Trans-East Expedition Stage One 2005: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania

3,000 kilometers of cycling through Western and Eastern Europe

A new adventure began for us at Lake Constance, the extent of which we still cannot fully appreciate today. The first 3,000 kilometers of cycling took us along the mighty Danube to Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Romania until just before the Black Sea.

Our heavily laden bikes weighed 110 and 88 kilograms respectively – every mountain, no matter how small, towered up in front of us as a huge barrier and could only be overcome with the greatest of efforts.

One of the rainiest summers in the last 100 years, tick bites, a fall from a bike, life-threatening heavy traffic, injuries, road thieves and the recurring thought of giving up were just some of the unforeseen challenges of our journey so far. Despite all the considerable effort, we got to know the cradle of European culture and experienced the indescribable beauty of the varied Danube landscape. On our trip we met many lovely people from different ethnic groups. It was a step into another world, into the world of Romania, whose rural population hardly knows any cars and still travels by horse and cart.

On 220 pages I have reported in detail about our cheerful, exciting and uniquely beautiful experiences – you can read about them in the Diaries section:
TRANS-EAST EXPEDITION STAGE 1

Now also as a book available in our store.

TRANS-EAST EXPEDITION Stage 1 in 2005
Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania. At Lake Constance, Tanja and Denis embark on a new adventure, the extent of which they were unable to estimate from the outset. For the first 3,000 kilometers, they followed the course of the mighty Danube to just before the Black Sea.