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Trip itinerary summary
Sep. 1st, 2011 03:19 pmI am still unsure of the best way to recount our trip to Europe, especially because typing is vaguely unpleasant at the moment due to lingering effects of handlebar palsy (caused by pinched, inflamed nerves due to putting too much weight on the arms/handlebars while cycling).
I basically left off in Connecticut. From there, I returned to Boston and went off to Alewife to visit my good friend J and his wife A. They were married last fall and now live in a nice home situated between Boston and outlying neighborhoods. I think it has been five years since I last saw them, when J was still living in my old room at 89 Bromfield. Things have changed, mostly for the best. The next morning, I fetched![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scrottie and his bike from the airport and introduced him to J and A. Yet another long-anticipated but rather uneventful introduction. We discussed bicycles, at length.
That Monday morning, J drove S and myself back to Logan Airport to catch our plane to Iceland. We'd booked flights on Iceland Air based on the descriptions/experiences ofgfrancie and we were not disappointed.
I'd had no luck finding a room at one of the hostels in downtown Reykjavik, so at the last minute S and I decided to try out camping at a campground located downtown. To reach downtown Reykjavik, if one is a tourist, one must purchase tickets for the FlyBus, which cost around $35 each roundtrip. I suspect there is a local bus, for the local employees, but perhaps one must know Icelandic to find it. Given all that, the flybus is comfortable and stops at all of the places to stay. When the clerk at the campground learned that we planned to attempt camping without a tent, he declared, "You are brave." In the flurry of packing/repacking, S had forgotten to pull out his sleeping bag, so we only had one sleeping bag and two space blankets between the two of us. Fortunately there was a give/take bin at the campground that contained a spare (flimsy) bag. That bought us about four hours of sleep, until it started to rain lightly. Not wanting to deal with sodden possessions, we got up, packed everything up, and set out towards the center of town.
Window-shopping in the wee hours of the morning can be quite pleasant; crowds are minimal and one is not obligated to buy anything. Obtaining food is a challenge, however. We finally resorted to an all-you-can-eat breakfast at a downtown backpacker's hostel, then continued our wanderings all over Reykjavik.
That afternoon, we headed back to the airport and met up with S's mom, L. The three of us then flew from Reykjavik to Amsterdam, where we proceeded to lug our luggage onto the train, then onto a tram, then across two canals to the Hotel Van Onna, recommended to me by akw. The luggage lugging was something of an ordeal; S's cardboard bike box had begun disintegrating. Plus, my 69-pound bike box hadn't gotten any lighter. Nonetheless, we made it.
We spent the next day wandering around Amsterdam, first looking for a bike shop that sold bike bags (found one), then looking for various sources for groceries for our upcoming travels (found them, too).
From Amsterdam, we took the Thalys train to Paris, which stops off at Gare du Nord (North Station). Then we took the RER E line to Gare Saint Lazare, bought tickets for the Rive Droit suburban train, and made our way out to Chaville, the suburb where we'd rented a house for ten days.
In the middle of those ten days, S and I (as well as R and J) rode our bicycles out to Brest. The others all rode back to Paris; due to impending injuries I stopped at Loudeac and took the train back in.
The return trip featured the reverse itinerary; Thalys train to Amsterdam, night in Amsterdam at a cheap airport hotel, flight to Iceland, night in Iceland at airport hotel, flight to Boston, delay to Phoenix flight because of hurricane, so night in Boston; flight to Phoenix.
I should do a separate write-up about the bike ride. I don't know all of what I will say about it. In some respects I don't feel like I deserve to write too much because I had to abandon the ride. In other respects, I am immensely appreciative of the experiences I did get to have on the ride, and the lessons I learned.
I basically left off in Connecticut. From there, I returned to Boston and went off to Alewife to visit my good friend J and his wife A. They were married last fall and now live in a nice home situated between Boston and outlying neighborhoods. I think it has been five years since I last saw them, when J was still living in my old room at 89 Bromfield. Things have changed, mostly for the best. The next morning, I fetched
scrottie and his bike from the airport and introduced him to J and A. Yet another long-anticipated but rather uneventful introduction. We discussed bicycles, at length.That Monday morning, J drove S and myself back to Logan Airport to catch our plane to Iceland. We'd booked flights on Iceland Air based on the descriptions/experiences of
gfrancie and we were not disappointed.I'd had no luck finding a room at one of the hostels in downtown Reykjavik, so at the last minute S and I decided to try out camping at a campground located downtown. To reach downtown Reykjavik, if one is a tourist, one must purchase tickets for the FlyBus, which cost around $35 each roundtrip. I suspect there is a local bus, for the local employees, but perhaps one must know Icelandic to find it. Given all that, the flybus is comfortable and stops at all of the places to stay. When the clerk at the campground learned that we planned to attempt camping without a tent, he declared, "You are brave." In the flurry of packing/repacking, S had forgotten to pull out his sleeping bag, so we only had one sleeping bag and two space blankets between the two of us. Fortunately there was a give/take bin at the campground that contained a spare (flimsy) bag. That bought us about four hours of sleep, until it started to rain lightly. Not wanting to deal with sodden possessions, we got up, packed everything up, and set out towards the center of town.
Window-shopping in the wee hours of the morning can be quite pleasant; crowds are minimal and one is not obligated to buy anything. Obtaining food is a challenge, however. We finally resorted to an all-you-can-eat breakfast at a downtown backpacker's hostel, then continued our wanderings all over Reykjavik.
That afternoon, we headed back to the airport and met up with S's mom, L. The three of us then flew from Reykjavik to Amsterdam, where we proceeded to lug our luggage onto the train, then onto a tram, then across two canals to the Hotel Van Onna, recommended to me by akw. The luggage lugging was something of an ordeal; S's cardboard bike box had begun disintegrating. Plus, my 69-pound bike box hadn't gotten any lighter. Nonetheless, we made it.
We spent the next day wandering around Amsterdam, first looking for a bike shop that sold bike bags (found one), then looking for various sources for groceries for our upcoming travels (found them, too).
From Amsterdam, we took the Thalys train to Paris, which stops off at Gare du Nord (North Station). Then we took the RER E line to Gare Saint Lazare, bought tickets for the Rive Droit suburban train, and made our way out to Chaville, the suburb where we'd rented a house for ten days.
In the middle of those ten days, S and I (as well as R and J) rode our bicycles out to Brest. The others all rode back to Paris; due to impending injuries I stopped at Loudeac and took the train back in.
The return trip featured the reverse itinerary; Thalys train to Amsterdam, night in Amsterdam at a cheap airport hotel, flight to Iceland, night in Iceland at airport hotel, flight to Boston, delay to Phoenix flight because of hurricane, so night in Boston; flight to Phoenix.
I should do a separate write-up about the bike ride. I don't know all of what I will say about it. In some respects I don't feel like I deserve to write too much because I had to abandon the ride. In other respects, I am immensely appreciative of the experiences I did get to have on the ride, and the lessons I learned.
