Day 35 - Fly Reykjavic to London - Leaving the crazy Vikings behind

Waking at some terrible hour and a little hungover from the night before we said goodbye to Iceland and made our way to London. Arriving in Luton airport we assembled the bikes and made our way through peak hour traffic to our hotel in Shoreditch, a favourite little area of Reuben's.

Arriving at our compact little Hotel our plans to have a no drinking day were quashed when informed on checking in that the Hotel has complementary wine and cheese in the lobby from 5-8pm. Who could say no to that, not Reuben and Anne-Marie.

Silly hotel put us in the basement with no reception and no wi-fi so Reuben nursed his flu with BBC iPlayer.

Awaiting departure from Reykjavic.

Aboard the train to London.

Free cheese is best cheese.

Day 34 - Reykjavik, Iceland - Flu and Puffin

As we woke Reuben had now caught the virus and Anne-Marie was feeling a lot better. Although the new place we were staying in provided us free breakfast and washed our clothes for us the walls were so thin we could here everything. With two nights of barely any sleep we were feeling sorry for ourselves.

Getting on the bike we decided to make use of Reykjavik's awesome bike paths, check out the coast line, suburbs, a few more touristy sites and find a few supplies before we packed up the bikes.

Reuben still keen to try some horse, whale meat and puffin before we said goodbye to Iceland. After we packed up the bikes we headed off to a Tapas restaurant for the evening. Horse still off the menu after the veterinary strike. The rest was delicious.

Show us your fish baby.

Iceland

Malt beer over Reykjavik.

Imaginary trumpet.

Instant beard.

No cars, bike gates.

Duck.

Like a wooden Indian, a wooden Viking.

Atop the water towers.

A sewer processing plant by the sea.

I know how he feels with this flu.

For an irreligious society they still have some fancy churches.

Day 33 - Reykjavik - Videy Island, Art and Dinosaurs

With the sun shining we got on our bikes and rode around Iceland's capital. Anne-Marie had caught a virus and had a temperature so any big rides were out of the question. The whales were punishing her from the previous day.

Catching a little ferry across to Videy island we rode around the rough, uneven path admiring the scenery, pieces of art, and ending up only a little battered and bruised from the off road efforts.

A quick trip to a couple of wine bars and the movies to see the new Jurassic Park film ended the day.

Reuben on the dock.

Icelandic sculpture walk.

A volcanic rock sculpture.

I'm a Viking!

I made it to the top!

Doing Lachie proud, taking the racer off road.

You cannot see the cliffs from back here.

The paths are not really made for cycling.

Leaving lunch. Horribly expensive lunch.

Heading back to the ferry on the cobbles.

One of many basalt pillars.

Iceland has lots of wrecks to commemorate.

Lots and lots of wrecks.

Anne-Marie heads west.

The German's have crazy cruise ships.

Looks like fish scales.

Recovery beer.

Day 27 - Cycle Torgau to Berlin, Germany

Waking early we tried to sneak out quietly without waking the funny German couple. Unfortunately Hanz locked our bikes in his garage and we had to wake them up to open it.

We went for one last ride around Torgau, stopping at a 'backerei' for a slice of apple strudel and coffee for breakfast of champions (europeans). Just as we set off we noticed the river cruise we had followed the day prior was also setting sail.

A glorious morning followed. Very little wind and lots of German couples out cycling too. The river cruise passing ahead of us as we waited for a ferry to cross the river. Before we knew it we had cycled 60km and needed something substantial. Stopping for an omelette and coffee we watched as the river cruise passed us again. The strong head wind had started to pick up and after our enormous day yesterday we called it quits at Wittenberg and "trained" it the rest of the way to Berlin.

We finished of the day with an extravant tasting at the michelin starred Fischers Fritz.

Germany gets a little more flat, windy and boring as we head North.

Our nemesis, the River Cruise we'd been swapping lead with for two days.

A Berlin bear outside our hotel

Anne-Marie celebrates the end of the last serious cycling day

 of our trip in our spacious and stylish hotel Catalonia Berlin Mitte.

Flowers at the restaurant.

