2025 Biking Trip

May 24, 2025

Two bicycles leaned against a stone barrier

Our bikes!

Tato, my father

Mulled wine. From Dominoes?

May 25, 2025

We pass by a flea market

Burger King was the worst fast food on the trip, but had a good view of the town square

May 26, 2025

We drive to pick up new camera lenses for me!

A woman walks in front of a white apartment building

I just really like this photograph

This apartment complex is where we got the second camera lens.

May 27, 2025

Our bikes leaning against a train station bench

We learn the hard way that bikes can add a lot of stress to getting on a train quickly

Lunch in Rybnik

A helmet hangs from a train luggage rack

My father gets comfortable on a train ride

We relax on the umpteenth train ride of the day

May 28, 2025

Arrival in Vienna!

View of construction site outside of our hotel room window

A bad view, but a good location

A dozen parking restriction signs litter a sidewalk

12 signs for "Don't park here" seems excessive

My father stands next to a statue of Strauss

My father stands next to a statue of Bruckner

We visit a garden of famous composers

Vienna's subway system map drawn by an 11 year old and a crayon

Konstantin's map is a good start, but doesn't help us navigate the subway system.

A couple photograph something with their phones. There is a bright building through the doorway, so the door arch and the couple are silhouetted.

My father sits at a bench and looks at his phone

This generation and their phones...

A beige street with a "no horse-drawn carriages" sign.

No horse-drawn carriages allowed. This sign was probably a lot more common before 1910.

May 29, 2025

We, and a million other tourists tour the grounds of a royal palace

The main palace building

A side view of the palace building with tourists taking a selfie

My dad takes a photo on the same platform

From another angle

The interior of an orangery with orange trees in pots

I learn about an orangery, and there's even a bush maze.

After this, we walk up this hill with tall grass

And this concludes our trip to the palace grounds.

And to round out the day, we see a performance at the local Opera

The cast holds hands at the end of their performance

May 30, 2025

We leave Vienna for Salzburg

One of my mom's favorite beer gardens was here.

As we got within a few hundred feet of the place, the sound of chatter that came from above the walls was so full, that I didn't understand what the noise was until I was just outside.

Rows upon rows of bikes are parked outside the beer garden.

Bike parking!

My dad stands pointing a giant barrel of beer

6,800 liters. "Travel size"

A guy does a handstand on top of a table in a beer garden

A man does a handstand in the beer garden

We drink our beer, and continue on.

Mozart's house. There are a hundred tourists milling about it at any given time.

Also in Salzburg is Mozart's childhood home. It's one of the less architecturally interesting buildings I've seen in Europe, but the interior courtyard is very nice.

Miscellaneous photos in Salzburg:

The sign post for Museum der Moderne. The text is set in bold Helvetica, and it's made of metal.

A man takes a photograph of a church spire, and it's so high up that he's almost looking straight up.

A bus stop has a sign with digital arrival estimates.

And we hit golden hour with some wonderful views on our bike ride to our booking on the outskirts of Salzburg.

A view down the street that our booking was on

May 31, 2025

A maine coon sits on a piece of slate in the ground

We wake up to spot a cat in the yard next door

We take a short bike ride from our accomodation to a gondola base and get brought up to the mountain that we saw yesterday.

A zoomed-in aerial photo of the street that our booking was on

I put my new zoom lens to use, and spot our booking. You'll have to guess which one it was.

My dad looks through a pair of pocket binoculars

Notice the little black dots in the image? Those are flies. There were so many flies on top of this mountain, and I hated it.

If you can look through the bugs, however, the view was truly amazing.

The view is visible through two other onlookers

Locks are attached to a chain fence. Out of focus and behind the fence is the mountain range.

We take the gondola back down, and I fire up Google Maps to navigate us back to the ranch.

However, I learned the hard way that Google Maps decided to route us through someone's farm path and driveway.

