Final Thoughts

We've been home for a few days now and are almost synced up with the local timezone, so it is probably time to call this particular vacation "finished". A few concluding remarks.

The trip did not play out as we'd planned (obviously), but it was still a good one and it may have even been a better one. We were able to spend two to three day chunks of time in ~8 different cities by relying on public transportation, and it would have been less than half that number if were were biking from place to place. We'd have seen more enroute, but we'd have visited fewer cities. Of course, as I looked out the window while riding on the train I was always noting the bike paths and wondering what it would be like to be riding along them. I would like to be able to do another European bike trip someday, but even sans bike (for the most part) this was still an excellent trip.

One of our motivations in visiting eastern Germany and Czech Republic was to see how they've changed since they moved away from Communism, but people weren't interested in talking about it. The few times we asked about the changes someone had seen in the past 20 years got a minimal response -- people were more interested in talking about today or the future than the past. I suppose that's a good thing, but it wasn't what I'd expected.

Our favorite cities were Cesky Krumlov and Heiligenblut -- we'd go back again in a heartbeat. It pains me to say this, but for Heiligenblut it might even be nice to have a car. Much of the park is far enough away that it isn't feasible to rely on public transportation for day trips -- having a car would have allowed us to visit some of the higher peaks and more distant trails.

The nicest surprise of the trip was the horse auction in Maishofen. We just stumbled across it and it was fun to be a part of a normal everyday activity for the locals.

One of the things we've enjoyed most about being home is our queen sized bed. Every single one of the hotels we stayed in used a pair of twin beds for sleeping. Sometimes the beds were on different sides of the room (literally as far apart from each other as physically possible) and sometimes they were shoved up next to each other, but there was always two beds. Even when the beds were next to each other there was a DMZ between them -- a dead spot where the mattress gave way to the hard bed frame. It wasn't possible to accidentally venture from one bed to the other; any territorial infractions had to be intentional. I think Europe's long history of fighting over turf and borders has found its way into the bedroom so that there's no ambiguity over what part of the bed belongs to who.

Finally, thank you to those of you who've taken the time to read the blog and comment -- I've appreciated the feedback and encouragement. Part of my motivation in writing is to document the trip for our own purposes, but it was also nice to hear that one or two other people enjoyed it as well.