Day 26 - Cycle Dresden to Torgau, Germany

As we cycled out of Dresden we again hit peak hour cycle traffic on the Elbe river cycle path. With very little wind and energy from our chicken and salad rolls and apple strudels we were cycling fast. We spent an hour getting around shoals of cyclists trying to avoid head on collisions with others coming the other way.

After one near miss with an oncoming cyclist a guy in front of us swore in German, a man cycling beside us translated. "He called her a cucumber." I cracked up later Anne-Marie put it together, "It's like calling someone a dill!".

Picturesque scenery with vineyards surrounding us followed. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful "boothaus" on the river and were so impressed by the German cycle way, clear signage and beautifully surfaced paths. But then after lunch things changed. Back to crops and flat land there were less cyclists and signage deteriorated. We missed a poorly signed detour and wasted over an hour as we tried to cross a farm before realising we had to go back. The river cruise we had passed prior overtaking us as we stood amongst the corn fields. 

Arriving in Torgau at 8pm the "zimmer frei" signs we were accustomed to seeing were all saying "ausgebucht".  Anne-Marie always preferring to book accommodation ahead was a little worried. Starving we thought we would find some dinner first before the last place serving dinner in town closed for the night. Several beers and wine later we had googled most of the accommodation in town and were coming up negative. 

Eventually some little old lady lead us on a car chase ( we chased a car) to a funny German couple that had a spare room in the basement. they didn't speak a word of English, but we hand signaled our way through. On the plus side it was only 13 Euro each.

Frequent vineyards on the North bank.

Another ferry crossing.

Anne-Marie takes us so far off course we were riding through grass up to our waists.

Anne-Marie contemplates the wisdom of walking our bikes along the tiny

gravely beach in hope it re-meets the cycle path or alternatively backtracking 5km+.

At least I found this cute ass.

Pork and mushrooms for dinner while "The Brick" keeps my phone alive.

Strava, GPS Nav, Translation and time keeping, it can strain a poor battery.

Good German Schnitz.

Torgau Castle and Museum.

Day 25 - Cycle Usti nad Labem to Dresden, Germany - Dresden Impresses

After dicking around for ages and abusing the reception staff we left the appalling Hotel Pivovar and continued our merry way down the Elbe river.

Stopping regularly for photos, food and millions of other little reasons we then caught the ferry from The Czech Republic back to familiar unfamiliar Germany across the river. Our bag of Euro coins having sudden relevance again.

The impressive cliffs, castles and canyons of the Erzgebirge ranges giving way to Commuters, Cars and Churches as we arrived in Dresden, Anne-Marie had picked the Art'Otel, an interesting choice, every wall had a print by Ar Penck, and every print has 3 to 7 dicks on it. Not just our room, the whole hotel. 

The "Waschsalon" calling us once again to sacrifice our coins in the quest for not stinking out our dick bedecked hotel room. An abandoned pair of large men's Nike underpants providing just the tool Reuben had been looking for to wipe the excess oil and dirt from our recently lubricated chains, bonus.

We ate at the Devils Kitchen a burger joint in Neustadt the funky end of town, which is Anne-Marie's new residence according to Vodafone Germany. Germany is noticeably more expensive than The Czech Republic, and easily the most complicated place to get mobile data in Europe so far.  The beer is still cheap *grin*.

Breakfast of eggs on ham.

Up the Elbe in the morning

Bike parking a scarce resource

Fabulous cliffs (not done justice by the phone cam)

A glass of wine, Bratwurst & Currywurst for lunch, 

oh and crumbs for the sparrows.

I love riding rivers in Europe, you turn a corner and there's a castle.

Riding into Dresden we weren't sure what to expect.

All we knew of Dresden was the Americans firebombed it to hell in WWII

There were still some impressive old buildings.

An "Aussie" burger.

It had beetroot and pineapple.

Udderly excellent sauce dispenser.

Dry faster!

A quick sight seeing exercise in Dresden as the sunset

 provided some excellent pictures.

Blink blink blink.

Anne-Marie rides the fountains.

Gold man on a fat horse.

(Augustus the strong)

Ree speeds past the fish woman.

Hilarious.

Late night ice cream for dessert.

Semperoper, the Opera House.

Another man on a horse.

Opera house closeup.

Yenidze Tobacco Factory