Embarrassingly, the owner was sitting outside, and just watched us bumbling foreigners bike through his property. Deciding that I'd like to stop trespassing, I download a purpose-built bike navigation app when we get home. Highly recommended.

June 1, 2025

We leave Salzburg, and actually start biking around Europe.

The train we take out of Salzburg actually goes all the way to our destination, Innsbruck.

We get off in Jenbach, which is about halfway to Innsbruck.

However, instead of going towards Innsbruck, we end up doubling back a little bit to go to this small town called Rattenberg that my dad heard about.

So, we bike 20 miles in the wrong direction, but I get rewarded with some good coffee and ice cream.

My dad poses with his packed bike outside the gate for Rattenberg

It rains a bit in town, but we were able to hide in a gift shop for most of it.

We continue biking.

Along the way is the Swarovski museum / factory / thing that people visit.

We balk at the tour price, use their bathroom, refill our water bottles, and head on our merry way.

These are a lot like highway signs

We stop for dinner in a town called Hall in Tirol, and I have a pizza with runny eggs on top of it. A tolerated surprise.

I take a Facetime call while on the bike

A Facetime call while biking was an interesting thing to try out

Finally, we make it to Innsbruck.

June 2, 2025

We make a wonderful breakfast in our accomodation. There's a kitchen with pots and such, so we only needed to buy some cooking oil to fry our eggs

We visit the famous 'Golden Roof', and end up souring our memories by getting some truly mediocre beer from the McDonalds just down the street.

Because it's truly a terrible day, it's moody and dark and it threatens to rain, I convince my dad to see the new Mission Impossible movie. Conveniently, there's an IMAX theatre within walking distance.

My dad takes a close-up photo of a bike-counting sign

My dad and I don our waterproof biking ponchos, as it's the only waterproof clothing we have

For dinner, we stop at a restaurant called Burenwirt that's on the uphill walk back up to our booking. Here, I discover what a radler is. I'm in love.

June 3, 2025

It's a much nicer day

My dad takes a photo of the cat that lives around

This cat lives in the same house that we rented!

We take yet another series of lifts up yet another mountain. Again, the views are great. No surprises.

Tourists look over a short wall across Innsbruck

Tourists look on a cantilevered concrete viewing platform. Someone in the foreground extends their finger to point at something

A man climbs up a wooden staircase embedded in the hill

Clearly, we took the easy way up

Always photograph the photographer

My dad winds up his arm to throw a snowball

A photo taken a moment after the snowball left my dad's hand

I face aerial bombardment from a previously trusted "family member"

Then, we go back down, and bike across the valley to visit the olympic ski jump.

When we got there, we thought we were out of luck, as we couldn't find the entrance, and Google Maps said it was closed on Tuesdays?

We end up finding the entrance, and we see there were some Red Bull athletes practicing for a 400m race that goes up this ski jump slope. The ticket lady eventually came, and we bought some tickets to visit.

This was our view through the gates

The red bull guys hang out on the viewing stairs

The Red Bull guys get some photos in

A graphic telling people not to piss off the edge of the hill is spray painted onto a metal building

Signs like these are posted for a reason

My dad poses as if he's doing the ski jump

My dad practices his form

My dad poses by the olympic rings and torch

We bike across town again, and eat a snack on the rooftop of this hotel. All I can remember is how hard the bread was. Not a fan.

The view from the rooftop bar

June 4, 2025

We leave Innsbruck

We stop at a church along the way

My dad photographs a scene in the church

My dad smiles as I take a photo of him taking a photo

Always photograph the photographer

My dad stops at an address along the way of a guy who let him stay the night some 40 years ago.

Unfortunately, he's died, but my dad talks to his son's wife, who tells him that next door lives the brother of the guy my dad was looking for. We walk over, and my dad manages to exchange a few words in his Duolingo German.

We continue on. Along the way, we encounter cows grazing along the bike path. It was magical to hear cowbells and just silently bike alongside them.

