Bikepacking Roma to Berlin
In July - August this year, Marie and I spent 3 weeks cycling from Rome to Berlin. We followed mostly the Euro Velo 7 “Sun Route”, with a few detours here and there; notably along the west side of the Garda lake, and over the Dolomites through Passo Gardena and Passo Valparola. We crossed a big chunk of Europe almost only on cycle roads or smaller side roads with very few cars.
Heading north from Rome there was a state of emergency in northern Italy because of the “biggest heatwave in Italian history”. Most days we got up at 05:30 to get some kilometres down before it got too warm, we took big naps in the shade in the middle of the day when it was 43°C, and cycled some more in the afternoons and evenings. We cycled through some really beautiful places and carried everything we needed to wild-camp and make hot meals and coffee. On the way over the Czech German border there was a state of emergency because of forest fires in a national park we had to cross.
In order to make it to Berlin solely by bike we’d have to cycle more than 100km every single day. Because our luggage got delayed for 2 days in Rome, the heatwaves and some injuries after climbing over the Dolomites we cheated and took a train from Salzburg (Austria) to Prague (Czech Republic). We had agreed before leaving that the trip was supposed to be fun, not a struggle to make it unsupported.
All in all, after 17 whole and 2 half days on the saddle, 1 rest day, we covered 1 800km and climbed a total of 16 000 elevation meters. You can see a collection with all the rides (and the photographs in context) here in this RideWithGPS collection.
Here are a few pictures I took with the cameras I brought along the way (Sony a7rIIIa with 45mm lens and Sony RX100Va). Hope you enjoy them!
