The 5 hour bus ride to Sofia was mostly uneventful. When crossing the border, we
all had to get off the bus and walk through the passport control individually.
Since Bulgaria is not part of the Schengen zone, there was a duty free for us to
visit. Like in airports, the price was such, that it would be better to just pay
duty at a discount store. We were told that there would be wifi on the bus, so
we had hoped to find a hostel for the night during the bus ride. But there was no
wifi, so once we arrived, we biked around looking for a “vacancy” sign. At some
point we found wifi, and then we found an okay hostel near the city center.
In the morning it wasn’t that rainy. So we got a chance to have a quick tour of
the city before leaving.
From there, the ride to the Greek border had the typical Eastern European style
of roads that we have grown to get used to, ie. lots of potholes. As we
approached the border, however, the road started to get better, and at some
point, there was even a shoulder. At the border we tried to persuade the guard
to stamp our passport with the symbol of a bicycle, rather than that of a car.
But he did not seem to be in a good mood, so we did not puch that proposal
further. There were some wild peacock resting at the border, so that mde it a
nice crossing overall.
After cleaning up from a day of biking in the rain and mud, we left the huge 20
EUR house, and started biking towards North Macedonia. The ride to the border was
uphill, but the path was nice and the views were good.
This was the first time that I was crossing a land border (not including Schengen
zone), so I didn’t know how that would work. I heard that between Israel and Egypt
there is a border crossing fee and I know of some places that require crossing in
a vehicle, so that may include a bike, but not for sure. I couldn’t find that much
information online regarding the border crossing, but it did look like it was
opened 24/7. So we thought it was likely enough that we would be allowed to cross.
As we approached the border, we saw a French cyclist going the other way. He
reassured us that crossing by bike is fine, so after chatting for a bit, we got to
the border.
This trip was going to be different than last year’s. One of the changes was that
in this trip, we would start and end from the same spot. This allowed us to use
an actual bike suitcase, rather than getting a used cardboard bike box from a
local bike shop and packing the bike in that. The thing is, good bike suitcases
are expensive. Luckily, as a member of many bike groups in Jerusalem, one of
the people there allowed me to borrow his. I was surprised, but the suitcase was
soft. Knowing that airlines to not in anyway take care of suitcases, I thought it
was risky to use it. But the owner of the suitcase reassured me that
professionals take their bikes (that are more than 10 times as expensive as mine)
using such suitcases. So I decided to chance it and hope for the best.
Last year I opened this blog to write about my interesting summer vacation that
involved a day trip in London, 2 weeks of working in my Berlin office, taking local
trains to fun villages in Germany, traveling by train and bike to France, and biking
with a group of anarchists from encampment to encampment. While last year’s trip was
fun, I decide to go on a much more “normal” trip this summer. So I started planning
a bike trip with a friend of mine from home. We are both in a group of commuters who
live in Jerusalem and work in the Tel Aviv area. The group would bike from Jerusalem
to Tel Aviv at least once a week.
This is the first time that I am flying with a bike, so I’m not experienced
packing a bike for a flight. Based on what my more experienced friends said, I
should request a used bike box from a bike store, remove the wheels, pedals,
seat and handlebar and then wrap everything with padding and clothing. So that
is what I did.
a base with clothingbubble wrap on topbike with no wheels, pedals, seat or handlebarwheels seat and pannier rackclothing
I expected Ecotopians to be hippies, but they weren’t. They seemed to be people
who had certain ideology, and in order to show how well it works, they live
according to that ideology (some for just the summer, others all the time). The
more hard-core Ecotopians had interesting stories of how they lived according to
their ideals. One person lived in a camper and would go to the nearby forest to
find places to go to the bathroom. He gave a nice explanation about places to go
to the bathroom in the Brandenburg/Berlin area.
I volunteered to be part of the food gathering team. My job was to find food for
dinner and lunch for the next day. At Ecotopia they cook on an industrial-sized
pot enough food for dinner for 25 people with leftovers to be stored for lunch
the next day. Since Ecotopia is vegan, we had to make sure that all of the food
was vegan. For fruits and vegetables that is not an issue, but more processed
food like jams may include animal products. In Israel and Germany many vegan
products have a noticeable stamp advertising that they are vegan. In France
however there is no such stamp. Presumably because French people don’t care
enough about that.
On Saturday Ecotopia biked to a mid-point, and then on Sunday they biked to
Tournon-sur-Rhône. Since I did not bike on Saturday, I completed the 90 km
route on Sunday.
Via Rhôna
The route the I took was one of the EU bike routes.
https://en.viarhona.com/ . The organisation that
maintains that route has a lot of information about the history of the places
that the route goes through and fun stuff to do eat and sleep along the way. The
Tour de France is always in France, but the route varies each time. So some of
the year include the route that I biked. The route followed the Rona river
south. We took a short break at Vienna, France but other than that we biked all
the way to Tournon-sur-Rhône.
After having worked for a week in Germany, visited interesting cities near
Berlin for another week, and travelled to Lyon for another week, I finally
reached the original purpose of my trip, to go bike camping with Ecotopia.
I arrived in the morning when people were starting to get up, and our campground
looked somewhat like what I expected it to look like, a bunch of tents and bikes
with bags attached to them.
