It is August 23rd 2023, and after a few weeks of preparation I set off to leave my home in Germany: Just me and my bike, with no destination in mind, simply cycling east. 

To be fair, I am from Northern Germany, and decided to take a train south towards the Austrian border, as I wasn’t particularly interested in cycling across Germany, and wanted to reach the Middle East before winter in Europe would arrive. 

So I soon crossed into Austria, and faced my first major challenge: Crossing the Alps. I have cycled all my life, not recreationally, but rather as a mode of transportation. However, I never cycled in the mountains, having lived in the flat lands close to the North Sea. 

My route would take me over the Großglockner High Alpine Road, a 2600m high pass with inclines up to 15%. Not an easy task for a beginner hauling a 40kg bike. I started early in the morning, and after 1500m of elevation gain and being overtaken by dozens of “pro” cyclists with their lightweight carbon bikes, I made it to the top. It was getting dark soon, so I decided to scramble a bit further up the mountain in order to camp with a view. Not a good idea in hindsight, as out of nowhere a hail storm surprised me and forced me to trail-run back down to the small kiosk at the top of the pass where I left my bike. By now it was dark, as it was still raining I decided I would spend the night sleeping in the public toilet, which was luckily left unlocked and very clean. After not very comfortable night I woke up to a sunny day, and cruised down the pass. The following days I enjoyed my time cycling through the beautiful Austrian countryside, and eventually reached Slovenia. A country that just suffered tremendous damage from floods caused by heavy rainfall, and now was facing another week with more rainfall forecasted. For this reason I hopped on another train, towards Croatia, where the weather was looking nicer. Croatia, a country famous for its beautiful coast, which I planned to follow. While indeed beautiful, it was way too crowded with tourists and the traffic was horrible, so I soon decided to head inland, and towards Bosnia & Herzegovina instead. 

Although quite dry and hot, I enjoyed the Croatian countryside with its quiet roads. Bosnia was similar, I followed an interesting railroad track turned cycling path for a while, cane across picturesque towns with ancient stone bridges, and ate lots of Cevapcici. After a week or so I reached the Montenegrin border, and was quickly stamped into this small nation. So small, I cycled across it in less than 48 hours. For its size, Montenegro has a lot to offer, from high mountains & spectacular canyons, to a picturesque coast. However my route took my inlands, as I had already seen most of the attractions on a previous backpacking trip (this applies to most of Europe, hence I cycled across it rather quickly). I passed through the capital, Podgorica, which felt more like a big town, and arrived at Lake Shkoder, and the Albanian border. 

Albania is a very interesting country, and one that culturally feels more different from Western/Central Europe than the previous ones. It also boasts a lot of beautiful nature, such as the Albanian Alps, which I wanted to check out. To get there I took the Lake Koman ferry, traversing stunning canyons, and surprisingly crowded with tourists, which made it seem like Albania might not be Europe’s hidden gem for much longer. 

I soon after reached the National Park, where I stashed my bike in a bush and packed my hiking backpack for a nice overnight hike. 

Shortly after I got back on the bike I made it to Kosovo, another interesting country. However, once again a not very big one, and the route I chose was rather unspectacular, so after a couple days I had already reached North Macedonia. After a short rest stop in the capital, Skopje, I cycled towards Greece, and was pleasantly surprised by the Macedonian countryside. One can find nice hills and rivers here. I made it to the Greek border, and unfortunately one of the first sights of the country were some wildfires in the distance. I was back in the EU, but not for long, as my destination was the close by Thessaloniki, from where I would take a ferry to Turkey’s west coast, in order to avoid cycling through Istanbul and its crazy traffic, which other cyclists have warned me about.