Days 22 & 23: the road home

We woke up on Monday morning with another full day planned (y'know, to make a change). I had hoped to see Rosi and Rainer Egger, who made my sackbuts, but our schedules simply didn't align, so we had to settle for a friendly but regretful exchange of emails.

The plan was to take the train out to Radolfzell, on the western shore of Lake Constance (or, to be more precise, the Untersee or Lower Lake Constance) and cycle out to the town of Konstanz. After our solid workout the day before, we felt that we shouldn't try to get up too early, so we opted to take a slightly later train, which got us to Radolfzell at around noon.

Lounging on Lake Constance

Though the German train system enjoys a pretty good reputation, it really isn't that bike friendly, especially compared to France. You may or may not need a ticket for your bike (you don't in France on the regional trains); there often aren't elevators or even ramps up to the platforms, even in a big station like Basel; and you often have to climb up several steps to get into the train (in France, you just roll your bike over the gap between the platform and the train car). Because we got up a little later and were a little lazy over breakfast, we ended up a little shorter on time than I normally like, and after buying our tickets at the kiosk, we sprinted to the platforms, and got our bikes on the train with about a minute to spare.

German trains aren't just hostile to bikes though. Imagine a scenario in which a mother, travelling alone with an infant child in a stroller, must lift both child and stroller (and various other appurtenances) into the train before the doors close. We didn't have to imagine this scenario; it happened before our eyes. As we pulled up to a station, the doors opened and Sonia heard a woman yelling in German. She got up to see what was going on and had a one-year-old girl thrust into her arms as the mother went back to get the stroller. The doors began to close, so the mother stuck her leg out to stop them, then managed to get the stroller up the steps and onto the train just as the doors closed again and the train pulled away. I would have helped, except that all this happened so fast it was basically over by the time I had gotten out of my seat. Sonia and the woman (who fortunately spoke quite good English) just looked at each other in amazement at what happened. On a positive note, Sonia was quite happy to hold the very lovely and happy baby for a few minutes, and we enjoyed a pleasant half-hour of conversation with the woman before she got off at Singen.

Lake Constance

Radolfzell train station is right on the water, so we walked our bikes down to the shore, found a free bench and had our lunch before setting off for the 20-kilometre ride to Konstanz. We had been hoping the path would be more along the shore, but it tended to be a few hundred metres inland for most of the trip, though we did get a few nice views of the lake. We arrived in Konstanz about 2:45, had a little snack and wandered around for a bit before heading back. We had initially thought about perhaps cycling back to Radofzell via another, inland, route, or of staying in Konstanz and taking the train back from there (which would have involved a transfer), but in the end, we decided to retrace our steps. It was a lovely day for cycling and the path was quite good.

Konstanz

Konstanz

Back in Radolfzell, once again cutting it a little close, we arrived at the station but nowhere, other than up on the platforms themselves, could we find out which track our train would be arriving on. Finally Sonia went into the Deutsche Bahn information office and basically jumped the queue to find out that it was arriving on track 4. We again sprinted to the platform (down and up sets of stairs with our bikes) and got to the crowded platform just as the train was due to arrive. Fortunately, it was 10 minutes late, so we had a chance to cool down before boarding.

We got back to Basel at about 7:15, cycled to the apartment, had a quick shower and then it was off to my friend (and fellow sackbut player) Max's apartment for dinner. It was a nice treat to sit down to a dinner with friends for the first time in over three weeks.

The next morning, we arose bright and early to get everything organized for our flight. Catherine came by at about 9 to pick up the key and bid us farewell, and then we cycled the 7 kilometres to Basel-Mulhouse airport, which is even easier to get to by bicycle than Brussels airport.

Riding up to Basel-Mulhouse airport

Being old hands at this, we got our bikes prepared, bagged, and tagged and took them to the oversize baggage drop-off, only to find out that the "oversize" scanner was clearly too small to accept something as big as a bicycle. So we had to unwrap them so the handler could run a chemicals test on them by hand.

The flight was uneventful, and we even managed to get a free middle seat between us, so it was less cramped than usual too. We landed just a few minutes late, shortly after 3 pm, got through customs and had our bikes ready go by 4:30. We really are getting much better at this!

Heading home along the shores of the St. Lawrence

The last leg of our journey was the 30-kilometre ride from the airport home--the first time we have done this. I had done some research before hand, and there seemed to be a reasonably safe route out of the airport. It turns out that getting into and out of Trudeau International is actually quite good except for one little problem: you have to somehow cross the CN tracks and Autoroute 20, which lie between the airport and the river. You can do this either by cycling the very busy Dorval Circle (not for the faint of heart) or, as we eventually discovered, you can walk your bikes under the tracks at the Dorval train station (ramps and everything) and then there's a pedestrian/bike tunnel under Autoroute 20. It took us solid half-hour to find our way to Lakeshore Drive, but we did it. Then it was a very lovely ride along the river and the Lachine Canal, where we stopped to share a sandwich (which felt like a midnight snack to our stomachs), over to Île Sainte-Hélène, up onto the Jacques-Cartier Bridge and home. We had hoped to cross to the South Shore via the Saint-Lambert locks, but the drawbridge had just lifted as we got there, and the 45-minute wait wasn't in the cards for us, so we backtracked and took the bridge instead, adding another five kilometres to our trip. We rolled up to the house a little after 7, three-and-a-half weeks after leaving. For me, riding home from the airport, though pretty tiring, was the perfect way to end this trip. Total mileage on the bike: 883 km.