Through some shrubbery, my dad is seen stopped on his bike, surrounded by cows

My dad surrounded by cows

My new bike app was rock-solid until here, but we ended up going down a thin, stony path that seemed to stop. There was no internet, and so I looked at the two already-loaded paths in the cycle app, and just picked one.

That path was a bad one, as it was ridiculously steep for our loaded bikes. We were both scared of pricking a tire, and I dropped my bike more than once, and slipped a lot. We ended up making it to a road.

In a misguided attempt to get us back on track, I use Apple Maps to continue on. Furthermore, scared of being on the main road, I followed the Apple Maps path, which was much more steep than going along the main road.

We were battered from walking up an overgrown path and taking a huge uphill detour, but we had a bigger challenge

We race against time to meet our 7pm check-in deadline. The Apple Maps ETA was 6:40 something, and that estimate kept slipping further back.

We end up getting there on time.

June 5, 2025

We leave Austria and make it to Switzerland

my dad stands with the Swiss speed limit sign behind him

Unfortunately, we did not come prepared with stickers to add to this sign

A view of the road from a steeper side road

Our stay for the night was just to the right, and essentially on a 'scenic overview' stop on this road

June 6, 2025

Sneaking further into Switzerland, we take more main roads. Lots of hills.

My dad eats a snack in the morning outside of oour stay

My dad enjoys a morning snack

The mountain ranges to our left as we were biking

Not a bad view for a commute

A llama stands right next to a wire fence

Free petting zoo! (Small risk of being spat on)

We stop to get some pizza, and my dad gets to successfully practice his Italian. He's very happy.

Our stay for the night

June 7, 2025

We bike to our first campsite of the trip. My dad's rented out a parked trailer RV

Neither of these were our RV but I didn't take a photo of ours unfortunately

We take a funicular to the top of another mountain.

My dad checks the timetable for the trip down on the outdoor patio

My dad checks the timetable for the return trips. Presumably, this deck is a lot nicer when it's not cloudy.

A view downhill looking at the funicular's rails

It's not that long of a way down, actually

It gets incredibly foggy, which makes being on top of this peak surreal.

It wasn't cloudy at this time, though

June 8, 2025

We take the Bernina Express around.

We hastily bike to the train station in Pontresina, afraid we'll miss the train. We make it in time.

It's this famous train line in Switzerland that cuts through the mountains without needing geared tracks

A view out the window of the train. White capped mountains are visible.

The views were really, really good

So the train swirls and swirls and swirls, and eventually, we arrive at Alp Grum

Even though this was the 'regular' train, the views were arguably better, because you could open the windows and look out

I sit down to rest for a minute here

Visibility of maybe 100 feet at this train station

Heavy fog comes and goes extremely quickly here

Rejuvenated, my dad and I hike down to a lake below

My dad walks down a grassy pathway with the restaurant building to the left of him

There's a nice little restaurant down here, but we don't get anything

We hike back up, and manage to purchase our return ticket 3 times, because our internet was slow, and instead of seeing a confirmation page, we saw a blank page, so without confirmation, we retried. That is, until my dad finally received emails confirming that his card was being charged!

Luckily, my dad is able to refund the two extra tickets.

The train actually takes us to another small village, Poschiavo, where we get lunch.

A green BMW Isetta on a stone paved street

In Poschiavo, we get a sneak peek at the BMW museum with a guy driving around in an Isetta in beautiful condition

And finally, from Poschiavo, the train back to our camping village is the coveted "panoramic view" version.

My dad sits in the train checking his phone. Outside the tall window is a giant lake and a large mountain.

It's nicer to look through, but the curved glass and unopenable windows actually makes this less photogenic than the normal version. It's certainly snazzier, however.

The conductor notices that we bought way too many tickets, so it appears that the reservations didn't completely disappear even after being refunded.

My dad holds up the chocolate box and juice box

More importantly, he gives us a train-shaped box of chocolates, and branded juice boxes.

Finally, we're back in Pontresina.

