My Bicycle Ride Across Europe 2009

In 2000 I met a Dutch guy who had bicycled from Amsterdam to Jerusalem. I asked him a lot of questions about it, because it sounded very interesting, and it planted the idea in my head to bike across Europe.

In 2001 when I was working at my first hostel, I spent all my free time biking and at the bookstore planning my route with maps and travel guides. The idea evolved into a trip from Amsterdam to Greece.

I wasn't able to save enough to go on that trip, but in 2004 at the last minute I went on an unplanned 3-month bicycle tour of the Greek Islands, ending up at Plakian's hostel in the hottest part of the summer. I think the last part of the trip was mostly spent snorkeling in Crete :D

I didn't complete my mission to bike across Europe -- the minimum requirements were to cross the Swiss Alps, and to go from coast to coast. I came up with this idea for a Barcelona to Stockholm route in the fall of 2007:

That didn't work out because I couldn't take time off from work.

I'm finally going to do it at the end of this summer though because I need to take a break from work. There is only time for a short trip from Barcelona to Amsterdam via Paris where I'm going to go to a tech convention:

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to stay in Europe to do the longer version that crosses the Swiss Alps. Will have to save that for next time :D

That's the plan -- train until August and then take 4 to 6 weeks off from working to do this trip.

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