France/Spain/Portugal
From Berlin. With bike. Start: October 21th
Stage 1 - Attac Villa, Könnern
cycled 175km in one day, started 7.30, arrived 20.00
Departure: October 29th
Stage 2 - WuppDays Witzenhausen
Cycled to Sülzhayn the Harz forest (100 km), started 10.30, arrived 20.00. Depart October 31st to Witzenhausen. Gear shift broke down in hilly terrain, tried to find bike shop, but all closed or I didn't find them. Asked at a random house for a Torx T15, which allowed me to switch from 2nd to 8th gear. Much better to cycle. Fixed the bike on the next day in Witzenhausen. Then stayed at the WuppDays for almost two weeks, partly coding and partly with Janina. Amazing lively atmosphere!
Departure: 2016-11-13
Stage 3 - visit my grandma in Langen (Hessen)
Cycled to Saasen (135 km, 1000 hm), in zero-degrees temperature. Made good progress, picked pears on the way, arrived in the afternoon. The Projektwerkstatt was completely empty and cold, went to bed at 6pm. The house is really interesting, but needs people to live there (IMO)! On the next day, I slept long and continued cycling at noon. Direction of Frankfurt is relatively flat, nice sunlight, but still very cold with snow visible. Arrived at my grandma's house after 4.5 hours at sundown (90 km). Nice day!
Went to Darmstadt to visit Lars on 2016-11-20 and stay there one night.
Departure: 2016-11-21
Stage 4 - go south
It's so cold in middle Europe, I should make some distance.
I contacted Foot not bombs in Strasbourg and Besancon, as well as Les Gars'Pilleurs in Lyon on November 18th via mail, but no reply so far.
21: went really far, slept rough before Strasbourg
22: trustroots host in Müllheim
23: short trip to Montbeliard/Bethoncourt, warmshowers host Odile
24: cycle to Dole, warmshowers host Eric
25: cycle to Mâcon, warmshowers host Floriane
26: shorter trip to Lyon/Villeurbanne
Retrospective: Warmshowers works great, even for spontaneous travels. I wanted to plan more in advance, but it was hard due to unknown route choice, weather and general sleepiness. The route planners "cycle.travel" and "openrouteservice.org" are good for finding small roads to cycle along.
Stage 5 - Lyon/Grenoble
All stays via Couchsurfing.
2016-11-26 to 12-04: Estelle in Villeurbanne
2016-12-04 to 12-09: Lucas and his flatmates in Collognes du mont d'or
2016-12-09 to 12-12: Beatrice and her family in the western hills
2016-12-12 to 12-16: Jean in Part-Dieu
I met with Valentin from Disco Soupe, Hadrian from Another Man's Treasure facebook group and went dumpster diving with him. We offered the food over the fb group.
A lot of coding for the foodsaving tool, yay! Also huge amounts of fun and social interaction (does Estelle's cat also count?).
Stage 6 - Nimes
310 km from Lyon
2016-12-16: Tournon-sur-Rhone, Pierre-Arnaud
17: Charmes-sur-Rhone, Jocelyne
18: Pont-Saint-Esprit, http://www.pont-dardeche.com/ by lucky coincidence
19: Nimes
Planned departure 2016-12-28
I'm thinking if I should take the 1 EUR train ticket from Nimes to Perpignan to arrive in Barcelona before 2017. It's only 220 km from there, albeit 800 m up. But why do I want to speed up, why do I want to arrive early? Do I have any time pressure? I think it could be the feeling that I might enjoy my time more elsewhere. But that's a very common feeling inside me, I should rather dive in me and confront my inner demons instead of trying to find better places.
Stage 7 - Onto Barcelona
In the end, I left on the 28th as planned, but just went to Montpellier, where I could even stay for multiple days at Nina's place. She didn't use it anymore, and so I spent a few quiet days until New Year, where I left to Perpignan. There I had a wonderful time at the coloc (flat share) of Ariadna, who were incredibly welcoming. So I mostly felt the "pull" of Barcelona, and the agreed stays on the way. On the 5th, I started my tour into Spain and crossed the border around 2pm.
In Girona, I stayed with Pau whom I found on Warmshowers and he suprised me by his outgoing and joyful manner. He even rode with me around 35 km on the next day, showing me a depleted volcano nearby. Later in the day, I discovered a small rupture in my back rim. I took some rest, tightened the other spokes and continued my ride with a slightly deformed wheel. I was quite out of energy during this day, but I also found some Romanesco in a Lidl dumpster (to cook & eat later).
My further plans: finding places to stay in Barcelona, getting replacement parts for my bike and maybe help organizing a yunity event.
Stage 8 - Barcelona
In the first three days, I stayed with Ansel in L'Hospitalet, who contacted me through my public trip on Couchsurfing. Then, I moved to the flatshare of Fabia, a contact that I got through Arno. Both hosts provided me the space to look for bike parts, get them and fix my bike. Ansel also gave me the hint to look at the "La Experimental" squat, which is located near the top of the Tibidabo hill, one of the tourist highlights of Barcelona. I emailed the squat and first visited them on one afternoon. We planned WuppDays together with Alberto, Nacho and the Danish girl (sorry for my leaky brain) and I even joined them for a dumpster diving tour at night (lead by Joan). Trivia: dumpster diving is called "recycling" in Spain.
I liked the challenge of cycling up the Tibidabo, it's a constant climb from (almost) sea level to 450m above. It made sure that I arrived sweaty, but definitely happy.
On a Friday, I went again to La Experimental to join them for the jam session evening - an event that they organize to attract visitors and donations, but also because most of the inhabitants really love music. I stayed in the tower of the squat, freshly made into a guest room by "Wandergesellen" from Oldenbourg, Germany. Unfortunately, I got a bit sick in the following days, so I couldn't participate much in the daily life, but instead was hiding in blankets and drinking water. I felt slightly stressed at the squat during that time: the cold temperature; the windy weather; the toilet was quite far from the sleeping space; my sleeping bag got wet from sweating..
Luckily, Janina had the contact of Sabrina, the girlfriend of a foodsaver that she met in Berlin. She could host me in her apartment in Barcelona city, where I recovered quickly. Some days later, Janina joined me there after a long bus travel. We stayed for some days before WuppDays at La Experimental were supposed to start.
WuppDays were quiet and peaceful, with participation of Chandi, Fritz, Selina, Lara, Adrean, Martin, Janina and me. I was mostly working on the Foodsaving Tool, cracking almonds, preparing meals and cuddling with Janina. I also looked through old PCs that were "recycled" by the squat to build some fast public workstations. The success was limited due to a lack of screens, but at least Chandi and me identified the fastest parts for the audio recording workstation.
After two weeks, it was time for me to leave Barcelona and head to Valencia, where we want to start Foodsharing.
(write about Fabio, Helen)
Stage 9 - Valencia
Stage 10 - To the south-west
Stage 11 - Jumping over the Strait
Future destinations
Valencia, Spain (January 2017) - 375 km from Barcelona, 3-4 days - approx arrival February 2017
Morocco
Portugal
Edinburgh, UK (May 2017)
Scandinavia
