Germany on our Power

Strange how the more things change the more they stay the same, eh? Just as Chicago's reticent yet inevitable summer eventually does each year, Zürich's has already justified our 7-1/2 month wait. And although my ADD certainly doesn't need another addiction to add to my/our existing list of traveling, cooking, running, swimming, hiking, learning German, blogging, looking for employment and acting as daily tour guide for the golden furball, that's too bad because I've got a new one--biking!

Since my Nov/Dec near-daily townie-biking to the grocery store in Kloten, which didn't exactly count as much exertion, I'd only road-biked once this spring and Steph not at all. The sketchy weather combined with lingering disorganization since our move(s)--because road biking unlike running or swimming requires a modicum of organization--not to mention a zillion other things going on blunted any progress on two wheels. Moreover, although we enjoy it OK, biking was admittedly never a great love in Chicago; perhaps blame the urban concrete jungle with its only viable extended bike path along the lakefront usually crammed to the gills with moving and stationary human obstacles in all forms, sizes and speeds. But now...Enter: Switzerland.

As its countless guidesigns make apparent, Switzerland is not only a hiker's but also a biker's paradise, a fact registered somewhere in our brains but as yet unexploited. So last week Tuesday, I finally organized the bike equipment (living on the sixth floor doesn't help) and Steph and I rolled outside with no particular destination on a nice evening after work. Within five minutes, we bumped into a roadsign for a regional biking path and followed it out of Zürich. An hour later we returned home wide-eyed from our first-ever European biking experience--brutal climbs (for us), rapid descents, cobblestones, quaint churches, vineyards and awesome lake views. Yes, just like that we're hooked.

Newly armed with a highly-detailed regional Velokarte (biking map), we decided to up the ante for the following weekend. But where to go? As our various short train trips to northeasterly Schaffhausen had indicated, Germany lies nearby just over the Rhine, but we didn't expect the map to show the river dipping so close to Zürich to the northwest. So that's it! An international biking daytrip! The official route guide measured the trip one-way at 19 miles and an 'easy' grade (of choices 'easy', 'medium' or 'difficult').

Unsure if we had the legs to make it to Germany and back (19 miles isn't too bad but 38 is fairly significant), our peloton of two hit the road mid-morning on an already hot sunny Saturday.

A hundred sweaty minutes, 23 miles and more hills than we'd seen in 13 years (above) later, after taking only one wrong turn that cost some time to correct, we coasted down through tiny Kaiserstuhl am Rhein, Schweiz, over the Rhine river, past a lackadaisical German border patrolman who barely spared us a glance and up into little Hohentengen an Hochrhein, Deutschland! (Click on the top Google Earth map to enlarge the whole path.)

We picked one of the several local restaurants with an outdoor patio, parked the bikes and shuffled our tired legs to a table. We ordered two grosse Biere and merrily perused the German menu and prices in Euros instead of Swiss CHF. Gigantic mixed salads, double schnitzel with fries and a huge omelette hit the spot nicely. The food tasted the same, the ambience felt the same, the local accent sounded the same, but the relatively inexpensive bill was a welcome foreign element indeed.

Chuckling at the prospect of biking our distended stomachs 23 miles back to Zürich (we never really thought we'd make it anyway), we pedaled back across the river to the Kaiserstuhl station and kicked back with espresso at a neighboring café waiting for the train (my exercise recovery drink used to be Gatorade, but when in Rome, etc.). Funnily enough, the less-direct train ride home took almost as long as our bicycle jaunt. So as I'm sure will gratify all the pundits out there, Europe's summertime benefits are finally, rapidly and gratefully erasing the horrible vestiges of culture shock and months of frustrating readjustment from our winter move. But no, it doesn't mean we'll be biking to France or Italy anytime soon.

A few Saturday biking pics are here. Sunday was the Europameister final game, Germany v. Spain, with final pics as well: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.9kl12zsr&x=0&y=dtb5y1&localeid=en_US