Update from Berlin - well, at least a bit of what we've been up to

We love to share what we've been up to but we have obviously completely failed on keeping things up to date. From Sighisoara, Romania we took a train to Budapest, Hungary. We absolutely loved it there and had a hard time leaving. There was much talk about how we could settle down and live there for awhile. We walked around, a lot. We rode around, a lot. We relaxed in the hot water of several large pools at the public thermal baths.  Did I mention we loved it there?

Then it was time for the open road again. We set our sights on Vienna as the next large city to stay in. Two nights in our tent at different campgrounds, two days of riding 70+ kilometers, and one very-long day of 130 kilometers got us there. We had considered staying in Bratislava about 60 km sooner but decided we should push through. I'll give more details in a later post but let's just say we didn't like Vienna really all that much. It's very beautiful but it lacked the magic of Budapest. Then there's the additional problem of everything costing about twice as much here as any of the places we had been in the last month or so. That's was a hard pill to swallow and we decided to get out of town sooner rather than later.

Three more days of riding and two more campsites got us to Brno, Czech Republic. We were unable to find anywhere to stay close to the city center so we decided to ride north about 15km to a reservoir where there were some campgrounds. We didn't have much in the way of maps and were close to being lost as the sun started going down. At the last minute we found a room at a pension where through some charades we were able to get a room for the night. It was very nice and relaxing after the long day and we were excited to have a washing machine in the room.

The next day we got our bearings and found our way to a campground that had eluded us the night before. We checked into a little cabin for the occasion of my birthday. Then we rushed to grab a transit bus back into Brno to see the sights. This is another one of those places with a beautiful and very old city center that is mostly without cars. It's always so nice to be able to walk around and experience a place without having to constantly worry about being run down. Photos soon for here too.

From Brno we took two-hour train to Prague to stay with a close friend's parents, Jitka and Petr. We took a metro train from the main train station (Hlavni Nadrazi) and they met us at the end station with their bikes. We rode with them through a very beautiful park and on some tiny dirt trails up and down some steep hills. They were the most-gracious hosts who gave us a room to sleep in and kept us fed for more than a week. This also gave us a base of operations for our exploration of Prague. More on this soon too.

I mentioned in the title of this post that we are now in Berlin. In fact we have been here almost two weeks. We've been hanging out a lot in Berlin with a friend from San Francisco and his wife who are living here for a couple years. Wow, how did we get so behind on this blog? I'll try to post more details soon on all those cities from above. And I suppose I should also mention the many days of riding that took us from the Czech Republic to Dresden and then finally to Berlin. ;)

From Berlin we will be taking a train to Frankfurt for a night. Then we will ride southwest into France to watch a stage of the Tour de France on July 6th. Then it's more riding to get to Paris, then through Belgium to the Netherlands. Then a ferry to the UK for our last month of this amazing trip.

Oh Berlin, how we love you.

From Sibiu we hopped on the bikes and pedaled to Sighisoara

Oh the beautiful things you see in the Transylvanian countryside. The messed up fence and foreground not included.

Nothing like riding on a road with no shoulder and a three-foot drop to keep you on your toes.

The world here has not moved on. There are many farmers here who still rely on horses for much of their daily work. 

The name of this fortified church escapes me. We were just happy to have found some shade on this hot day. Soon we would start seeing signs for fortified churches every 30 minutes or so. The people at the time had found it was easier to defend a church than their whole town.

We saw this place while riding by and could only thing, what the f? We later learned that this area used to be one of the most polluted in Europe in the 90s. Info here and here.

Mel loves horses. Especially baby ones. 

She does this when she sees them.

Then we went to Sibiu and loved it too

I really do love great pedestrian spaces like this. So nice to be able to relax and not worry about car traffic.

There was no special significance of this building that we know of.  That's ok. We liked it anyway.

Mel at the potters tower of course.

An abandoned-looking mansion that we would happily live in.

Enter through the rear and slide down the trunk. Reminds me a bit of a South Park episode with Cartman.

Another town, another big church.

Just something to think about that was posted in shop window.

Yep, the inside of a church.

I always enjoy the side streets that aren't on the main tourist path.

Can't say for sure I know what this sign is trying to tell me. Maybe this is a tree, house, children-playing, and parked -car zone? Oh, and things are moved by cart from 5 to 9.

Then we took a day trip to Rasnov and Bran

What you don't see is how we got here. Somehow I failed to capture our mode of transportation to this point from Brasov. We paid for a shuttle bus to take us to some of the popular tourist sites and the two of us ended up in a taxi with a crazy driver. He dropped us at this "train" and waited for us.

Moments before I could really see it in Mel's eyes that she thought this guy was crazy and should get away from her. 

The "train" dropped us off just below Rasnov Castle which you see here.

Looks to be an abandoned nuclear power plant and it wasn't the first we had seen.

One of the farmers we passed while in the taxi on our way to Bran.

This castle is marketed to tourists as Dracula's Castle but in reality he stayed there once. And we were disappointed that it wasn't creepy at all.

It looked like we had the place almost to ourselves.

Then we turned the corner. Hello tour group.

I bought a Canon S100 specifically for this trip. This is the last photo I was able to take with it before it got a lens error that made it stop working. Boooo

So from Bran Castle we went to a Royal Palace that was quite beautiful. My line drawings would not likely do it any justice so here's a link instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pele%C8%99_Castle

We took a train from Bucharest to Brasov

We really liked Bucharest but Brasov was amazing. It was much smaller, manageable, and relaxing.

They went ahead and did the Hollywood-sign thing.

Pretty architecture near the main town square.

Mel hanging in the square on one of the rare days on the trip when it didn't rain.

The main synagogue in the center of town. It's sad I can't be more specific but honestly we have seen so many  religious buildings that it doesn't seem possible to keep track.

It doesn't matter how hungry you are when you can't read the menu. :|

This turned out to be mental health hospital.

The view up from the city walls to the white tower.

The view back down in case you thought Mel only climbed steep hills on her bike.

Ambience galore in this cellar restaurant.

That's one way to sell rubbing alcohol.

Even Mr. Proper looks interested.

The road to our hostel was having some work done.