We find a little gift for my dad - all throughout our vacation, I've seen the Siemens logo on countless trains, subway cars, and infrastructure, but today, my dad spots on the train station's convenience store a door lock from where he worked - a smaller building access control company called Vanderbilt.

A stained wood siding with a Vanderbilt branded 10 digit keypad on it

June 9, 2025

A detour to Lichtenstein

We leave our RV life behind, and today's final destination is going to be Reichenau-Tamins, a small town that my dad found an Airbnb-type booking in.

But, since there's a direct train from the Tamins train station to Lichtenstein, we decide to add another country to the mix of this vacation.

Our extremely wonderful host manages to pick the bags off our bikes during the short transfer between our train from our campsite and the train that goes to Lichtenstein. It saves us from lugging 40 pounds during oun bike-through of the small country.

My dad stands with his bike next to the sign that says you are entering Lichtenstein

"Welcome to Lichtenstein!"

We visit Lichtenstein, and manage to recreate an old photo my dad had the last time he visited

Old

New!

(Vaduz is the capital of Lichtenstein)

We head a little further in town, and I thought I had started to lose my mind, because all of a sudden, I felt like I was in New York City - on March 17th. I heard bagpipes?!

My father and I literally followed the music into downtown, and found that a large amount of Scottish people had set up shop to cheer on their soccer team.

It was surreal to hear bagpipes - and the English language - this far from Ireland, and from home.

We go back to Reichenau-Tamins, and seeing how steep the bike was to our accomodation, we're thankful that our bags were already up there, waiting for us

A church in the town is the only thing visible above the treeline

The town looks stunning in the late evening sun, but it is foggy

We share a wonderful dinner with the host. She explains that the fog we see in the mountains is actually from the Canadian forest fires, which explains why the visibility in the mountain ranges has gotten low.

June 10, 2025

And it's the same in the morning, a wonderful breakfast

We learn that the husband of the host breeds bunnies, and he happily shows us the little guys

Where the bunnies are kept

We stop at the largest water fountain in the country.

My dad waits to take a photo of the largest water fountani

My dad waits patiently to take his photo. All the famous tourist spots have their lines.

Just about every village we went to had a trough-turned drinkable water fountain. This one just happened to have the largest basin.

We trek on

We make it to our second campsite, which is at the bottom of a valley.

Our little hut

The view from the top. You can see RVs parked if you zoom in!

My dad takes a photo from the same vantage point

The elevation changes along our routes were much more tiring than the overall distance, and this campsite was some ridiculous 200 meter drop from the neighboring town, which made going for a quick trip to the store a bit of a workout, but at least it was only uphill one way, and it was downhill on the way back.

Our (unloaded) bikes make travelling up and down much easier

June 11, 2025

We conquer the Oberalpass

Today features a lot of walking.

We recreate another old photo of my Dad's

Old

New

And, at the other base of the Oberalpass is the 007 photo

We'd visited here before (driving), but we couldn't pass up the opportunity, it was practically unavoidable on our path!

From Goldfinger, 1964

The canadian forest fire smoke really affected visibility here which is a terrible shame

And we bike to another interesting booking, this time, in a tibetan hut.

Again, we're saved by the owner, who catches us biking up in the evening, and nabs our bags off us to make the bike ride up much more tolerable.

I didn't take any photos, but I did 3d-scan the whole joint.

June 12, 2025

Zurich!

Well, we had to bike there first.

Along our trip, the 'Coop' store has been our save point, our refuge, a place that always provided bread and soda.

This was just one of the many Coops we stopped by, but I remember buying a large loaf of bread here, some store brand orange-flavored soda, and some chocolates. Good times.

ShopRite is my local equivalent back home, but Coops came in all sizes, where ShopRites are always quite large.

We end up cheating a tiny bit, and we take a train to cover the last stretch to Zurich.

The escalators looked nice

We catch the beautiful evening golden hour in Zurich, and make it to our next booking. This time, it's someone's basement, but it's pretty close to downtown, so it's pretty convenient.