour from there. We had a week to spend, and we ended up cycling in four countries (Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland) and over four mountain passes (no, actually, five). We went from glorious autumn weather to the beginning of winter. The trip was short (too short!), but it gave us back a bit of the cycle touring feeling we had been missing since coming back home last June.

It was a tough week, but a very happy one.

Read on if you want to know more about it!

Continue reading “One Week, Four Countries: An Autumn Cycle Tour”