big bad blog

Today was a bitch of a day.

To start with I cycled over Gotthard pass, which is about 9km of constant uphill, which took me about 2 hours of cycling for 2 minutes, resting for 2 minutes, which the rest periods getting longer and longer as I went up. Painfull as it is, I can sort of see the appeal in doing it, its a hell of a challenge.

Eventually I made it to the top and after taking a break to recover headed down the old road to lugano. While it is downhill all the way, its also cobblestones and hairpin bends with no barriers between the edge of the road and a big ass cliff, so I never got to go very fast. It turned out to be the right choice, as I later found out that the new road involves a 17km tunnel with an 80km/Hr speed limit where the carbon monoxide poisoning would probably have killed me…

Much scenic views and not enough downhills for my liking follow and soon I make it to Bellinzona. There I meet Jean Daniel, my CS host, who is kind enough to make me a great Thai soup and tell me a bit about the history of switzerland.

Yesterday I cycled a bit too far so today I was way to tired to cycle the fairly long distance uphill, so I decided I would skip the first bit and take a train and then cycle the rest. Once I got off the train I decided I was still to tired and got the train for the next bit as well. Then I was looking at furkapass and guess what…yup, gotta train.
The train took me through the furka tunnel, which is a 15km long hole in the side of a mountain, which was pretty unusual.

After the train, a quick downhill ride took me to hospental and the hostel, my home for the night, since I was way too far from civilisation to find a couchsurfing host. Hospental has a population of about 100, its so small it doesn’t even have a corner shop and its in the middle of nowhere in the alps. Nearby is a slightly bigger town called Andermatt, which had a supermarket, so I walked about a mile to get there so I could get something to eat. I even found a sports shop and finally gave in and bought a buff, since tomorrow would involve lots of downhills, so I’d need something to keep the wind from freezing me.

On the way out of hostpental, I came across an abandoned hotel, which was fun to explore for a while.

The hostel was almost as empty, there were about 5 of us staying in a hostel big enough for 50, so I got a 12 bed dorm room all to myself Sadly there was no internet

Today I was up at the crack of dawn, as my host had to go to work. The upside of this is that I got to see the valley at night, which is quite pretty with lights apparently hovering in midair.

I spend most of the mornin trying to find a cash machine, which martigny likes to hide. Eventually I get some money and attempt to order a croissant, but since it was 7am and my french is terrible, it sounded like a depressed caveman clearing his throat.

Martigny was where I first came across the swiss attitute to theft, or lack thereof. Outside the supermarket there were about a dozen bikes left unlocked and still there when the owner returned. Martigny is reasonably big as well, with at least 50000 people there.

I spend most of the day cycling and eating. I think I stopped for lunch about 3 times. After lunch i found the coolest cycle path in the world and then was nearly killed by the police.

Part of the cycle route goes across an abondoned airfield, now used as a backroad, so for almost a kilometer I had the widest cycle path in existance. Towards the end there was a fence across the runway, but a police car and another random car both just drove onto the grass, around the fence and onto the runway again, so I figured I do the same.
Along I went on my merry way until I saw skid marks and traffic cones and thought “cool, they must use this place as a racecource at the weekend”. Along I cycle on my merry way until I see a line of police cars parked at the start of the traffic cones and another half donzen police cars arriving on the runway from various directions. Eventually the penny drops that I’m on the police driving course and the skidmarks are from where the’ve been taking corners at 100mph and now they’re lining up to do the same. Except normally they don’t have idiot cyclists to worry about.
So I rather more hurriedly saunter on my merry way back on the real track before I get horribly splattered.

More sauntering ensued until I got to brig, another nice town and to my next host

I ended up starting a bit late due to general laziness, but once I got out I made up for it quickly.

Todays route was to follow the end of the lake and then along the river rhone. In terms of cycling;the rhone is simply awesome-its about 150km of  completely flat, with a wide, mostly straight and uninterrupted tarmac cycle path miles from the nearest car. The only way to get lost on it is to cycle into the river or up  a mountain. Speaking of which, the whole valley is called the flatlands, because its a strip of perfectly flat plains about 10km wide and 150km long with huge ass mountains along either side.

The weather is still pretty nice, warm when the sun is out and a bit chilly when its cloudy, but not too bad. Still no sign of rain.

Oddly this route is also a national skating route, for those days when you want to cross the country on  a pair of rollerblades. Japan may win on the porn front, but switzerland wins outweirds everyone for sports.

Anyway, eventually I made it to martigny and spent the next 2 hour getting lost. There was some kind of expo or sports thing in town and apparently the best place to hold it was in the middle of several of the main roads. Martigny is nice though, but strangly dense. Its a small town, but everything is 4 stories high, so it has a ton of people and stuff in a small area and then all of a sudden you’re back in the countryside

Finally I made it to my CS host for the night, who is part of a startup building an impressive HD youtube website.

