TLDR: Denmark has a cool free shelter and camping infrastructure, check it out here and learn some Danish while you’re at it. There is also a ‘shelter’ app for it (I think it is called shelter), I just used osmand POI’s. Some of the shelters require registration, I’m not sure how that process works. The photo shows my shelter for tonight.
On Monday morning I took a ferry from Larvik in Norway to Hirtshals in Denmark. I had camped right by a beach at the harbour and only had to ride 600m through the pouring rain to the ferry terminal to buy a ticket. Weather report for Denmark looked even worse with kinda frightening wind speeds.
Since I was planning to ride along the east coast, I had the wind diagonally from the back. I had not followed any news and was not aware that storm ‘Hans’ was causing a scare in the whole area. I navigated towards some of the infamous Danish shelters and luckily nobody else was there. I was cold and wet and really happy to not have to test my tent in that wind. Actually I was 100% certain that it would not withstand it, if I was setting it up without cover from the wind.
Tuesday morning I cycled straight south, the plan was to ride to Aarhus. The wind was full on from the side and at times it felt quite sketchy. It was so bad that i actually found it funny again and was in a good mood. In Hals I wanted to take a ferry for the 500m bit to Egense. After I bought a ticket at the machine, I found out the ferry won’t be going since it was too windy. That meant that I’d have to cycle about 35 km west, right into the wind. This seemed impossible, I think that would have taken me two days so strong was the wind. So I decided to take a bus to Aalborg instead. Bus had charging for my phone, that was neat. Watching out of the window, i saw several fallen trees and thought that it would probably not be really safe to cycle in this wind. So I decided to catch a train to Aarhus instead and have a look around the city.
I have never before seen so many cycle tourers at a train station. Pretty much everybody who was in the area must have skipped their plans and tried to get somewhere by train. Most trains were cancelled due to the wind but not mine. Took a room in Aarhus and enjoyed the city. I had somehow forgotten how cool the danes are, i was really happy to be here now even though the weather was not optimal. Had a many pleasant encounters.
Today the wind was still strong but far from yesterdays levels. Took a ferry from Aarhus to Odden and cycled towards Copenhagen, will ride there tomorrow morning and have a look around, then later take a train over the Øresund bridge to Sweden. In the coming days I hope the summer will make a shy comeback. My plan is now to take a ferry from Sweden to the island Rügen, then cycle through eastern Germany to Czechia then ride the mountain range on the border westwards. After that I’ll decide what to do next. I scratched the idea that riding back home is super important, over a week ago I felt like my vacation were basically over and i was just riding home, even though I still had a month to go. It bummed me out. Really liking my new plan to go to Czechia now, I might ride home afterwards but maybe something else seems more interesting and I just take a train home. Does anybody read all this? I hope that me spamming this community is not more off putting for others than if I posted nothing.
So you will ride eurovelo 13 Iron curtain?
I am from Czech Republic and want to ride it from near Znojmo to Finland or Estonia.
No, I will ride from Rügen to Berlin, then Dresden, then Decin, so I will at least in parts be on the ev7 but I won’t be planning my route with that in mind, I will just use brouter. At Decin I want to do a bit of a dayz lootrun, I just realised that this is the area that the og map of the game is based on, used to play it a lot. That will be funny i think. Wonder if i can navigate just based on map memory, haha.
Then I want to go up and probably follow a lot of the route ‘23’ but I will figure that out more when I’m closer to there, there seem to be a lot cool options.
Your plan sounds cool too, I feel like ev13 would be one of the more interesting EV’s. When are you planning to do that?
For now it is sometime in future.
I have a question. Is it popular to eat fries with fried cheese in the Czech republic? I think I have heard about that, and I always like to eat that in the Netherlands and Belgium.
If I have not dreamed that, what is it called and what type of establishments serve this?
I would say that it is popular only because it is easy to make. Lots of pubs have it, but lately some started saying something like “Don’t eat cheese get schnitzel instead”.
When I am in pub I will get “utopenec” or " naskládáný hermelín" instead.
Also you will ride through some surface mines and this part is little bit infamous for its moon like surface. It may be good idea to ride more inland.
Thanks. Surface mines, you mean on that ‘23’ route bit?
Little bit south Chomutov, Sokolov, Most, Teplice. There are lots of mines you can look them up on the map you send. EV 4 goes through them.
Alright. So the name ore mountains actually makes sense I guess, I checked and it’s the same name in Czech.
I am kind of keen to stay in the mountains though. Close to where I live in Germany are also surface mines. But who knows maybe I’ll have a look. Thanks for the tip.