day seven: lunch break in a walnut plantation

in this picture, you see our very first actual “lunch break” which lasted more than 15 minutes. after 8 days of biking, we started to feel that we didn’t quite consume as many calories as we should, eating mostly muesli bars all day.

that day, as we drove through lots and lots of walnut plantations, anton remarked “haha, ‘wine country’… all we can see is apple trees.” from that point on, he only made very general descriptions of the vegetation (as in “trees” or “landscape”). :)

the short but perfect bicycle track along part of the rhone river

song of the day: maná – en el muelle de san blas

day six consisted of an incredibly beautiful route along the rhone river, which we had to leave behind near saint-genix-sur-guiers in order to go further south. [more...]

day six: the broken chair in geneva

the sight was chosen after looking through a postcard stand, which proved to be a useful resource for photo background scenes. :)

when we arrived in geneva, (1) we were half a day late because of a cold front with heavy, continuous downpour and (2) all our stuff was double-waterproofed because of (see 1). of course, as soon as everything was twice repackaged into plastic bags, the sky cleared up.
…which is why we decided to at least enjoy our waterproofness one last time and drive through the nearby united nations fountain. [more...]

day five: giant hay bale bike

on our way from neuchatel to geneva, we drove by this giant hay bale bike. we saw lots of bike-related things like little statues throughout switzerland and, later, france (especially since part of our route coincided with the tour de france, which was 10 days earlier), but this was the biggest of them all.

my frog spawn time lapse video is on display in the natural history museum of neuchatel in switzerland. it’s part of the temporary exhibition “parce queue”, which is about the animal tails.

anton and i came through neuchatel in mid-july (as part of our bike journey to spain), and seized the opportunity.
the exhibition has a special focus on evolution and features many quotes of charles darwin’s “on the origin of species”.
it’s very interesting, and worth checking out if you get a chance (open until february 2009).

day four: anton and the tasty sandwich man

would you believe me if i told you that i’ve got exactly the same shoes? ;)
 

as a little bonus, here’s another one – it’s one of my favorite biking pics:
[more...]

day three: anton and i wearing all our bad-weather-outfit. so silly-looking, and so ineffective. :)

soon we would learn how to properly waterproof our stuff… and ourselves!

update: oops, i just noticed that the title is wrong. on day 3, we were already in switzerland!