Today was the main day of the Lausanne couchsurfers meeting, so was a tad crazy and busy. Once we’d all got out of bed and dragged ourselves to the forest at the top of lausanne, about 20 of us had a picnic for lunch, only with enough food to feed 40 people.

This did involve meeting lots of people, some of whom I met the night before and thus did the compex etiquite of european kissing turn up. In europe, once you know someone vaguely well, you can say hello by kissing eachother on the cheek, a bit like a handshake (although generally only between guys and girls and girls and girls). To start with I wasn’t expecting it at all, but to make it more confusing, the number of kissed varies by region (switzerland is 3 kisses for future reference. I think.)

After the picnic, we split into 4 teams of 4 for a treasure hunt around the city, organised by David and Natalie ( they kept leaving the maps around the house so I had to make an effort to not read them). About half the group were from lausanne and about half had travelled from different countries or different parts of switzerland.

My team consisted of myself, a girl from indonesia and luoisa and julienne from lausanne. To start with, to decide the order we would get to leave in, teams had to make a figure out of bits we could find in the forest, which we promptly lost. Our man looked like an indian mr potato head, so our team name became “indian potato”.

Much running around lausanne ensued, trying to find pieces of paper hidden in places around the city, each of which had clues to the next piece. The first team back almlost wins, but we also had to collect photos of things, including a 1000Fr note (about 250), the youngest person we could find, the oldest person we could find, a squirrel etc.

The search took us all over the place including the wooden tower, now with a clear sky and amazing views of the alps and the city, the town hall, the cathedral, the oldest building in lausanne and finising at the cathedral again, with us managing to be the second team to arrive back, with almost all the photos (although the squirrel was a toy and the “cow with red spots” was a photo of a toy cow, next to some red dots on a page). We hung around long enough to watch the sunset, which was probably the fastest sunset I’ve ever seen-it took less than 5 minutes from when the sun first touched the top of the mountain until the top of it passed below the horizon, you could see it dissapearing bit by bit.

In the evening, after much disorganisation, we headed to a refuse in the hills above lausanne for the night with the rest of the couchsurfers. The refuge was a big wooden hut (similar to the camping huts in england for hikers). I was big and heated by gas and a big open fire in the main room, but the electricity was off a battery we brought with us, so we only had a few lights and candles. After hauling everything up the hill in the dark and getting the fire lit we get busy preparing enough fondue for 20 people (we ate nearly 5kg of bread). The potatoes took ages to cook, so we sat around and chatted until about 11pm when dinner was finally served, but it was worth the wait. The results of the treasure hunt were announced and we only came third At some point someone gave someone else as shoulder rub and it kind of spread until there was ten of us on a bench having a mass massage.

It was a good night though, chatting to many cool, crazy and occasionally cute (sorry hairy hitchhiker guy from holland, you were crazy and cool, but not cute.) people. Of the 5 nights I’ve been in switzerland, 3 of them have been spent partying-couchsurfing kicks ass…

After a well earned lie in, I cycled into lausanne to see the sights. Despite being warned about it being hilly, I was dumb enough to do it anyway, so it was a pretty tiring rest day. I started off with lunch at apparently the best creperie in town, which was pretty nice, if a tad expensive. I ended up getting a marmalade crepe, which seemed a little bit of an odd, yet tasty blend of countries food.

Wandering about led me to the cathedral and the old town, the lakeside, the forest at the top of the city, complete with a big wooden tower, but it was too cloudy to see much and then I ended up at an internet café playing quake wars to kill some time. Using a french keyboard is annoying. Using a french keyboard layout in software when the actual keyboard has a UK layout is brain melting…

Once I got back to Nat and Davids, Jafi, another couchsurfer, this time from hungary was also there and together we all left to have dinner with the rest of the lasuanne couchsurfers (about 20 people) at a tapas bar. One of them was italian and when I told him I’m cycling he Rome, he was convinced I was going to die horribly trying to get though the cities, which was reassuring.

Much (expensive…) food was consumed by all and eventually we sauntered home (although apparently some other CSers stayed out until 5am, I like my sleep, so I’m kind of glad I missed that).

After completely failing to get out of bed early, but sucessfully having a nice breakfast, I also completely failed to escape geneva. Having very nice cycle paths is apparently useless if you go in the wrong direction. Especially if you go the wrong way for about and hour.

On the upside, the weather was great and once I got out onto the road to lausanne it was easy to make fast progress. The road was a main road most of the way, but with a really nice cycle path the whole way.

Cycling on the main roads is nice here, drivers give you plenty of room, the roads are good quality and on weekdays during the daytime are pretty quiet.

At lunchtime I stopped at Rolle, A medievil town on a sunny day by the side of a lake almost as big as devon. Scenic doesn’t even begin to describe it. Rural switzerland is full of these little towns that look like posters from the tourist office, full of cobbles streets, wooden houses and mountains in the background, but with all the good bits of modern life like proper roads, internet connections etc. The lake is pretty impressive too, its absolutely huge, ringed by even huger mountains, is incredibly clean and clear and even has sady beaches.

For lunch I witnessed the downfall of the british sausage roll by eating a vienne en cage, the swiss equivilent of a sausange roll, only with a frankfurter in it. Their sausage technology is far superior to ours…

Finally I made it to lausanne and after getting a little lost again met my couchsurfing hosts for the night, Natalie and David Marciano, a very nice couple with a very noisy dog. Apparently shes afraid of tall men and bikes, so much barking ensued. Oddly you have to sit on the sofa and then suddenly she will relax and trust you. Natalie and David were kind enough to make me dinner and after chatting to them for a while I went to bed.

day 2 starts with a nice sleep in, something I probably won’t get much.

Off I cycle into the centre of Geneva, with no particular place in mind, just to see what switzerland is like. The answer is, if you’re a cyclist, awesome. Huuuge flat wide roads, with bike lanes almost everywhere and bus lanes anywhere else. The wideness of the road means its really peaceful even on really busy roads.

Didn’t really do much interesting other than eat croissants today

although my nickname around the house is now “big bear” after a conversation about my beard got a bit mistranslated…

The trip started as every other does, get up at the crack of dawn, run around panicing trying to get everything sorted, then leg it in the rain to get to the train station. Ordering a taxi turned out to be a smart move given the rain…

fast forward through twelve hours of sitting on a train, sitting in an airport, sitting on an airplane to finally arriving in geneva on a sunny afternoon. My bike miraculously made it through the ordeal in one piece and this time I actually knew how to put it back together and get on the road, going the wrong direction out of the airport as always.

“hmm, I wasn’t expecting Geneva to be this flat <turns a corner to see a huge mountain where there out to be a suburb> *whimper*”

Some helpful directions later I get to my first couchsurfing host and gorram it if its not a damn squat house. Turns out it used to be a hotel, so theres about thirty people living here, with ensuite bathrooms in every room and a bloody private bar in the basement. If the point of travelling is to have interesting experiences and meet interesting people, then this place is the jackpot

and to top it off, its party night, so theres dozens of people milling around, with plenty of live instruments to add to the fun. Unfortunatly they all speak french, so I haven’t a damn clue what they’re talking about. Serves me right for going to a country with three official languages

on a side note, free wifi+smartphone=awesome I barely have room for spare underwear, but I have a phrasebook, maps, itinerary, music and internet access in my pocket

Whats the plan?

On the 7th of October 2008 I leave on a trip of epic stupidity, braving vast distances with sweat and blud in a quest to….er…well, now that I think about it, for no particular reason actually. In my defense, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

The plan is to travel from Geneva to Rome …er…on a bike. Assuming we survive the experience we’ll be clocking up around 1200Km.
Just in case cycling wasn’t complicated enough, I’ll be attempting to couchsurf my way there

the general gist of the route is to travel through these citys:
switzerland
geneva
lausanne
martigny
brig
hospental
biasca
lugano
italy
milan
parma
pisa
florence
siena
rome
from there…frankly, fuck knows..

Currently I’m trying to think of things to do after Rome, if anyone has suggestions for interesting things to do, add a comment. I’m considering a few things, including getting a bar job and staying in Rome, finding an anarchist squat and astaying in Rome, heading to Sofia or cairo or vietnam for a few months…

If you want to get in touch with me

Phone:07531788084
email: edwardmccaughan (at) gmail.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/edwardmccaughan
blog: here…
photos: will be at http://buzzwordoverload.co.uk/photos

where am I? track my progress onna shiny map (when it works. it may be a couple of hours/days behind I’ve told it…)

if you need to contact me, email is the best way. The phone number is for emergency use only-call me up for a “quick chat” and I’ll come right back home and stab you in the eye with your phone, I want peace and quiet when I’m travelling…

I’ll be updating via twitter via sms and the blog whenever I get to an internet cafe or free wifi.

Thanks

This trip is mostly thanks to my Grandfather, Hugh McCaughan. He died when I was a kid and left me some money in his will and I think a mad trip is a worthy thing to spend it on. One of my strongest memories of him is him being a garage tinkerer and he always had bicycles in pieces in his garage, so it seems appropriate to be going on a cycle trip. Hopefully the tinkering skills run in the blood. Here’s to you Grandad!
I’d also like to take a moment to thank my parents for buying my bike as a graduation present and donating some money and our neighbours the Stories for their donation too.
And of course, a big shout out to the hundreds of people along the way who have and going to have helped along the way, especially the couchsurfer hosts. I’m going to need a lot of directions…

You
if you want a postcard, send me your address!
send me suggestions of things to do and see on the way
send me suggestions of things to for a month once I get to Rome